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From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Tomatoes from Space ?
Message-ID: <13823@ulysses.att.com>
Date: 1 Oct 90 19:09:49 GMT
References: <61190@masscomp.ccur.com> <1990Sep30.150742.1828@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Sender: netnews@ulysses.att.com
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In article <1990Sep30.150742.1828@rodan.acs.syr.edu>, amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) writes:
> 
>    I remember reading after the seeds were all distributed that somebody had
> done an analysis of the seeds, discovered that ... and that no fruit from 
> them should be eaten...  There was a big to do, and many schools returned 
> theirs seeds, and the program was changed such that the teacher was supposed
> to remove all flowers so no fruit could be produced (in public labs/schools).

The reason that you left blank for what was discovered via an analysis
is that no analysis was done.  Someone in NASA decided that in the
enhanced radiation environment of space, there was a higher probability
of mutation (fair enough), and hence there was a higher probability of
a mutation that could cause trouble.  The upshot: there were a few news
stories about ``killer tomatoes''.  No one involved seemed interested
in calculating the probability of such a thing....