Biology in Science Fiction

Rogue Farm

2009-07-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

Now here's a strange tale by Charles Stross that you can listen to at Escape Pod: Rogue Farm. It's a good listen if you like surreal bioengineering, a pot-smoking dog, and, of course, a rogue farm. It also has a nice reference to the fantastic genetic engineering found in Niven's known space.

A taste:

“Buggerit, I don’t have time for this,” Joe muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn’t getting any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing out. It wasn’t a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage – the big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label.

“What do you want with us?” he yelled up at the gently buzzing farm.

“Brains, fresh brains for baby Jesus,” crooned the farm in a warm contralto, startling Joe half out of his skin. “Buy my brains!” Half a dozen disturbing cauliflower shapes poked suggestively out of the farms’ back then retracted again, coyly.

“Don’t want no brains around here,” Joe said stubbornly, his fingers whitening on the stock of the shotgun. “Don’t want your kind round here, neither. Go away.”

Listen to "Rogue Farm".

Tags:science fiction, genetic engineering, free fiction

Hollywood, Science, and Unscientific America

2009-07-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

As those of you who are regular readers of The Intersection are aware, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum's recently published book, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future, takes a look at how American culture influences science literacy (or the lack thereof). There has been a lot of controversy (at least in blogland) about some of the content, particularly in the authors' suggestions as to what scientists could and should do in promoting science to the public. Discussing the science in fiction is my whole reason for blogging here, so I was particularly interested in what Unscientific America had to say about science and Hollywood*.

As the chapter points out, the way that Hollywood portrays science is often egregiously bad and the way it portrays scientists is almost always negative. Because most of the public has little exposure to either quality discussions of science** or interaction with actual scientists, what people see on the big or little screen negatively influences their perception. I can't argue with any of that.

Mooney and Kirshenbaum point out that part of the problem is that many filmmakers consider scientific accuracy to get in the way of telling an entertaining story.

But throughout the industry, there is certainly a sense that science is inimical to storytelling, that it quashes creativity, which must be allowed to breathe. As screenwriter and ScienceDebate2008 founder Matthew Chapman explained about some of his fellow writers; "among the less talented, there's I think a kind of inherent prejudice against science, because science means being rational, and being rational is considered the opposite of being creative –– whereas fantasy, superstition, magic, all of these more child-like ways of looking at life, are somehow thought to be what the creative process is about."

I suspect that the large number of actors and Hollywood trend setters who embrace pseudoscience and New Age-style magical thinking adds to the problem. See, for example, quantum physics woo in What the (Bleep) Do We Know!, the quackery and pseudoscience promoted on the Hollywood-connected Huffington Post, stars drinking magical Kabbalah water, and so on. Of course not every screenwriter, actor, and director in the film and television industry is anti-science, but those who are make up at least a significant minority.

But Mooney and Kirschenbaum go a step further and claim that part of the problem is that science and storytelling that is based on the laws of nature is inherantly boring to most people.

The problem for science in this context is that the technical facts it furnishes can rarely hold the attention of non-scientists – and anyone who has watched presentations at a scientific conference knows why.

and

Such science-centrism simply won't work for the broader, non-scientist population. It ignores their compelling need not to be bored. Successes like March of the Penguins notwithstanding, most of the time people need to see and hear stories about other people, or about animals that are given human attributes, as in Disney-Pixar films.

Are scientists really all pushing for Hollywood to produce technical documentaries rather than fictional tales? I haven't heard or read such an arguments. Sure there is a lot of discussion of where the science in fiction goes wrong - right here among other places. But that's not a demand that Hollywood should stop making entertaining films - the vast majority of scientists that I know can both suspend disbelief and critique the silly science they've been watching. That's why the LSC movie series is such an institution at MIT: hard-core geeks and nerds enjoy watching summer blockbusters as much as they enjoy picking them apart (and shouting "LSC...sucks", of course). It's all part of the fun.

Personally, I don't get particularly annoyed at bad science unless it either does nothing to serve the plot – for example, the scientist in Red Planet naming the DNA bases A, G, T, and P (rather than C) – or if the writer or director has made a big fuss about how science-based their movie. A couple of recent examples of the latter are the TV series Eleventh Hour and M. Knight Shayamalan's The Happening. If you claim you are basing your show on science, I'm going to hold it to a higher standard. On the other hand, the outrageous science on Fringe doesn't bother me because that's the whole point of the series. And sure, I'm going to write about where they get it wrong, but that doesn't mean I think they should be doing things differently.

