TRIFFIDS INVADE CANADA!

Okay, not really, but I will admit that the little sci-fi nerd in me did nearly pee her pants with excitement at the thought.

A small wave of paranoia has washed over my hometown at the discovery of Giant Hogweed growing in its various ditches and bush properties. Though its name sounds harmless enough, and vaguely Harry Potter-esque, contact with this plant's sap can cause extreme photosensitivity, leading to bubbling skin burns with exposure to sunlight, as well as temporary or permanent blindness. It's also huge, often growing over 2 m tall.

Sound familiar yet?

John Wyndham's novel Day of the Triffid (also made into a BBC miniseries) cites alien plant-creatures that cause mass blindness and spit poison to digest the tissues of their prey. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that this invasive Hogweed can take up its roots and walk about.

SO, that's my little alien conspiracy theory. Until the plot is revealed, we'll all just have to sit back and observe as Hogweed Hysteria sweeps across the nation and every guy and his dog has a panic attack thinking that the queen anne's lace in his backyard is a murderous weed.

Perfect example from recent news:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/mike_strobel/2010/07/14/14713771.html

"Also, I can kill you with my brain."

Since Joss Whedon's Birthday last week, I've been watching his work almost obsessively. I can barely keep from gushing over his genius when it comes to developing complex, wonderfully flawed characters and worlds; however, when it comes to science, Joss falls victim to the same trap that ensnares many a science fiction writer: lack of research.

Take Firefly and Serenity's River Tam (played by geek fantasy Summer Glau...not relevant, but oh-so awesome): she's a girl genius who was abducted by the Alliance and whose amygdala was destroyed to turn her into a psychic warrior.



And I'm pretty sure that you know where I'm going with this: ablating the amygdalae (because there are actually two in the brain) will not render people psychic, even if you might seem predisposed to such abilities. It won't leave you an empath, either, as suggested by supposed doctor-genius Simon on the show ("[River] feels everything; she can't not"). If anything, it would do quite the opposite: she would experience a flattened affect.

The amygdala is a little almond-shaped structure found in the limbic area of the temporal lobe. It's a pretty nifty structure, being associated with our sense of meaningfulness, with aggression and sexuality, fear conditioning, and with processing smells. Bilateral destruction of the amygdalae is generally associated with a phenomenon known as Kluver-Bucy Syndrome (Kluver and Bucy interestingly enough became interested in temporal lobe functions through experiments involving the effects of mescaline and peyote on human consciousness). The syndrome is marked by fearlessness, hypersexuality, and hyperorality. Sure, River had her eccentricities, and some shows of fearlessness, but she definitely wasn't walking around constantly performing sexual acts and putting things into her mouth.

If anything, River's behaviour seems to suggest that her amygdala may have been stimulated, rather than scrambled; Daniels goes so far to suggest that her behaviour, her nightmares, her inappropriate reactions might stem from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) thanks to her horrific experiences at the Alliance's hands.

The brain is so exciting; it saddens me that TPTB don't take more time to research before hamming out fake facts while devoting so much time to the abstract facets of character and plot.

Inspired by:

Daniels, Bradley J. "'Stripping' River Tam's Amygdala". The Psychology of Joss Whedon.. 2007.

Firefly, Serenity and their characters are owned by Twentieth Century Fox.

"I'm a scientist! That's what we do!"

I just decided that I should elaborate upon the topic of my previous post.

The theme of science and technology versus natural forces is very old hat in terms of film and literature. We all know the plot progression by rote:

[1] Dastardly scientist creates something (creature, substance, virus, et cetera);
[2] Regardless as to whether the intentions of said scientist are good or evil, the potential consequences are ignored. It doesn't matter whether or not he should be doing what he is doing -- what matters is that he CAN do it, and by gourd he will!
[3] Everything backfires and spirals out of control;
[4] Many people die;
[5] Dastardly scientist's creation is thwarted, and the audience is force-fed the Hollywood moral that SCIENCE IS BAD.

These portrayals of course, leave us as an audience with a bitter taste against humans and their need to strive for technological and scientific advances. I know that when I was watching Cameron's Avatar, I sided with the nature-loving Na'vi and despised the humans for everything that they were doing. I hated the scientists in Jurassic Park (Crichton seems to explore this theme in many of his works, actually), in the Alien series, in Dark Angel and I could continue the list ad nauseum...

...But, I'm a scientist myself. Shouldn't I be biased in favour of my peers? The issue with Hollywood science is that it is demonized in its portrayal. The scientist is usually either a figure corrupt with greed or a bumbling, useless blob. Oh, and the scientist often has a toddler mentality of "Look what I can do with my SCIENCE! It has no purpose other than to prove that I can do it if I want to!" Take away the unlikely and unlikeable scientist, and the science itself cannot really be hated. There are more people in this world in favour of research to better our defenses against diseases and other biological threats than not -- only in the movies does this sort of work suddenly seem suspect and loaded with ulterior motives.

