lemming

For the record, this is almost certainly a genetic defect of the father, some kind of dominant mutation. Nutrition and other environmental factors most likely didn't play any role in a height difference this big.

There are two copies of each gene. Here, one of the copies got mutated in such a way that it caused the stunted growth of the father. Each sperm contains one randomly selected copy of each gene. Therefore half of the father's sperms contained the mutated gene and the other half the normal version. There was 50% chance the son would be normal height and 50% chance he would be small like his father.

I actually know a family like this. Nothing fishy going on there, the mutation is well described and now new kids with the mutation get growth hormones during their growth to reach normal size.

Nice sheets! Nice cat too, of course.

Well, the lateral launch was truly spectacular :-)

I read about such experiments some time ago. If I remember correctly, after being forced awake for some time, some people stopped being tired and had to be forced to sleep. I also believe there are individual differences, so while some people in the discussion describe their own interesting experience, keep in mind that others might react differently.

In a large part, a distraction. Or more generally, a way to stay in power. How do you stay in power when your country is doing very poorly economically while you and your friends keep siphoning public money into their pockets? You create a strong narrative, ideally an external enemy ("NATO wants to destroy our way of life!" "Ukraine is full of fascists killing Russians!"). Support it by propaganda from your state-controlled media and you are a hero saving the country, if not the world. You can do pretty much anything and still retain considerable support.

That's also why Putin can't really afford peace, he would lose a strong narrative in his favour. He pretends to agree, but doesn't actually follow conditions of any agreement while constantly increasing his demands. He might agree with an agreement that would basically be Ukraine's capitulation, but nothing less.

Thanks! I didn't want to write any spoilers, but somehow I failed to think of including the actual story.

This reminds me very much of a short story The Egg by Andy Weir.

Not any more. It was never an official name. Now it is Arrokoth.

It's not so much about nuclear envelope and more about ends. DNA polymerase (an enzyme that builds new DNA) cannot copy the whole end - there are a few bases that should be at the end but cannot be added. Eukaryota deal with it by a complex mechanism (they have telomeres), but it allows for multiple chromosomes and therefore larger genomes. Bacteria have a circular genome instead, a circle doesn't have an end, so they can copy as much as they need.

BTW, mitochondria and plastids, being former bacteria, also have circular genomes.

I don't remeber the movies, but didn't the dead finish the battle around Minas Tirith? In books, they defeated the fleet of bad guys near the mouth of Anduin, freeing significant army, which then takes the ships anf goes to Minas Tirith. The rest of the battle there is not unusually supernatural, if I remember correctly. I remeber not likig this part of the film. I understand it, but I think this part in particular felt very abrupt.

Identification of species and their relatedness has not.been done on morphological, but rather molecular basis for quite some time. In molecular terms, they are slightly modified grey wolfs. BTW, dogs are all one species, all very similar even on molecular level, and yet look at their morphology...

If you come from elsewhere in the EU, yes, you can always vote in local elections and european parliament elections where you live. If you're from elsewhere, it depends on local law.