Anyway, the only example of a narrow minded entertainment-hating scientist that Unscientific America comes up is bioscience popularizer and unapologetic atheist Richard Dawkins:

And some scientists will also have to get over the idea that everyone ought to be as captivated by the intricacies of science as they are. "The natural world is fascinating in its own right," Oxford's Richard Dawkins has stated. "It really doesn't need human drama to be fascinating." He even reported told the New York Times that he wondered why Jurassic Park required a cast that included human beings –– after all, it already had dinosaurs.

Now, I looked up the 1998 New York Times story that that quote was pulled from, and from the way I read it, I would take what Dawkins is reported to have said with a big grain of salt. You see, the article is actually about a series of panel discussions hosted by the Sloan Foundation, which included Hollywood directors and producers and scientists. There was much disagreement and at one point the discussion "degenerated into a raucous name-calling exchange." It was at an interview after this meeting that Dawkins "wondered why ''Jurassic Park'' had to have any people in it at all when it had dinosaurs." I don't think it's far-fetched to think that he might have been speaking out of annoyance or less than completely seriously - something we can't judge because the article gives no context for Dawkins' paraphrased comment.

And no matter what Dawkins did say, he certainly isn't the spokesman for all scientists, or even all biologists. I'm disappointed that Unscientifc America indulges in the same sort of negative stereotyping of scientists that pop culture does. And maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the suggestion seems to be that scientists should not comment on or complain about "minor" scientific inaccuracies, because, well, just because:

Yet in marshaling scientific complaints against the entertainment industry, it's important to consider what really matters and what doesn't. Any specialist – a historian, say, or an anthropologist – is prone to get ticked off if a film or TV drama makes a mistake about his or her field. [ . . . ] So how worried should we really be if an inaccuracy or implausibility sips into a film to serve the plot or to satisfy audience expectations – if, say, Star Wars shows fiery explosions in space? Probably not very.

Again, I don't really get it. It's not as if scientists aren't filing formal complaints with the movie studios or organizing boycotts because of science bloopers. Talking or writing about where the movies go wrong harms no one (except maybe thin-skinned filmmakers) and actually can be an entertaining way to start a discussion about real science. And I'm not convinced that having more realistic space battles in Star Wars would have made it less entertaining.***

Anyway, they do have some suggestions that the "scientific community" can take to try to improve the depiction of science and scientists in films and television:

- First off, as noted above, scientists have to understand that people want to be entertained by the movies, which should include both drama and people. This is where scientists who are also science fiction writers can play a major role, since they are already familiar with the difficulties of balancing the science with the fiction to tell a compelling story. But as I noted above, there are many scientists who are great movie fans too, and who wouldn't have any trouble with the idea that telling a story requires some suspension of disbelief.

- Next, get to know the right people in Hollywood, and know them well:

Science consultants can have an impact on the scientific content in a film's script, on its set design, on its sound effects. In general, they are invited on board by those at the head of film projects –– directors, producers –– and their influence is proportionate to the closeness of their relationship to that leader.

The key is developing "relationships with important players and learn how to serve them to further shared goals, rather than merely issuing criticism and denunciation." There are, in fact, already number of scientists who already act as advisors for movies and TV shows, so that's clearly doable.

But I think criticism is important too, since bad science sometimes can't be helped – the superpowered "mutants" in X-Men, for example, aren't going to called anything different. The scientific community is not monolithic, and so it makes that some will be included to work with Hollywood from the inside, while others will be more comfortable critiquing Hollywood from the outside. There's no reason why there can't be doing scientists doing both, unless producers and directors are so sensitive to negative comments that any criticism will turn them away from attempting to accurately portray the functioning of the universe.

- Finally, scientists must realize, they may be called for advice on too late to make any substansive changes:

By the time a science consultant arrives on the scene to work on a project, many things such as plotline, cast, and budget are usually already agreed upon, and a script has likely been written, at least in draft form. Given all of this, any effective science consultant or adviser will be acutely aware of the realities and constraints of filmmaking and will work with them, rather than trying to overturn them.

And "factual accuracy" is the first thing to go when a movie is being made:

Dawkins and some other scientists fail to grasp that in Hollywood, the story is paramount –– that narrative, drama, and character development will trump mere factual accuracy every time, and by a very long shot. Either science will align itself with these overweening objectives or it will literally get flattened by the drive for profit.

