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Space Potato Hits the Streets
gasmanpopey writes to tell us that sweet potato seeds sent to space as a part of China's Shenzhou VI mission are hitting the streets as a part of special Valentine's day meals. While supporters are trying to claim better flavor and better nutrition there doesn't seem to be anything beyond a pure novelty angle.
Officials from the space programme, which creates enormous national pride in China, say it has produced a number of mutated fruit and vegetables.
Could it be that Mr. Potato Head is really just an incredible tuber of a cultivated Chinese plan come to spy on US, and Canada?
Have you read my journal today?
welcome our mutant space potatoe overlords...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Heh, when I first read the summary, I thought they were saying that the seeds they sent into space were plummeting to Earth and hitting the streets. Then I realized that makes little to no sense and I need a coffee.
Otherwise, I'd think that potatoes were literally hitting the streets. Valentines day or not, carpet potato bombing is not recommended!
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
And here I was buying the gf jewelry like a sucker, when I could have been getting her tubers.
Space Potato Hits the Streets
In other news, everyone in China ate mashed potatoes for dinner.
Have you read my journal today?
When I read the summary, I thought the seeds had been sent into orbit alone and there were now sweet potato seeds falling from the skies onto the streets... then I realized what's actually happening. Letdown of the century.
ResidntGeek
An hour later and I was hungry for starch again.
Space potato! I will plant these on my 4 acres that i bought on the moon!
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
"that sweet potato seeds sent to space as a part of China's Shenzhou VI mission are hitting the streets"
I have never eaten sweet potato seeds, has anyone? Not to nitpick, but is thinking before writing optional now? Or has it always been optional?
then I realized: they sent them up in a shuttle and down in a shuttle, and didn't actully release them into space to fall down to the earth on china during valentines day...
34486853790
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They sent twinkies into space too and they came down with a higher nutrional value as well as better taste
So, Genetically Modified for taste, color, growth characteristics (immunity of insects instead of having to use pesticides, large yeild, etc) is BAD.
Randomly irradiated by extraterrestrial radiation: GOOD.
Actually it's probably a way for the average Chinese to participate in national pride - kinds of like kids in the 60's US drinking Tang and eating those small cubes of freeze dried ice cream.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I can just imagine cracking a tooth on the ceramic tiles these seeds must use for reentry.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Sweet potatoes from space?? Sounds like the works of somebody who's on the pot, so where's the space hemp?!?!
(Then we can make tube steak floats with space ice cream when we get the stellar munchies)
sweet potato seeds sent to space as a part of China's Shenzhou VI mission are hitting the streets
Am I the only one that immediately formed a mental image of millions of tiny parachutes falling from the sky, each with a single seed attached?
Today's subject, class, is avoiding ambiguity. Unless you want to be funny with intentionally ambiguous expressions (especially in the titles), be sure to make them as explicit as possible. Avoid lesser-known slang expressions, which can be misunderstood.
For example, instead of "hitting the street", use "goes on sale".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... I thought sweet potatoes could fly ...
A chance to use a Futurama quote that I never would think would come up on slashdot...
"I thought you were some outer space potato man."
...are being overlooked by the naysayers. For those of you in the alternative foods community, it's quickly apparent as to how these space seeds will be superior to the earth bound ones on many levels.
1. Space is this really mysterious and amazing place that only a very small segment of the population have been to. Because of that, space has naturally mystical properties which are imparted to any object that leaves or comes into the earth's atmosphere.
2. Cosmic rays. Yeah, we get hit with cosmic rays on a daily basis, but not as much as you would in space. That simple fact alone means that anything that goes into space got more cosmic radiation induced and is therefore more spacey. The main reason we don't have that much of a bombardment of cosmic rays on earth is so that the bears don't get mutated into giant killing machines that go on a rampage throughout our city streets. I'm trying to work on a solution to this though because I'm bored.
3. Dark matter. You know when you look up at the sky at night and you see all that blackness between the various objects in the sky? That's dark matter. I think. At least that's what someone told me on the bus the other day. So when the seeds go up into space, they wind up going through vast clouds of dark matter which increases their dark matter content. I've heard that this can help aid digestion. So again another plus for space poptatoes!!
4. Space is a vacuum. While a lot of people are aware of this fact, what they tend to forget is that vacuums suck everything around them up. That means that space has a high concentration of matter in it and all that matter is bound to contain a lot of healthy nutrients in it for space potatoes to grow in. So when the chinese grew their space potatoes in the vacuum of space, they grew ultra-fast. Not only that, but there's also a lot of solar radiation in space which means that stuff grows at like one hundred times the rate in space as it would on good old earth.
5. The ancients knew of the secrets of space and used their hidden spaceships (the pyramids and the sphinx) to travel into space for high quality food cultivation. This is why people lived longer back then. People used to live to be like 900 years old and stuff. If you want more authoritative information on the subject, go rent the movie Zardoz. It tells you all you need to know about the ancients.
