-This weeks movie was Kevin Reynolds' Waterworld (1995) starring Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Dennis Hopper. IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114898/?ref_=nv_sr_1
-What a strange movie. This was thought to make loads of money, but ended up flopping at the theaters and for good reason. This movie takes place in the future world where the polar ice caps melt and send the world into a huge you guessed it, water world. The Mariner, Kevin Costner, must rescue an orphan girl who will lead them to the "dryland" which is like the only piece of earth that isn't water. Along the way he faces people trying to kidnap her and take the dryland for themselves. This movie was not the greatest. 4/10.
-Evolutionary, it wasn't great either. I didn't mention before, but the Mariner has developed gills in order to swim without going up for air. We run into the same problem we had with the X-men. The Mariner is in fact a mutant, but he developed the gills based on need. One is simply not able to adapt based on need, as Dobzhansky said, "Natural selection is a blind, yet creative process." The gills would have had to randomly mutate before his actual need for them. This is a Lamarkian idea. He proposed that giraffe's necks were originally short and grew in length in order to reach the leaves high above them. This was proved wrong many many years ago, but Hollywood somehow missed the memo. We won't see any gills mostly likely on anyone very soon, unless you are Harry Potter and live in a magical world where evolution does not exist.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
-I recently watched Marc Forster's World War Z (2013) starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, and Daniella Kertesz. The IMDb link is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816711/?ref_=nv_sr_1
-This movie follows a man during the brink of total world collapse as a zombie pandemic attacks the entire world. He goes across the entire world trying to find a cure. He ends up injecting himself with a deadly pathogen, which keeps the zombies from attacking him since they only go for a healthy host. Although slightly far-fetched, this movie was very entertaining. I enjoyed the scene where he injects himself with the serum and walks face to face with the zombie and essentially walks through the entire facility unscathed. He uses a soda machine to bring all the zombies to him and walks right through them. Entertaining movie. 7/10
-Now for the evolutionary side of this movie. The movie faces the traditional "can zombies happen?" question. This movie has zombies that have un-human-like strength and speed. There is no way for a person to come back from the dead, however, like in the case of rabies, it could be transmitted to another host. This is very interesting to me and I did some research. So the zombies in the movie are attacking others so the virus will have another host. There exists a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that infects mice and has to be inside cats to reproduce. It works by making mice not afraid of cats so they will be eaten and therefore be able to reproduce. However, this is a parasite and a virus could be less likely to have this effect in humans. The zombies themselves are very intelligent. They are able to discern who is infected and who is not infected. That is very difficult for even a doctor who is not infected to discern. This would mean that the virus somehow gave them a special ability which is just not possible. The incubation time of the virus, (which is in the ballpark of 10 seconds in the movie) is unrealistic. Hold onto your pants, zombies won't be invading the world. Hopefully.
-This movie follows a man during the brink of total world collapse as a zombie pandemic attacks the entire world. He goes across the entire world trying to find a cure. He ends up injecting himself with a deadly pathogen, which keeps the zombies from attacking him since they only go for a healthy host. Although slightly far-fetched, this movie was very entertaining. I enjoyed the scene where he injects himself with the serum and walks face to face with the zombie and essentially walks through the entire facility unscathed. He uses a soda machine to bring all the zombies to him and walks right through them. Entertaining movie. 7/10
-Now for the evolutionary side of this movie. The movie faces the traditional "can zombies happen?" question. This movie has zombies that have un-human-like strength and speed. There is no way for a person to come back from the dead, however, like in the case of rabies, it could be transmitted to another host. This is very interesting to me and I did some research. So the zombies in the movie are attacking others so the virus will have another host. There exists a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that infects mice and has to be inside cats to reproduce. It works by making mice not afraid of cats so they will be eaten and therefore be able to reproduce. However, this is a parasite and a virus could be less likely to have this effect in humans. The zombies themselves are very intelligent. They are able to discern who is infected and who is not infected. That is very difficult for even a doctor who is not infected to discern. This would mean that the virus somehow gave them a special ability which is just not possible. The incubation time of the virus, (which is in the ballpark of 10 seconds in the movie) is unrealistic. Hold onto your pants, zombies won't be invading the world. Hopefully.
Monday, April 11, 2016
-Just watched: Matthew Vaughn's X-men First Class (2011) starring James McAvoy, Micheal Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence. the IMDb link can be found here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270798/?ref_=nv_sr_4
-Finally the X-men origin story we've all been waiting for. This was a solid movie chronicling the beginning of Xavier and Erik's friendship (AKA Professor X and Magneto). This movie was very entertaining and it was neat to see the mutants in another time period. The special effects have also come along way since the first X-men movie in 2001. The fighting scenes were very cool and the dialogue was well-scripted. You got what you ask for in this superhero movie. My favorite scene was when Magneto killed Shaw by forcing the Nazi coin into his brain. Great movie. 7/10 stars.
