From: jsavard@ecn.ab.ca   
      
   On Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 6:14:31 PM UTC-7, Mike Van Pelt wrote:   
   > (After hearing   
   > about their warp drives now using Tardigrade Power(TM),   
   > though, my interest has waned considerably.)   
      
   Yes, that does sound pretty silly.   
      
   But this links to TOS in a way.   
      
   Remember "The Trouble With Tribbles"? What was the grain that the Tribbles ate   
   up, creating a serious problem?   
      
   Quadrotriticale.   
      
   Not long before that episode aired - long enough, of course, to be before the   
   script was written - there were news stories about how scientists had, by   
   artificially duplicating genes, created a fertile hybrid of wheat and rye...   
   that might help solve the problem of feeding the world's poor. Triticale.   
      
   So presumably the fictional grain Quadrotriticale would be the result of   
   another   
   doubling bringing in another couple of grains. Like maybe oats and barley.   
   (Although maybe buckwheat would be a better choice, as it's a source of   
   complete   
   protein. But eating too much of it causes photosensitivity. Quinoa, anyone?)   
      
   Similarly, recently there were news stories about how dried-out tardigrades   
   could survive in the vacuum and radiation of space. So how topical of them to   
   make a space-based creature tardigrade-like.   
      
   John Savard   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)