So I'd say buy these space potato seeds because they will improve your health, make you look better, allow you to "score", increase your intelligence and memory, and turn all fabrics in your house into rich Corinthian leather. There's going to be a run on the seeds anyway as soon as word gets out. At the very least, even if it doesn't work out, you'll be able to sell the seeds for an amazing return as they are guaranteed to become even more valuable than gold bullion.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
The LADA program has grown many things including cabbage, peas, radishes, etc. http://www.sdl.usu.edu/programs/lada/
Space Potato Hits Streets
There were no survivors.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
They're just growing them from seeds that have already been brought down to Earth gently. If they really wanted to go the cool novelty route, they should have sent the whole potatoes through re-entry with a delicious mashmellowy ablative coating that would cook them on the way down. I'd buy that!
"I don't care why your potato is so small...but she does."
In communist China potato mashes you!
Rocket Scientist + Brain Surgeon = Rocket Surgeon! (Let's get this O.R. in orbit!)
NASA has been sending seeds to space for a long time. In 1989 I, and all my classmates, received packages of tomato seeds as part of LDEF Experiment P0004-01. A little bit of Googleing turned up Park Seed SEEDS project which nicely describes the project. Most of my classmates killed their plants. I planted mine in the family garden and bore fruit. That was quite tasty. As I recall there was some legalese that said don't eat the fruit that the plants bear lest you turn into a tomato based superhero.
The Long Duration Exposure Facility project main page.These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based upon the order I joined. -Homer Simpson
There's got to be a joke in there somewhere about NASA love triangles and the taste of seeds...
If you are going to go through the trouble of sending seeds into space, you're also likely to do two things: choose a good varietal and take extra care when raising the plants. So I'd be surprised if these weren't tastier and more nutritious compared to the average tuber stock grown in the average field.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
What!? I thought they were supposed to be mutating tomatoes?
Dammit! Where am I supposed to get killer tomatoes now?
Chinese space officials claim that after being exposed to cosmic radiation in space, the potatoes display unusual, even bizarre characteristics. "Some are as hard as a rock, while others are transparent. We've seen a few that can stretch to unbelievable lengths, and at least one that seems to undergo spontaneous combustion."
Asked if the resulting tubers were good to eat, they replied, "Oh yes! They make fantastic fries!"
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
No doubt they are on their way to a secret rendezvous with mooninites in Boston.
:wq
My first thought when reading the headline was a giant satellite spud gun.
I know you are cracking a joke, but the whole 'potatoe is not spelled with an e' is a scary example of revisionist history. The scary part is how quickly it took hold, and the entire population accepted a revision to history as fact. Before the whole Quayle incident, teachers, dictionaries and potato farmers (not all of them, but many) spelled potato with an 'e' at the end. It is scary that someone made a spelling mistake by saying that Quayle spelled the word wrong, and it was repeated by a bunch of reporters that also did not know how to spell, and withing hours history was rewritten. What Quayle did do wrong was not know that there was more than one accepted spelling. So, when he told the student that they misspelled potato, THAT was wrong.
It's Spudnic
I actually submitted this story (via journal entry) back in September, but it didn't make it -- it happened at the same time as Atlantis was docking with the ISS, so I guess the editors didn't have more space for more space. When the craft was launched, Chinese officials were cited as saying that "seeds exposed to space radiation and microgravity contain more vitamins and other crucial minerals.".
Wow. I guess science class in China consists of repeated viewings of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes , or perhaps the Chinese scientists are simply polishing up their Ig Nobel acceptance speeches.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Wait a minute... you mean being an astronaut doesn't cure nearsightedness?!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Why is this a big deal?
I remember way back in 1991 my second grade class was part of a NASA experiment involving tomato seeds that had stored on a satellite for about a year. The seeds were given to my class for us to grow. We worked with a local greenhouse and each student grew their own batch of space tomatoes side by side with a batch of regular earth tomatoes. We compared the normal to the space tomatoes, took some measurements and reported the results to NASA. At the end we got to eat the resulting fruit from the space plants. You couldn't even tell the space tomatoes from normal tomatoes. (No super powers or anything.)
I don't really see the point of being so proud of doing something NASA and a bunch of second graders did 16 years ago. (And I doubt we were the first to eat food from seeds sent to space, so NASA probably did the first space seed experiments long before we did.)
.... that they'd be more interested in the nutritional value and delectable flavor of all those dogs that Russia sent into space.
Moon Trees anyone???
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Congratulations! That's the first truly funny variation on the "In communist..." joke that I've seen for years...
Randomly irradiated by extraterrestrial radiation: GOOD.
It's all fun and games until a Giant Sweet Potato demolishes Tokyo, errrr.... Beijing.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
...The dead will walk the earth. Dude, stuff coming back from space is bad. I definitely don't want to eat no zombie sweet potatoes.
How else are they going to power their space-age clocks?
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
dude, "hit the streets" means "go on to the market". well I agree this is a purposedly-amusing news that "succeeded" to entertain anyone. but having an alternative v-day gift idea is not too bad tho - (v)
Actually... they were sent up and came back in a capsule. Only us mighty capitalistic Americans use a shuttle to traverse space!
The pod people did this years ago with Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And quite well too- SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
When are they going to make broccoli and Brussel sprouts taste better? I say take those seeds up to space and leave 'em.
Health Insurance Quotes
"Would you like some Space Spuds with that?"
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Nature Grows the seed ... ... ...
We send the seed into space
Then, we eat the seed
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)