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! :)

Broccoli: Magical Miracle Food of Mystery

These have been plaguing commercial air-time a lot lately:

Commercial 1

Commercial 2


It seems to me that every cycle of months or so a new food is chosen and foisted onto the public for its miraculous benefits. It’s usually milk; not too long ago it was eggs.

Recently it’s been broccoli. Yep, broccoli - -the food that ranks highest next to Brussels sprouts and Lima beans on most kiddies’ list of icky foods (I personally love it as long as it isn’t raw). It makes you wonder – what exactly is so amazing about it? I mean, the adverts tout broccoli as containing “12 essential vitamins and minerals, all lovingly packed into these tiny green trees”… but since it can only throw so much information at you in a 30-second spot, it’s all pretty vague.

Now I checked out the website advertised on these commercials, hoping to find more information, but it’s just as vague, merely stating that broccoli earns top honours as a miracle food, and again reiterating that it contains twelve essential vitamins and nutrients (yes, but what ARE they?).

I began to get suspicious that no real research was done and that broccoli really was just some veggie paper slip arbitrarily pulled from a hat and launched to TV fame.

Here are the actual facts (at least as far as I could tell):

I searched around the net and through some scholarly journal articles, and I couldn’t pin down exactly what these twelve magical nutrients might be. At least some of them must include vitamin C, for which steamed broccoli has roughly 200% of the daily-recommended intake, vitamin K (195 %), Vitamin A (45%), folic acid (20%) and fibre (20%). These include antioxidants, which are great for destroying those pesky free radicals that contribute to premature aging.

This article also states that “scientists” have proven that eating broccoli will prevent cardiovascular disease and strokes, but they don’t site a source. If I’ve ever learned anything, it’s that one should always read the primary source material – there’s too much risk for misinterpretation.

One thing that I noticed was that no one mentioned the risks of eating broccoli. Oh? You thought that broccoli was about as innocuous as a hamster? Too much of anything can be harmful, and too much broccoli can cause…goiters.

This...is a goiter.

Of course, you’re only really running a risk of a goiter if you already have a thyroid condition, or if you’re eating raw broccoli on a daily basis. If you are a massive broccoli fan, don’t panic: according to my Food and Disease Prevention professor, steaming, boiling or cooking broccoli destroys its goitrogenic properties.

Overall, I won't deny that broccoli is a nutritious food, but I will say that I am disappointed in the lack of information on the web to either support or negate the "Miracle Food" advertising that's been shoved into our faces. If you're going to tell us that something is good for us, at least tell us why.

Happy eating!

To find out more about broccoli, check out these links:

The Miracle Food

My Pyramid
Nutrition Data
World's Healthiest Foods: Broccoli
What are Goitrogens?
Broccoli Beats Heart Disease

Don't stand so close to me, brain stem.

If you've ever seen the show House M.D. before, you were probably automatically hooked by Dr. House (played by Hugh Laurie)'s miserable humour, and maybe even by the interesting cases that present each episode. This is actually one of the best medical shows out there because the differential process is actually shown (AKA no magic *poof!* and the doctors all automatically know the cause for a patient's ills), and the doctors aren't infallible -- they make mistakes, and plenty of 'em, before coming to a solution. That said, I was re-watching old episodes the other day, and this glaring mistake just really ground my nerves:

The episode is season five's "Social Contract" which gives us Nick, a book editor presenting with Phineas Gage-type behaviour (read up on this guy; his story is pretty interesting) in that he cannot inhibit his thoughts and thus uncontrollably "speaks his mind". After a few guesses and tests, they find out that:



What the what?

Last time I checked, the cingulate gyrus was nowhere near being dangerously close to the brainstem; if anything, the cingulate gyrus is a landmark structure that would be relatively easy to locate surgically. In the below image I've blocked out the relative locations of the cingulate gyrus (in pink) and the brain stem (in yellow). I've also circled in red the section of the brain that was highlighted on the screen in the episode, which corresponds roughly with the anterior cingulate.



As you can see, unless the neurosurgeon at Mercy happens to be Fred Flinstone hacking at sheet rock with a hammer and chisel, it would be fairly unlikely that he would come into contact with the brain stem while working on the cingulate gyrus, especially if it's the anterior cingulate (they're at completely different poles of the brain!).

Okay, so I do realize that it can be tricky to always get the medical terminology exactly right, and that all of this mumbo-jumbo is being thrown at the average viewer within the space of about forty or so minutes per episode, but the writers do have medical experts and fact checkers to consult, don't they? Or, you know, encyclopedias? Even a quick visit to the internet would have cleared this one up in a jiffy. For shame.

(References and disclaimers and all that jazz)

House M.D. is owned by Twentieth Century Fox.

Image source: Brain, medial view (Fancy colouration by me.)

Cummings JL. "Frontal-subcortical circuits and human behaviour". 1993. Archives of Neurology. 50(8): 873 - 880.

O'Driscoll K and JP Leach. ""No longer Gage": an iron bar through the head". 1998. British Medical Journal. 317(7174): 1673–1674.

