Stamets taking Ripper's place

[guyute03]

I'm wondering if him being used for this is the reason this type of propulsion is abandoned in the future.
Also what are the long term effects of him doing this often? I can't imagine they're good.

 

[The Habs Fan]

I'm wondering if him being used for this is the reason this type of propulsion is abandoned in the future.
Also what are the long term effects of him doing this often? I can't imagine they're good.

Also, the ending to episode 5 will probably play into a future episode that deals with the side effects Stamets is experiencing.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Why would "human experimentation" be forbidden or frowned upon?

Why indeed...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

 

[GeekUSACarl]

Why indeed...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

On the other hand any honest and regulated trials done on people for drugs or first time medical procedures are essentially experiments done on humans.

I think people have a tendency to link words together for convenience, human experimentation = Nazis but fda approved drug trials = fda approved drug trials when in reality both are experimentation on humans, one is just regarded, and rightfully so, as much safer and humanely accepted.

 

[XCV330]

Groups that are seriously planning to build colonies on mars in the next couple of decades are going to have to revisit the idea of genetically modifying humans, and they may have to do it quickly, if they want a viable population. We weren't adapted to living on partial-G, and their children (if a non-ectopic pregnancy is even possible on Mars) will almost certainly be long and spindly compared to Earth born humans, and may need strengthening of heart muscle, etc.

 

[Mudd]

New 'Star Trek' Series Makes Massive Science Blunder

Given the existence of teleportation, FTL travel, telepathy and interspecies fertility in Star Trek I suppose "massive" is in the eye of the beholder.

Thanks to a unique biological property that the show's writers apparently misunderstood, the space tardigrade can access the mushroom network to travel throughout the universe, wherever and whenever it chooses.

Here's how the space tardigrade accomplishes this remarkable feat of interstellar travel, as explained by Michael Burnham, the show's central character (in Episode 5, "Choose Your Pain"):

Like its microscopic cousins on Earth, the tardigrade is able to incorporate foreign DNA into its own genome via horizontal gene transfer. When Ripper [the space tardigrade] borrows DNA from the mycelium [the mushroom], he's granted an all-access travel pass.

And just like that, not only the tardigrade but the entire spaceship jumps across the galaxy. Is this sounding a bit crazy? It should.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a real thing. It's a process through which bacteria sometimes take up DNA from the environment and integrate it into their own genomes. Animals can't do HGT, but rather infamously, a paper was published in December 2015 that made the bold claim that tardigrades had a unique ability to absorb all kinds of DNA. That paper was instantly controversial in the scientific community, and not surprisingly, its findings were being disputed in the Twittersphere within days of its appearance.

Surprisingly, the same journal (PNAS) that published the bogus HGT claim published a second paper just a few months later showing that tardigrades do not absorb foreign DNA into their genome. That, plus a third paper, showed that the original paper had mistakenly identified contaminating DNA as part of the tardigrade's own genome. This rapid correction of the record was a win for science; I've used this example to demonstrate to my undergraduate class how sloppy science (the first paper) can lead one astray.

So: a minor scientific controversy, quickly debunked.

Until, that is, one of the Star Trek writers got their hands on it. Apparently one of them heard the tardigrade story, perhaps someone who'd had a bit of biology in college (I'm guessing here), and got so excited that they turned it into a wildly implausible premise for an intergalactic space drive.

The idea of using horizontally transferred DNA for space travel is so nutty, so bad, that it's not even wrong. Even if tardigrades could absorb foreign DNA (they can't), how the heck is this supposed to give them the ability to tap into the (wildly implausible) intergalactic spore network? DNA that's been taken up through HGT isn't connected to the source any longer. This is no more plausible than asserting that people could connect to the mushroom network by eating a plate of mushrooms. And how would the space-traveling tardigrade take the entire ship with it? Are we supposed to assume it's creating some kind of mushroom-DNA field?

Star Trek has had faster-than-light warp drives for 50 years. Although physically implausible, warp drive isn't laughably ridiculous. The DASH drive is.

And now the entire series seems to be based on a combination of magic (an intergalactic mushroom network in subspace) and scientific errors (horizontal gene transfer by tardigrades).

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

On the other hand any honest and regulated trials done on people for drugs or first time medical procedures are essentially experiments done on humans.

I think people have a tendency to link words together for convenience, human experimentation = Nazis but fda approved drug trials = fda approved drug trials when in reality both are experimentation on humans, one is just regarded, and rightfully so, as much safer and humanely accepted.

Totally different subject...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_research_ethics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_for_human_subject_research

 

[GeekUSACarl]

Totally different subject...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_research_ethics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidelines_for_human_subject_research

It truly isn't a totally different subject and is partly my point.

It really is human experimentation, just very safe and well organized and regulated experimentation. So we call it something else due to word association but in reality it is human experimentation, with a civil more humane rule book

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

I'm wondering if him being used for this is the reason this type of propulsion is abandoned in the future.
Also what are the long term effects of him doing this often? I can't imagine they're good.

Perhaps, as in another story where a scientist experimented on himself with disastrous results, rather than BrundleFly we'll get TardiStamets.

 

[m.lp.ql.m]

As predicted many, many times months ago, Stamets is actually turning out to be a fun guy.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Stamets replaced the tardigrade thus becoming the Discovery's TARDIS.

 

[XCV330]

As predicted many, many times months ago, Stamets is actually turning out to be a fun guy.

fun guy or fungi?

 

[zar]

Stamets replaced the tardigrade thus becoming the Discovery's TARDIS.

TardiStamets?

 

[Takeru]

Stamets replaced the tardigrade thus becoming the Discovery's TARDIS.

Bigger on the inside? Let's hope Culber doesn't get lost the next time he goes in.

 

[m.lp.ql.m]

fun guy or fungi?

My point exactly.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Are we to assume he is going to continue jump starting the ship?

Until things get really weird. Remember his reflection staying around after he left a few episodes ago?

I'm loving that Lorca lets his engineer be stoned 24/7 on sporestuff. It's totally insane.

 

[XCV330]

Until things get really weird. Remember his reflection staying around after he left a few episodes ago?

I'm loving that Lorca lets his engineer be stoned 24/7 on sporestuff. It's totally insane.

Lorca: "Don't Care. Still don't care."

 

[Nerys Myk]

fun guy or fungi?

Both. Fungi makes Stamets a fun guy.