-This week, I watched Ron Underwood's Tremors (1990) starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. A link to the IMDb page can be found here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/?ref_=nv_sr_1

-This was an extremely ridiculous movie that exemplifies the late 80s and early 90s. "Graboids" attack the town and its up to 2 ridiculous Nevada cowboys to take care of these blind and tooth-filled creatures. This movie was comedic simply based on the ridiculousness of the movie. A cameo by Reba McEntire makes the whole film worth it in my opinion. My favorite scene is the ending when the graboid plummets to its death off the cliff. Tremors really captures old 50's monster movies. 5/10 stars.

-On to the science side of this film. These creatures known as graboids, is a fictional species of sand worm that is blind and lives underground. These creatures can move incredibly fast through the sand and use echolocation to  determine where it is. Not much thought was put into the name of these creatures because their tentacles "grab" its prey and bring it in. They have a reptilian appearance although they are worm and have tentacles. These creatures do not resemble any creature I have ever seen. Scientifically could they exist? I'm not too sure. They are said to weigh 10-20 tons. yet they are able to burrow faster than humans can run. Their diet consists of humans and cattle, and they would also need to eat quite a few calories to fuel their metabolism. But, they are unable to differentiate between the things they are eating, so they eat everything and then spit up whatever is not edible. This is not a very good evolutionary system. Tremors does not try to explain the creatures, but simply states that they are there. I was interested into how echolocation worked after watching this movie. It is an incredible process. I am however curious to how it would work while underground.

-This past week I watched Gareth Edward's Godzilla (2014) starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. A link to the IMDb page for this movie can be found here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0831387/?ref_=nv_sr_1

-This was a pretty entertaining movie.. when Godzilla was actually on the screen.
The majority of the movie is dialogue on how to stop the invading monsters, and then Godzilla makes cameos. It was a little different than other Godzilla movies in that this monster actually helped more than destroyed. Also Bryan Cranston dies way too early in the movie which is strange considering he's a top billed cast. My favorite scene is near the very end of the movie whenever Godzilla rips open one of the other creature's mouth and spits blue fire into the other creature's body, killing it. All in all, the movie was not terrific, but you got what you want with a monster movie. 6/10 stars.

-Now for the scientific side of this movie. Lets start with the basics of the monster. The movie alludes that Godzilla was formed from massive amounts of radiation to komodo dragons living in the pacific. This movie suggests that since the 1940s, one komodo dragon was able to grow extremely high. I was actually curious how tall Godzilla was actually supposed to be. He is suggested to be 355 feet tall. Which is impossible for the dimensions of this creature. It's legs far too skinny to support such massive height and weight. Godzilla supposedly weighs 90,000 tons... He would need 215 million calories in order to survive daily. The amount of food required to sustain his metabolism is impossible to consume. Now back to the radiation. There's no doubt that atomic bombs can cause genetic mutations. This was clearly seen after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings following WWII. But, it is not possible for a komodo dragon to grow hundreds of feet and thousands of pounds in just a few generations. Another thing to keep in mind is that there are physical constrains on natural selection. The trait must exist in an organisms gene pool in order for it to be mutated. This is the reason humans cannot have mutations like the X-men. I was curious to how radiation actually affects future generations. Further research would be interesting. But I'm certain that we won't be seeing a 355 foot tall monster destroying any cities anytime soon.

Evolution (2001)

This was a very comical movie that kept you laughing throughout the fictional plot. The basic premise of the movie is that a meteor crashes in a desert and lands in an underground cavern. After taking samples, they determine that its an extraterrestrial being that evolves very fast. This is pretty much where the science ends. They discover that the aliens evolve extremely fast and develop traits that were not already introduced into the genome. The first organisms they discover resemble flat worms and reproduce exponentially through mitosis. These organisms reproduce very fast, much faster than possible in real life. They are viewing one worm under a microscope and then another guy goes to view the worm and it already split into around 4 worms. This is a highly unlikely speed of reproduction. After returning to the cave only the next day, they find that the flat worms are also surrounded by fungi. One of the constraints on natural selection proposed by Darwin states that the trait that will be changed must already be in the organism. Or simply, a human could never produce claws like Wolverine, or shoot lasers from your eyes like Cyclops from the X-men comic. therefore, these round worms could not evolve so quickly into a different type organism. Soon, after returning to the cave, they find it teeming with life that resembles a rainforest. They discover that all the aleins are unable to breathe oxygen and is lethal to them. Soon, there are dinosaur-like creatures that are able to fly, but as one enters the oxygen, she dies, but as she dies she spits out an egg that hatches into another  alien dinosaur that is able to breathe oxygen. This almost supports a Lamarack idea that a trait influenced by the environment can be passed on to the next generation. This process would be much slower, but due to the increased evolutionary characteristics these aliens have, it makes sense that this would happen so fast. Eventually, the army steps in and ignites all the aliens with napalm. They then all combine to form a super large creature that resembles a giant flat worm. This creature is so large and would not be able to function metabolically. It would be unable to take in the amount of food necessary for all the metabolic reactions necessary for survival. They determine that the worm is most likely poisonous to selenium which is found in Head and Shoulders shampoo. They then in a funny way kill the alien with Head and Shoulders and save the day. In conclusion, the movie was entertaining, but did not show much scientific thought. The evolutions depicted in the movie were unlikely, and the mutations occurred extremely fast, almost never skipping a generation.