Though there are always some exceptions, my point is really just to say this:

Don't hate the science, folks. Hate those people [characters] who choose to abuse it.

This post was inspired by this blog entry and by this trope.

Oh, and the title of this post is from the film Bats and, though it is a perfect example to illustrate my point, it is a horrible movie. I do not recommend it in the least.

Update/Getting Back on Track

Time to call an end to this hiatus and get back into article-writing business. This blog's been on a break for the past few months while I've gotten my life together (performed some Shakespeare, sat my final, final exams, earned an honours degree in biomedical biology, all that sort of jazz).

Expect posting to resume this week.

In the meantime, here's a link to an interesting speculative blog post by Lindsay Ellis (Nostalgia Chick of thatguywiththeglasses.com fame) in which she discusses the "Science is bad" trope phenomenon in film:


Why did we have to play god and try to cure cancer?

Alice in Wonderland: the Movie, the Syndrome

I finally saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland last night and actually liked it better than I'd expected I would. I knew it was a good sign when I realized that my ticket print-out read Alice in Wonderland 3; it was then that I knew that the film was trying to be its own stand-alone story and not simply an adaptation of the books.

A perfect case of going to the movies with low expectations and not being disappointed.

This brings me to a discovery I made during my last bout of internet search engine-fueled hypochondria: Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

Ever wonder what it would feel like to be Alice, sometimes growing as tall as a house, other times shrinking smaller than a dormouse? People affected by Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) can suffer these sorts of distortions of their perceptions. They might wake up in the middle of the night to find that they feel like their arms and legs have been stretched out like spaghetti.


Though it is most commonly associated with body perceptions and dysmorphisms, perceptions of objects, and spaces might also be distorted (ie., your room suddenly seems too small or huge). Other modalities can also be affected: sounds might appear to be louder, or time might appear to be passing too quickly or too slowly.



It's been speculated that Lewis Carroll - the author of the popular Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There - actually suffered from this syndrome (he was known to suffer from migraines -- a condition commonly associated with AIWS), and worked his experiences into his stories. Personally, I find this much more interesting and plausible than the LSD theory (or rather, ergot, since LSD hadn't been developed yet).

To read more about AIWS, check out these links:

http://www.aiws.info/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A56993016

And some accounts of experiences of AIWS:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/feb/16/healthandwellbeing.familyandrelationships/print
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9f3w1/i_have_alice_in_wonderland_syndrome_aiws_ama/

Super-Saves!

First things first: I love the Big Bang Theory. I've only recently discovered it (though people have been telling me for years now that I would love this show) and am slowly working my way through its first season. Expect many BBT-related postings in the future; this will be the first.

This exchange (from Season One's "The Big Bran Hypothesis") caught my attention:



(If the video doesn't work, check out the clip here on youtube.com)

According to Sheldon, this famous save would never have been possible, since Superman's failure to conserve Lois Lane's momentum when he caught her would essentially kill her (though I don't imagine that his arms of steel would be sharp enough to chop her into three equal pieces; there would likely be something more like extensive crushing injuries involved).

This reminded me of another famed moment in superhero history: the death of Gwen Stacy. The exact same laws of physics apply to this situation--Gwen Stacy is falling from a bridge and, in an effort to save her, Spiderman (who, as a scientist himself, really should have known better) shoots a web that catches her ankle and arrests her fall. Though he did keep her from smashing into the ground, the abrupt way in which he had stopped her fall snapped her neck and killed her.



Physicist and professor Dr. James Kakalios explains it better than I ever could (Seriously, if you're even the slightest bit interested in the science of superheroes, check out his book "Physics of Superheroes". It's an interesting and entertaining read!).

Dr. Kakalios on the Death of Gwen Stacy

Let this be a lesson to all of you superheroes out there: if you want to save someone in free fall, match his or her speed, remember to conserve momentum, then decelerate. :)

Disclaimer:
The Big Bang Theory is owned by CBS; Spider-man is owned by Marvel Comics, and Superman is owned by DC Comics. No copyright infringement intended.

Site Update

Hello, all!

Just a minor site update, in case you've tried to visit this blog recently only to realize that your bookmark links to nowhere: I've changed the web-address of this blog to better suit its main theme. It shall henceforth be known as scienceonscreen.blogspot.com

Please note, however, that any questions, comments, or e-mails should still be sent to sciencebehindit@gmail.com

Have a happy Hump Day! :)