You can also tell a claystone from a siltstone by rubbing it against your teeth! If it rubs smoothly without friction then it's a claystone. If it feels abrasive then it's a siltstone.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
748 points (98.7% liked)
Science Memes
19700 readers
2253 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Better don't tell your dentist
This was a lot of my degree. We licked everything. Still do.
Mouthfeel is an incredible sense. Babies learn what the world is by pushing handfuls of it into their mouths. Texture, taste, angularity, porosity, density, degree of lithificaton.... instantly.
*edit: we did not all lick things. There are two distinct schools of thought, and not a lot of fence sitters.
I would absolutely be on the lick things team. I use my mouth as a tool all the time.
This post sounds incredibly weird.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
There's a lot of overlap between archeologists and babies.
I find a stone
But is it clay?
Or is it silt?
I cannot say.
I'll rub a bit
Just on my tooth,
If tooth falls out
I'll know the truth.
Maybe you think
My methods strange,
Maybe you think
They cause me pain.
But I'll keep rocks
All in my fist:
Not odd to me;
I'm geologist.
Oh hell yes ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪
When I say peat you say peat
peat
...
fuck
You can also differentiate between halite and sylvite using your tongue! Sylvite has a more tingly, "spicier" feeling and taste, whereas halite is simply salt.
One of my favorite archaeology stories comes from a Reddit AMA waaay back over a decade ago, there was this girl who was on an archaeological expedition somewhere in the Middle East and they had unearthed a bunch of ancient honey jars. Honey, famously, never goes bad, and their professor said that if anyone wanted to try some, they could. Most didn't, but she did- lo and behold, tasted very much like normal honey.
Months later when they were back in the states they had performed some tests on the honey and realized that these jars had originally contained stillborn fetuses, a now known practice, which had dissolved into the honey over the millennia. So she had eaten human fetus honey.
I know it sounds made up but she was a legit archaeologist and could back it up with names and dates and shit, though I'm hazy on the details.
I kinda wanna try it now
Holy shit, I didn't know about that one... And holy shit, I wish I could un-know it now.
Always great to see scientists with a sense of humor.
Pretty sure that's most of them
No there's a lot of boring phds you never hear about that don't. More on the hard engineers side especially.
......I feel quite hungry.....
Not just archies, like another commentator points out, but Geo's and pedologists too
In soil science we sometimes put soil in our mouth to determine between silt and clay or silt and fine sand
Isn't that a health risk?
They ate a lot of dirt as kids, built up their immune system
Not really, dirt is one of the least harmful non food items. In small amounts anyway
I remember as a child when I was digging in the sandbox I dug up a hole lot of cat poop and "wet" sand. Since I'm still alive today it probably wasn't too bad but it doesn't really feel like a good idea.
I suppose, but I also smell subsoil for the presence of hydrocarbons, soo...
Conceivably you could do this with any similar skin type to a tongue so wet nipples and genitals would also stick to bone. Boners are the unlikely but accurate technical term for the application.
So you want me to put dicks in my mouth? Alright, you have me convinced. Science needs me!
And that is how I found my exe's account on Lemmy...
There's no other way to test to see if it's bone?
If you have two you can try to see if they’ll rattle
Thank Mr Skeltal
bone is less heavy than stone, also you can see bone has different surface structure.
Source: asked an archaeologist who thinks that although some people she knows do lik the bone, it's not necessary.
Did anyone else sing the poem? Good flow.
Bone licking is not required for doing the science. They do it for pleasure.