I find it a bit disturbing that they are suggesting that scientists should ignore "mere factual accuracy" to get an "in" in Hollywood. Science consultants shouldn't be the ones worrying about profit - that's the job of the filmmakers. I don't think anyone should be surprised if their suggestions for scientific accuracy are sometimes ignored, but that doesn't mean that those suggestions shouldn't be made. If factual accuracy is completely off the table, what's the point in being a science advisor?

It all sounds a bit hopeless, at least from the perspective of an individual who doesn't have any Hollywood connections or much spare time to build personal relationships with filmmakers. That's where The Science and Entertainment Exchange comes in - it should be a useful mediator between scientists interested in Hollywood and filmmakers interested in science.

So overall, I think Unscientific America does make useful points about how science is portrayed by Hollywood. However, I don't think it's helpful that the book portrays most scientists as clueless joykillers who can't enjoy a less-than-documentarian movie, or that it suggests scientists should stop criticizing science in the movies. And yes, I took it a bit personally, because discussing bad science in science fiction is much of what this blog is about. I think it's worthwhile, not in small part because I've gotten comments from people who stumbled in here looking for information about whether the science in their favorite movie or TV show is "real". I'm glad I could give them the information they were looking for.

And if you are still reading, you might want to check out some of the other posts that have discussed the "Hollywood and the Mad Scientists" chapter of Unscientific America:

Stephanie Zvan @ Quiche Moraine has an excellent post: "Mere Factual Accuracy"

"Setting up story and accuracy as a dichotomy also ignores the richness that accuracy can add to a story. In fact, whole stories can be built from closely observed detail."
Janet Stemwedel @ Adventures in Ethics and Science: "Book review: Unscientific America"

"It struck me, while reading this book, that the root problem here is no fundamental flaw in the American character, but a capitalist system that squeezes out spaces for things that are not expected to sell widely for the lowest costs to produce. Science is brimming with complexities. Explaining it, understanding it, takes time and effort. But if the news media and Hollywood (and politics, too) are harbingers of doom for a scientific America, it makes it seem just as likely to me that a long term solution will involve replacing extreme capitalism with something different. Show me the alternative and the plan to implement it, and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and help."
PZ Myers @ Pharyngula has a scathing review: "Unscientific America: How Scientiric Illiteracy Threatens Our Future"
and
Chris Mooney @ The Intersection replies: "PZ Myers vs. Unscientific America"
(Note that PZ and Chris don't agree on anything, PZ was called out in the book, and there's a fair amount of animosity between them, so the comments reflect that.)

~~I think all the Scienceblogs.com bloggers got review copies~~, A number of Scienceblogs.com bloggers have also reviewed Unscientific America, so you can read more about the book as a whole over there.

--------

* The chapter titled "Hollywood and the Mad Scientists" is the only one I've read so far, so I can't comment on the rest of the book.

** It's unfortunately true that a lot of the reporting of science in the news media is really really really bad (click the links for examples just from this month).

*** But then I'm one of those freaks who thinks showing women having a conversation about something other than than boys, weddings or babies can be entertaining too, so what do I know?

Tags:science fiction, Unscientific America

The Human Genre Project

2009-07-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

One of the most unique offerings at SciFiction is Michael Swanwick's "Periodic Table of Science Fiction", which has a short short story linked to each element in the periodic table. It starts with "The Hindenburg" for Hydrogen (atomic number 1) and continues all the way through "Now You See It Now You" for Ununoctium (atomic number 118). I don't think it's surprising that some of the bits work better than others, but it's a clever concept.

Inspired by Swanwick, Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod, writer in residence at The Genomics Forum, has has put together The Human Genre Project. It looks like each of the 22 autosomal and X and Y chromosomes can have more than one entry. That's appropriate, since each carries multiple genes, and can affect many different human characteristics.

It's a work in progress - only 7 of the chromosomes have an entry - and you can still submit a contribution inspired by genes and genomics. If you need inspiration, you can explore each chromosome using the Human Genome Project's Chromosome Viewer.

If you don't want to scroll over each chromosomal image to find the stories, you can just use the Index of Human Genre Project stories by author.

Also, you can read the winners of the Genomics Network's short story competition, which aren't so much science fiction as fiction with science.

