Talk:1749: Mushrooms

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 21:34, 21 October 2016 by 162.158.74.105 (talk)
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Meaning of the title text?

The way I'm reading this comic, there are several possible meanings to the title text. One definition of "ghost" is "a faint trace of something" - it's possible that mushrooms are a faint trace of whatever other species bridged the gap between plants and animals.

Alternately, it could just be Randall's way of saying not to trust any sentence beginning with the phrase "Evolutionarily speaking" (see comics 1240, 1475). 108.162.216.61 13:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

C-C-C-Combo Breaker! PeanutVendor (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Disagree with stated meaning. Yes, fungi consume dead matter but that would relate them to zombies not ghosts. Suggest that its a reference to asexual reproduction in fungi, that new fungi are born from the broken bodies of its parents. Kev (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Growl

Not sure I agree with the explanation of the growl. In the first frame cueball insults the mushroom as Megan explains they are more like animals; the casual/layperson implication there is that, while not necessarily sentient, they are more able to respond to surrounding stimuli (like being aware of being called weird.) So the punchline in the penultimate frame has this not-vegetable more-like-animal mushroom "animate" ... growl IronyChef (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Differences mushroom/plants

Just for a quick overview:

  • cell walls in mushrooms consist of chitin (like the exoskeletons of insects) and polysaccharids. Plants have cells walls made from cellulose, animals have cell walls made of protein.
  • mushrooms are heterotrophic (they need to take up chemical energy from outside of the body) like animals; while plants use sunlight. Though, some fungi have turned to sunlight or gamma rays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus).
  • each fungal cell is simple in structure and function, unlike plants which have much more specialized "organs" (leaves, flowers, roots)

--162.158.150.228 16:16, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Animals do not have cell walls. All cells (including Plant, fungi and animals) have cell membranes made of lipids with embedded proteins. As above, plants and fungi have cell walls in addition to a cell membrane. Some other things such as bacteria (which are not animals) also have cell walls made of various substances.--108.162.219.11 16:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Also note plants are eukaryotic so it's not fair to say "(eukaryotic organisms do not use photosynthesis)". The definition of a eukaryote is the presence of a nucleus not anything to do with heterotrophs (eat others for food) vs. autotrophs (produce their own food).