• ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      What the fuck did I just read.

      If I had an ounce of skill as an artist I’d draw the image evoked by your 13 words.

      Tiny milking machines hooked up to billions of restrained cockroaches, extracting their milky secretions.

      God damnit

        • catbum@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Pardon my language, but holy balls. I knew AI was powerful and self-driving cars and five-second essays and convincing deep fakes and yada yada, but this … This is shaking me to my core. The refinement in composition, the surrealist allure, the subtle variations of cockroach positioning …

          Gotdarn it’s too good.

          • kautau@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            The steaming roach in the forefront producing literal roach milk is definitely my favorite part

      • livus@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        I’m kind of glad you’re not an artist tbh. To get the pure milk, scientists had to sort of stick a filter right into their abdomens (it’s a kind of cockroach that gives birth to live young).

        Realistically if anyone ever harvests it en masse they will probably just kill the mothers and include the entire abdomen not just the milk secretions.

        • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          Are you glad because I’m not very inventive, or because my description demonstrates I’m disturbed?

          And I have so many additional questions.

          1. Do they feed this secretion to the live young?
          2. If yes, wouldn’t that technically make them mammals?
          3. Is the milk harvested before or after live birth?
          4. If before, where is egg/larva sack, anatomically?
          5. If in abdomen, how separate are these organs - in other words, are we talking like milk sack, reproductive sack - stick the needle filter too far one way and you’ve missed the milk and got larvae - or is it like a liquefied mess in there, and that’s why they need the filter?

          I can go on, but man this is weird…

          • livus@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            I’m glad because I have a visual memory.

            1. No they feed them before birth. The embryos start with a small yolk but soon have well developed mouths and after the yolk is gone they lie in there drinking milk from the sac walls.

            2. It technically makes them viviparous (continuing to give nutrients to live embryo in real time as opposed to an egg with a yolk)

            3. I have not been able to find details but as far as I can see the filter is a “larva substitute” so presumably it gets inserted before birth.

            4. Brood sack (like a placenta) is in abdomen and the milk is secreted into it.

            5. I’d say it is a delicate operation but it’s not a liquefied mess, it’s a bunch of baby insects sucking the walls.

            Photo of one giving birth

            Scientific paper about the milk that gives the above details.