(via SF Signal)

Tags:science fiction, genomics, genetics

Strange Nature: From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7

2009-07-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today's free fiction:

American SF author Nnedi Okorafor's "From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7" explores the surreal far-future Forbidden Greeny Jungle in the form of a field journal. I especially like how the story has been enhanced with audio entries and links to the jungle's Field Guide.

Read or listen to "From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7" at Clarkesworld Magazine.

Tags:science fiction, natural history

"Is Darwinism Too Good for SF?" panel at Readercon

2009-07-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

Robert Sawyer, guest blogging for Borders, writes about an upcoming panel at Readercon in Boston that asks "Is Darwinism Too Good for SF?"* The panelists will be Jeff Hecht (science writer, primarily about lasers and optics and occasional SF writer), Caitlin Kiernan (primarily a horror writer with a background in vertebrate paleontology), Anil Menon (SF writer with background in computer science), James Morrow (SF writer who often satirizes organized religion), Steven Popkes (SF writer and software engineer) and Sawyer (whose Neanderthal trilogy does touch on evolutionary themes). I hope I'm mistaken, but the panel seems dominated by people who likely don't know much about modern biology. When SF panels focus on physics it seems that physicists usually participate, so it's a shame they couldn't find more panelists with a biology background.

Anyway, here's the description:

This year marks the sesquicentennial of the publication of The Origin of Species and the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth. Considering the importance of the scientific idea, there has been surprisingly little great sf inspired by it. We wonder whether, in fact, if the theory has been too good, too unassailable and too full of explanatory power, to leave the wiggle room where speculative minds can play in. After all, physics not only has FTL and time travel, but mechanisms like wormholes that might conceivably make them possible. What are their equivalents in evolutionary theory, if any?

It's an interesting question and Sawyer is asking for comments and suggestions. Here's the comment I left:

I don't think that comparing FTL and time travel are really analogous to evolutionary theory (which - the former are primarily technologies while the latter is an explanation of how the natural world works. Evolution should be as much a part of good world building as gravitation.

That being said, in the science fiction context I think there are multiple ways evolutionary theory can be used, such as stories that look at our evolutionary descendants in the far future (Wells' "The Time Machine", Silverberg's "Son of Man"), alternative evolution on Earth (Wilson's "Darwinia", Harrison's "West of Eden"), and evolution on other planets (Niven & Pournelle's "Mote in God's Eye", Blish's "A Case of Conscience").

I'd also argue that evolutionary theory is so tightly intertwined with modern genetics that human-directed evolution using genetic engineering should also be included (Atwood's "Oryx and Crake", Kagan's "Mirabile" ). I'd wager those are more realistic than FTL travel.

That's off the top of my head - there are certainly other novels that should be included in the list.

Go add your own suggestions.

* I really hate the panel title. I don't want novels with "Darwinism", I want novels with modern evolutionary theory. "Darwinism" is what the creationists call it.
Tags:science fiction, biology

Summer and Science Fiction

2009-07-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, the summer is really flying by. I've been having a very nice bit of a holiday, topped by an excellent 4th of July BBQ: good friends, tasty food, cold beer and sitting by the pool discussing time travel paradoxes. I could do that every day, but alas, that's not possible. But what I can do is spend some of the cool evening hours reading stories by some new (or new to me) SF authors, and when I find stories available online I can share them with you.

To start, here's a short tale by Australian SF writer Ian McHugh featuring whales and prions and aliens:

The biology is fanciful - it's not known whether whales are susceptible to prion diseases, and the singing whale theme has a whiff of Star Trek IV about it, but it's got a unique twist.

And music has indeed been made based on the three-dimensional structure of biological molecules. Listen to human growth hormone. It's not much like humpback whale song, but it's nice.

Image: Human prion protein PDB structure 1i4m (Knaus KJ et al. " Crystal structure of the human prion protein reveals a mechanism for oligomerization." Nat Struct Biol 8:770-774) (2001)
Tags:science fiction, prions

Nerd-in-Chief Grilled on SF

2009-06-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

John Hodgman grills President Obama, the apparent nerd-in-chief, about his SF knowledge at the Radio & Television Correspondents Dinner.

If you can't see the embedded video, click the link for Part 1 and Part 2.

(I thought the Dune questions were easy, but about Conan I know nothing)

Tags:science fiction, Barak Obama, John+Hodgman

Astronomy Science Fiction: Now with Biology!

2009-06-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

When the subject of science in science fiction comes up, it seems like many people immediately think of physics and astronomy and, of course, astrophysics. That's not particularly surprising - from its early beginnings SF has featured exploration of other planets, stars and the vast spaces between them.

