this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Daystrom Institute

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A conversation about the Gorn with Prof Mohammed Noor of Duke U (thescienceof.org)
submitted 1 year ago by StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website to c/daystrominstitute@startrek.website
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This ScienceOf.org interview with Professor of Genetics/Evolution (& Star Trek biological science advisor) Mohammed Noor on the biology, especially the r-selection reproduction, of the Gorn in SNW is marvellous.

Just the kind of uncomfortable but great biological thinking I was hoping we’d get into here at Daystrom Institute.

e.g. Can we think of the Gorn in viral terms?

Treating Gorn like this, each infected person could infect four more people, so the R0 for Gorn would be 4. Not wildly big, but large enough to do the job. Of course, the hatchlings would also be going after one another, so the analogy’s not perfect.

But if you want to think of the Gorn as intelligent, viral space dinosaurs, that does get the idea across.

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[–] Haus@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Oh man, the author is as ruthless as the Gorn:

Now, 56 years later,

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 4 points 1 year ago

As Prof Noor is the biological science advisor for the show, it seems likely that he’s the one that gave the SNW Showrunners this specific option for a deep background of the Gorn.