where's my damn plume

My guess is they mean we have the genes to encode the proteins, since we have similar keratinized tissues like hair and nails. But probably not the hox genes to encode the structure

Well then put the box genes in me so I can have a damn plume

Is this true ? It doesn't feel true with my current knowledge.

Between this, my stripes, and my tail.. all things I have genes for, but no activation...

I'm kinda pissed, being human could be far less cringe

Humans do have stripes but we ourselves can’t see them.

Look up Blaschko lines
- Unless you have the right skin condition I don't think they're visible in any wavelength
- isn't that only true for XX chromosome people?

Behold, a feathered biped

Plato is gonna be fuckin pissed

If people had wings and could fly it would be considered exercise and nobody would do it.

If you look at birds like the kakapo, they would've had flight in the evolutionary past, but evolved out of it due to lack of predatory threat.

This can be part of Island syndrome, where the dodo also suffered from, till sailors came around and found out they were tasty.
Americans wouldn't do it, the rest of the world would
- Why would I fly for twenty minutes when I can drive for an hour 🙄
- I was about to be offended and then I remembered how I got out of breath walking up the stairs this morning. (To be fair, I'm anemic af and almost certainly have a touch of long covid, but still.)
- Yes. Burgerlanders are very averse to any level of self improvement that might be difficult. I blame the car culture propaganda more than I blame the people though.
- Please stop bad-mouthing Americans, it's just self loathing at this point. It cannot be that black and white.

This sounds like a fun PhD project

No funding. Less fun

I’m good on the feathers I read the goosebumps book about learning to fly and it gave me a preview of my trypophobia when R.L. Stine described the feathers growing out of the main characters skin

ETA: it was “chicken chicken” not “how I learned to fly”

I'll hold off too because some feathers grow straight from the bones. Eek
- I on the other hand am all that is man and will be taking the feathers because I want to look fabulous
Huh? I just read this book and that was not in there. The kids just drank a potion and then could fly, there was no outward difference to them. Maybe you are mixing up a different one, like the chicken one? We just started that so idk how it goes. The cover has the girl as a chicken though.
- Ahh I checked the synopsis and you’re right I definitely got it mixed up with another. I need to find it now.
  
  ETA:Definitely the chicken one jeez it just gave me goosebumps

MF walking one way into getting a pile of teratomas

Stunning creatures, sea lions.

Wonderful plumage.

Fierce Creatures (1997)

There's certainly something stunning and wonderful in that picture all right
- Her shoes
- I also have a thing for short guys in glasses!

I want the damn feathers for the social aspect! If we were allowed to preen each other, the world would be a better place!

Quick someone get CRSIPR therapy

What does that even mean, you have like “four letters” and dna strands of millions long. Like how selective do you have to be. I’m sure you can basically write anything that way.

Are there entire chunks that are inactive that would give feathers, that at some point gave feathers to our ancestors?

All things DNA is full of code that doesn't get activated and is just passed on anyways

Gene expression is what they mean by "activated"

Basically think of it like having a library of instruction books and only grabbing a few of them to do the project that needs done.
I recall that scientists reactivated chicken genes for teeth and grew a toothed chook

Now go into a forrest with flint and boom

infinite ammo

Just need two chickens, a dispenser, and a redstone clock for infinite chickens