Although the immediate processing of food might occur in major digestive organs, the effect of increased or decreased nutrient availability will be felt throughout the body. One primary effect of starvation is the breaking down of cells (autophagy) in order to reuse their components for more necessary bodily functions - like the atrophying of muscles.

Naturally, your germ line cells are one of your core bodily functions, so the nutrients will necessarily need to make their way there.

One recent paper[1] hypothesized that the byproducts of this cellular breakdown can cause cells to bundle up DNA that encodes some genes, rendering them less accessible and therefore less active. This can even be passed trans-generationally (presumably by altering the tight storage of specific genes in the germ line cells).

Broadly this mechanism is called epigenetics, where specific histone protein modifications cause regions of DNA to coil up tightly, making it far less likely to be expressed, or unwind and become far more active. It’s a very neat mechanism by which many characteristics can become generational despite not having a clear genetic component.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10244352/

If you’re just looking to get started with 3d modeling, it’s hard to beat Blender. At the cost of free, it’s by far the most affordable way to dip your toes in some modeling tools.

For many workflows it’s world class. If you plan to do more organic forms or don’t need technical precision, then it’s very competitive or preferable to paid software.

You might find it lacking if you plan to do parametric or technical CAD-style modeling. Even then, I think Blender can be a low cost way to learn what you want in your software before investing in more specialized software. You’ll learn enough of the modeling basics to more fluently navigate what other software provides.

I’ve been there, but over the years I’ve gotten better at avoiding being in this situation.

If you are implementing something for yourself, and merging it back upstream is just a bonus, then by all means jump straight to implementing.

However, it’s emotionally draining to implement something and arrive at something you’re proud of only to have it ignored. So do that legwork upfront. File a feature request, open a discussion, join their dev chat - whatever it is, make sure what you want to do is valued and will be welcomed into the project before you start on it. They might even nudge you in a direction that you hadn’t considered before you started.

Be a responsible dev and communicate before you do the work.

A few animal-inspired names that I think have a nice ring to them

• Dodopedia (extinct like Mastadons, similar vowel rhythm to “wiki”)
• Hippopedia
• Komodopedia