The short story anthology Diamonds in the Sky is an excellent continuation of that tradition. Edited by science fiction writer and astronomer Mike Brotherton, and funded in part by the National Science Foundation, each story in the anthology features a particular aspect of astronomy and includes an afterword about the science. And, being biased towards my own science background, it's nifty that several of the stories have some biology in them too.

So here are links to those stories, with a wee bit about their relevance to bioscience.

The Moon is a Harsh Pig by Gerald M. Weinberg
Astronomy topics: Phases of the Moon, Misconceptions about Astronomy
Biology topic: Effect of the moon on behavior.
Additional reading: Pull of the Moon: Tales of the Moon's effects on animal behaviour are not just moonshine"

Jaiden's Weaver by Mary Robinette Kowal
Astronomy topic: Planetary Rings
Biology topic: life on a ringed planet

Squish by Daniel M. Hoyt
Astronomy topic: The Solar System
Biology topic: Uploading consciousness into new bodies.
Additional reading: my old post on Charlie Stross's short story "Lobsters" (which also has a bit of astronomy)

Approaching Perimelasma by Geoffrey A. Landis
Astronomy topic: Black Holes
Biology topic: Effect of black holes on the body
Additional information: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on "Death by Black Hole" (YouTube)

To read all the stories, download the Diamonds in the Sky anthology.

Image from Alexander Jamieson: 'A Celestial Atlas Comprising a Systematic Display of the Heavens in a Series of Thirty Maps' (via BibliOdyssey)
Tags:science fiction, biology, astronomy

Gregory Benford on our Dynamist Biological Century

2009-06-09T02:41:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through some of the reprinted (if that's the right word) articles and fiction on the Fantasy & Science Fiction web site, and came across an interesting article by SF author/astrophysicist Gregory Benford about SF and science futurism. It was originally published in the October/November 1999 issue of F&SF in anticipation of the dawning of the 21st century, and so looks at science futurism of both the past and the present.

One of the interesting concepts the contrast between "stasist" ideology of the past and "dynamist" future. The terminology was originally invented by Virginia Postrel in her 1998 book The Future and Its Enemies. As she has explained, the concept applies primarily to politics; particularly where it intersects with science, art, and innovation :

On one side of the new political landscape you have what I call "stasists." They view the future as a dangerous abyss. To avoid the abyss, some stasists want a return to some imagined, more stable past. These stasists would include such people as Pat Buchanan and Jeremy Rifkin, or the anti-technology activist Kirkpatrick Sale, who goes around smashing computers to illustrate his speeches. Other stasists want to build a safe "bridge" to the future. They want to control the future. You get a lot of that among politicians. In either case, stasists first decide the one best future for everyone and then they work to impose it.

On the other side of the new political landscape are what I call "dynamists." They see the future as an exciting process of experimentation and learning. That process has many different outcomes, for different people. There isn't "one best way." Dynamists celebrate such open-ended processes as scientific inquiry, market competition, artistic innovation, or technological invention. So they include people like Freeman Dyson, writing about science; or Tom Peters, looking at business innovation; or Stewart Brand, writing about How Buildings Learn; or the whole Wired crowd. Henry Petroski's book The Evolution of Useful Things has some great examples and ideas about the dynamics of invention. Dynamists tend to be less overtly political than stasists, because they aren't trying to grab government power to impose their ideas. But their vision—especially of the economy as a process—increasingly affects our politics.

Benford points out that rapidly advancing biotechnology and increasing computer power will be the driving force behind a dynamist 21st century.

Clearly the TwenCen has been the century of physics, just as the nineteenth was that of mechanics and chemistry. Grand physical measures still beckon. We could build a sea-level canal across Central America, explore Mars in person, use asteroidal resources to uplift the bulk of humanity. Siberia could be a fresh frontier, better run by American metaphors than the failed, top-down Russian ones. . (In fact, the U.S. is the only power that knows how to build and run a frontier. Siberia would be a natural for us.) Our world will continue to be shaped by new physics-based technologies.
But that won't be where the main action lies.
Biological analogies will probably shape much political thinking to come. Though the converging powers of computers and biology will give us much mastery, how such forces play out in an intensely cyber-quick world will be unknowable, arising from emergent properties, not stasist plans.
[. . . snip . . .]
I've argued before that the 21st century will be the Biological Century. We will gain control of our own reproduction, cloning and altering our children. Genetic modification is surely a dynamist agenda, for the many mingled effects of changed genes defy detailed prediction. Although the converging powers of computers and biology will give us much mastery, how such forces play out in an intensely cyber-quick world are unknowable, arising from emergent properties, not detailed plans.

