Submitted 1 year ago by Kolanaki@yiffit.net to risa@startrek.website
Was just thinking about this while taking a boring regular shower with water. A sonic shower just vibrates at high intensity to pulverize dirt and knock it from your body; but what about oils and lipids and all that other stuff that makes you stinky?
On a side note, I realized that the only time any dental care is brought up, it’s with the ferengi. The race with quite possibly the worst teeth in the galaxy are the only ones seen using cleaning utensils on them.
Seems like statistically, each year a certain number of people would be vibrated to death by malfunctioning sonic showers.
Not to mention all the horny people who go deaf taking a “high frequency” sonic shower.
In ds9 it is mentioned they seal teeth in. Wich prevents any degradation.
I assume the federation has a treatment that makes your mouth inhospitable to cavity-causing bacteria
hugh and stamets are both seen brushing their teeth in discovery. i imagine its just not shown very often
We are actually working on that now! There’s a sweetener called Xylitol that essentially starves bacteria to death because they can’t process it.
I could’ve sworn I read something a few years ago about some scientists genetically modifying or identifying this mutant variant of bacteria that was able to outcompete the natural stuff, but don’t produce the stuff that harms teeth. Was sometime in the 80s but the FDA completedly blackballed it.
I’ve not actually tried a modern sonic shower so I’ll take your word for the limitations of them as things stand and guess they’ve figured out how to make them work effectively in the next few hundred years.
I think the Ferengi we see have excellent teeth, by Ferengi standards. you can see they’ve working hard to look after them, rather than trying to look like hoomans.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
In-universe explanation: they’re advanced enough to be able to kill, dissolve, and sonically motivate bacteria and dirt - even in pores. This would leave you incredibly clean. Remember: they’ve got transporters. They reconstruct you from an energy beam in a split second, not noticeably disrupting your perception of consciousness. Sonic-shower precision like that would be considered child’s play.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Two things:
Bonus points:
jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
The teleporter is already at the edge of their technological capabilities anyway, to the point they have to resort to some hacks to make it work.
ST Picard
Like keeping “common biology” like common DNA sections in the transporter’s firmware to not have to care about all individual aspects.
And this is even without accounting for malfunctions. Can you imagine eating the wrong vegetable and ending up tuvixed with poop?
andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun 1 year ago
IDK about child’s play but definitely enough for the lower decks engineers to handle overnight.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not to mention that they can vaccinate against practically every pathogen, so they could eliminate the types of bacteria that cause the majority of body odor.