Change in Direction

Hello Readers!

I've decided that this blog needs a wee bit more focus, rather than hopping spasmodically from one subject to the next. Since my other passions include film and television media, I'll be exploring the science behind what you see in your favourite TV series, or what you see on the silver screen -- in other words, how they do what they do (no, it's not all 'movie magic', folks) and what would not actually work in real life.

You might also notice the blog title changing a little bit more than necessary in the next little while. I'm fickle.

'Til then, Happy Interwebbing!

- Wittyscreenname

How to Win the Immunity Challenge

(Oh, if only we were ten years in the past – this blog title would have easily seemed much wittier and more pop culturally relevant.)

Cold and flu season is upon us, and this has many people reaching for any immune boost they can get, whether that means guzzling orange juice, or stocking up on multivitamins and Echinacea supplements. But what really helps, and what can actually be causing more harm than good to your body?

Vitamins
Firstly, it is important to remember that there are two main types of vitamin: water-soluble and fat-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins (Vitamins C and the B vitamins) are not stored in the body and are excreted when you pee; fat-soluble vitamins (Vitamins A, D, E, and K) are stored in your fat, which then gives a greater potential for toxicity as the vitamins build up in the body. Secondly, vitamin dosage differs according to the supplement that you take: how they are introduced into your body affects how it is metabolized, and mixing different vitamins can alter and even cancel their effects. So, before you reach for that bottle of extra-strength multivitamins, realize that you probably don’t even need them.

Every vitamin does have its benefits and risks. As a general rule, unless your doctor prescribes a vitamin to you to help with a deficiency, the only vitamin that you should take therapeutically is vitamin C because the chances of overdose are very slim.

Vitamin C works to give a boost to your white blood cells, and it is a powerful antioxidant. What you might not have known is that this vitamin also helps in the formation of collagen, which is key in the formation of your bones, cartilage, muscle, and blood vessels; vitamin C also maintains your capillaries, bones, teeth, and aids in the absorption of iron. The most significant reserve of vitamin C is in your adrenal glands, which is why you might find that you’re more likely to get the sniffles when you’re stressing over exams or when you’re starting up a strenuous exercise routine.

If you don’t want to take supplements, you can grab your vitamin C from citrus fruits, kiwis, strawberries, spinach, broccoli, and tomatoes.

Echinacea
Echinacea is probably the most popular herbal supplement to protect against and shorten the duration of colds, and it has been shown to do exactly that. There are a few different forms of Echinacea, from capsules, chewable tablets, and drops, but there really isn’t a huge difference between any of them, and your choice is more a matter of personal preference. I’ve heard somewhere before that taking Echinacea regularly can cause infertility, but I have not found anything in my research to suggest that this is true. Most papers do suggest, though, that you shouldn’t take Echinacea for more than three weeks at a time, and that it is most effective if you start taking it as soon as you feel that you’re about to get a cold. The biggest risk can be an allergic reaction, and taking too much can cause abdominal pains, nausea, and other general feelings of ugh.

Water and Sleep
Above all, I’ve always personally sworn by water and sleep as a remedy for any minor ailment. The reasons are simple: your body needs sleep to relax and recover, and losing sleep or sleeping irregularly can throw a major wrench into your immune works. It is super important then to try to get at least eight hours of sleep and to follow a relatively regular schedule. As soon as you start flip-flopping between early nights and all-nighters, even if you’re getting the same number of hours of sleep, your body begins to get run down and you’ll be less able to fight off illness.

Water is another obvious choice in terms of staying healthy. We know of course that our bodies are made up largely of water, especially in terms of our blood and lymph systems – the systems most responsible for our immune functions. Water helps us to flush out toxins and other wastes, and so can help us wash out those nasty bugs in our systems (many viral and bacterial infections that hang out in the mouth and throat take a few hours to a few days before you start feeling symptoms, so keeping hydrated and drinking hot beverages such as tea will help to wipe them out before they proliferate). Also, water is required for the formation of the hormones serotonin and melatonin, which work to keep you happy and help you to sleep well.

So relax, rest up, and hydrate to defend yourself against whatever nasty germs this season has to throw at you – especially if, like me, you’re stuck inside public transit and small classrooms, elbow-to-elbow with hacking, gacking, sneezing, coughing, nose-dripping sick-bags. Hurray! The joys of being a university student.

(Don’t just take my word for it – I’ve got references!)

Douglas RM, Hemila H. "Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold." 2005. PLoS Med. 2(6): e168.

Hemila H. "Vitamin C and common cold incidence: a review of studies with of subjects under heavy physical stress." 1996. Int. J. Sports Med., 17(5): 379 - 383.

Linde K, Barrett B, Wolkart K, Bauer R, and Melchart D. "Echinacea for preventing and treating the common cold." 2006. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 1: CD000530.

"Nutrient information: Vitamin C". United States Department of Agriculture - Centre for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Accessed 02 January 2010. <http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov/Nutrient_Desc.asp?Nutrient=VitaminC>