Or as he put it more simply:

Sf sides with futures run not by Wellsian savant technocrats but by the masses, innovating from below and running their own lives, thank you very much.

Now, ten years later, biotech "innovations from the masses" are slow in coming, but groups like DIYbio and other amateur biohackers may make it a reality in the near future. The 21st century is still young, and advances tend to come in fits and starts.

For example: the essay is interspersed with science news snippets from the future. Most are of the purely science fictional variety ("Startup Biotech Firm Rolls Out Living Bath Mat"), but a decade after the essay's publication it's clear that science fact sometimes outpaces fiction. One science story snippet describes a consortium of labs that are rushing to complete the Honeybee Genome Project in 2020. The reality? The first draft of the honey bee genome sequence was actually released in 2003.

In another decade we will have decoded the sequences from a whole zoo's worth of different critters.

Who knows what the biohackers will have come up with by then?

Read "A Scientist's Notebook" by Gregory Benford

Image (top): "Test Tube Baby" by moyix on Flickr
Image (bottom): Bee photo by me
Tags:science fiction, biology

Who owns your DNA?

2009-06-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

"There is no question we have a problem," Dr. Bellarmino said, not looking at his notes. He had memorized his testimony so he could deliver it while facing the television cameras, for greater impact. "Gene patents by industry post a significant problem for future research. on the other hand, gene patentintg by academic researchers causes far less concern, since the work is freely shard."

Of course this was nonsense. Dr. Bellarmino did not mention that the distinction between academic and industry workers had long since been blurred. Twenty percent of academic researchers were paid by industry. Ten percent of academics did drug development. More than 10 percent had a product already on the market. More than 40 percent had applied for patents in the course of their careers.

Nor did Bellarmino mention that he, too, pursued gene patents aggressively.

~ Next by Michael Crichton (2006)

Michael Crichton isn't shy about infusing his novels with his personal opinions about science and scientists. His 2006 novel Next, for example, takes aim at the practice of patenting of DNA sequences or gene patents. As Crichton pointed out in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, such gene patents aren't just an annoyance. They can end up preventing patients form getting the genetic tests they need and squelching biomedical research. As he put it:

Gene patents slow the pace of medical advance on deadly diseases. And they raise costs exorbitantly: a test for breast cancer that could be done for $1,000 now costs $3,000. Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does. Couldn’t somebody make a cheaper test? Sure, but the patent holder blocks any competitor’s test. He owns the gene. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you can’t even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without permission. The gene may exist in your body, but it’s now private property.

Crichton mentions proposed legislation that would prohibit the patenting of "human genetic material". That bill, the "Genomic Research and Accessibility Act", apparently never made it out of committee. However, a couple of weeks ago, the ACLU, professional groups representing more than 150,000 scientists and several breast cancer survivors filed suit against Myriad Genetics over their breast cancer gene patents. Their monopoly over mutated versions of the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 has become a significant hardship for anyone who wants to find out whether they have inherited these DNA sequences that can lead to breast and ovarian cancer.

[Myriad] charges $3,000 per test, which often isn’t covered by insurance. No one else can offer the test, and researchers can’t develop new or cheaper ones (or new therapies for that matter) unless they get permission from Myriad and pay a steep licensing fee. So women have no choice about who performs their tests, and they can’t seek those second opinions. That is no small thing. Tests aren’t 100 percent accurate, and results sometimes come back inconclusive. Women with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations have a 40 to 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer, so a positive result helps them decide whether to have their breasts and ovaries removed to prevent future cancer. But with its lawsuit, the ACLU isn’t just fighting Myriad’s patent—it hopes to end the practice of gene patenting entirely on the grounds that it’s illegal, unconstitutional, and interfering with science.

As Rebecca Skloot discusses in her article about the suit, the ACLU is claiming that gene patents violate the patent law that say no products of nature can be patented*. They are also claiming that such patents inhibit individuals' First Amendment rights "to know about their own genetic makeup, doctors’ rights to provide their patients with crucial medical information, and scientists’ rights to study the human genome and develop new treatments and genetic tests." If the ACLU prevails, it could have significant implications for the biotech industry.