-X-men movies however hold little wait from an evolutionary aspect. For starters, most mutations are deleterious rather than beneficial. Almost every single on of the mutants possess an ability that helps rather than harms them. But first, I will address a character that is not scientifically accurate, which is odd considering his name is Darwin. His mutation allows him to adapt to any circumstance that he needs, ie he can grow gills to breathe under water. His adaptions are somewhat reminiscent of "survival of the fittest" which is not a Darwinian idea. The whole idea of mutants is actually a Lamarckian idea. The ability for an individual to develop mutations beneficial to them, the classic giraffe growing his neck to reach branches idea. We find this to be false because giraffes with long necks had better fitness than those with shorter necks and were able to survive. Another constraint of natural selection is gene variation. If the gene for say changing skin color like Mystique is not present in the population, it cannot pop up randomly. Unfortunately or fortunately, we will not see a Magneto-like mutant in our population. So no world domination due to mutants in the future.
-Finally the X-men origin story we've all been waiting for. This was a solid movie chronicling the beginning of Xavier and Erik's friendship (AKA Professor X and Magneto). This movie was very entertaining and it was neat to see the mutants in another time period. The special effects have also come along way since the first X-men movie in 2001. The fighting scenes were very cool and the dialogue was well-scripted. You got what you ask for in this superhero movie. My favorite scene was when Magneto killed Shaw by forcing the Nazi coin into his brain. Great movie. 7/10 stars.
-X-men movies however hold little wait from an evolutionary aspect. For starters, most mutations are deleterious rather than beneficial. Almost every single on of the mutants possess an ability that helps rather than harms them. But first, I will address a character that is not scientifically accurate, which is odd considering his name is Darwin. His mutation allows him to adapt to any circumstance that he needs, ie he can grow gills to breathe under water. His adaptions are somewhat reminiscent of "survival of the fittest" which is not a Darwinian idea. The whole idea of mutants is actually a Lamarckian idea. The ability for an individual to develop mutations beneficial to them, the classic giraffe growing his neck to reach branches idea. We find this to be false because giraffes with long necks had better fitness than those with shorter necks and were able to survive. Another constraint of natural selection is gene variation. If the gene for say changing skin color like Mystique is not present in the population, it cannot pop up randomly. Unfortunately or fortunately, we will not see a Magneto-like mutant in our population. So no world domination due to mutants in the future.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
-I recently watched Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and William Sylvester. Click below for a link of the IMDb page. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=nv_sr_3
-This movie follows several astronauts as they journey to Jupiter to discover a "monolith" that mysteriously popped up. Along the journey, there is a problem however, when their A.I. robot turns on them and leaves one stranded in space. Eventually, the main character shuts down the system and is able to escpape. The ship goes through a worm hole and aliens show him the beginning of life and eventually he is turned back into an embryo. This movie is a strange one. The best part of the movie to me is the memorable music. Bad special effects and lack of dialogue left a bad taste in my mouth. 5/10 stars.
-Although not your typical evolution movie, it does hold some evolutionary concepts in it. At the beginning, it shows 2 groups of apes. After the monolith appears on Earth, one group learns to use bones as weapons. This group is able to hunt better and has higher fitness. Although not entirely true, this is actually how natural selection works to an extent. Another scene sticks out to me. the very ending, the human "devolved" back into an embryo. Once again, alien technology has never been tested, but it goes out of the constraints of evolution for a human to revert to its embryonic form. However, this reminded me of an organism that essentially does this exact process. Turritopus dohrnii, or the immortal jellyfish has a process similar to this. The jellyfish start as larvae then gives rise to polyps that are on the sea floor. They then bud off and become sexually mature. Then, if the jellyfish experiences an environmental stress, or becomes sick or old, it can go back to the polyp stage and essentially repeat the entire process. It would be interesting to understand how the creature is able to do this from an evolution standpoint. Although this is very interesting, humans will most likely never be able to revert to their embryonic state once reaching maturity.
-This movie follows several astronauts as they journey to Jupiter to discover a "monolith" that mysteriously popped up. Along the journey, there is a problem however, when their A.I. robot turns on them and leaves one stranded in space. Eventually, the main character shuts down the system and is able to escpape. The ship goes through a worm hole and aliens show him the beginning of life and eventually he is turned back into an embryo. This movie is a strange one. The best part of the movie to me is the memorable music. Bad special effects and lack of dialogue left a bad taste in my mouth. 5/10 stars.
-Although not your typical evolution movie, it does hold some evolutionary concepts in it. At the beginning, it shows 2 groups of apes. After the monolith appears on Earth, one group learns to use bones as weapons. This group is able to hunt better and has higher fitness. Although not entirely true, this is actually how natural selection works to an extent. Another scene sticks out to me. the very ending, the human "devolved" back into an embryo. Once again, alien technology has never been tested, but it goes out of the constraints of evolution for a human to revert to its embryonic form. However, this reminded me of an organism that essentially does this exact process. Turritopus dohrnii, or the immortal jellyfish has a process similar to this. The jellyfish start as larvae then gives rise to polyps that are on the sea floor. They then bud off and become sexually mature. Then, if the jellyfish experiences an environmental stress, or becomes sick or old, it can go back to the polyp stage and essentially repeat the entire process. It would be interesting to understand how the creature is able to do this from an evolution standpoint. Although this is very interesting, humans will most likely never be able to revert to their embryonic state once reaching maturity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)