Not surprisingly, science fiction has been grappling (toying?) with the issue of patents for many years. You can even get a patent-related SF fix for free:

Listen to a reading of Nancy Kress's "Patent Infringement" at Escape Pod, in which a patient confronts a biotech company that has used his tissue to develop a patented sequence for gene therapy.
Read "The Professional Approach" by "Leonard Lockard" - the pen name of Charles Leonard Harness (who was both a patent attorney and SF writer) and Theodore Lockhard Thomas. You can also listen to the story at LibriVox. This is organic chemistry fiction with some hardcore patent prosecution.

And remember to be careful who you share your tissue with!

Tags:science fiction, gene patents

Can You Identify This Story involving a Cat-human Chimera?

2009-06-01T22:34:00.000-07:00

I got a query from a reader about identifying a story:

Here are the elements I remember about the story (some of which may be wrong). It was about a human (woman I think) who brought home a cat that had been used in biomedical research. The cat was a cat- human chimera, with some human mental capabilities. I think she obtained the cat when it was retired from research. I don't remember what if anything "happened" in the story - I just remember the intense and haunting psychological relationship she developed with the cat. I think the story won an award (I think I read it in a Best SFF of 19xx collection).

She also says she read it a few years ago on the web.

It doesn't ring any bells for me. Can any of you readers help?

Tags:science fiction, biology

The X-Change Files

2009-06-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

As I posted about last fall, The Science & Entertainment Exchange (TS&EE) is a National Academy of Sciences-sponsored program that aims to connect scientists and engineers with film and television industry types. Now they've added a blog to their site - the X-Change Files - that discusses science and Hollywood fiction. What makes it unique is that the contributors provide a pretty good mix of science and entertainment industry perspectives: Jennifer Ouellette is director of TS&EE and a long-time science writer, Lawrence Krauss and Sidney Perkowitz are physicists as well as popular science writers, Matt Partney is a writer for CSI: Miami, and Jerry Zucker is a producer (along with his wife Janet), director (Ghost), and writer (notably part of the team that wrote Airplane! *). The blog is still getting off the ground, but it looks like it should be interesting. As Jerry Zucker wrote:

The really great thing about these scientists is that because their brains are exactly two-and-a-half times the size of the average person’s in the movie business (although in fairness, that also includes talent agents), they are actually more creative and therefore much better at coming up with science-related ideas for movies than our so-called “creative community.” I don’t mean to offend anyone but as much as I loved Slumdog Millionaire, it’s no Viagra. Often, science gets tacked on like wallpaper in a story, but when it’s really integrated into the narrative it can take things in surprising new directions. And thanks to the Exchange and the National Academy of Sciences, research just became much more fun.

It will be interesting to see what will come of it.

---

* A confession: Airplane! has always held a special place in my heart, mostly because it so accurately portrayed my own occasional drinking problem.
Tags:The Science and Entertainment Exchange

Science of the Movies Series Begins Tonight

2009-05-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Science of the Movies is a new series on The Science Channel that takes an in-depth look at how special effects in the movies are created. From the episode guide, it doesn't look like there will be much about actual science. There will be lots of nifty technology, though. It looks like it should be fun to watch.

Science of the Movies is on Tuesday nights at 9pm on the Science Channel. (If you, like me, have never even heard of The Science Channel, check the high numbers of the cable channels you receive. On my TV it's channel 191.)

Tags:special effects, science

Do you know where your towel is?

2009-05-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

It is an important and popular fact thatthings are not alwasys what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, many had always asumed that he was mor intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was much about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.
~ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)

If you happen to see someone walking down the street this afternoon wearing nothing but a towel, Don't Panic! She's probably just celebrating Towel Day in tribute to the late Douglas Adams. Click the link for pictures, posts and related information. If you upload your own towelish photo to Flickr and you could win a cool Sony e-reader.

Adams was not only the author of the Hitchhikers Guide the Galaxy and many other humorous science fictiony novels. He was also deeply interested in wildlife conservation. In the mid-1980s Adams and biologist Mark Carwardine traveled around the world to search for nearly extinct species, including the aye-aye in Madagascar, white rhinos in Zaire and the Yangtze River Dolphin in China. Those excursions were parlayed into a book,Last Chance to See, as well as a BBC radio series (UK listeners only, alas). And despite Adams' premature death in 2001, his legacy is living on in a new Last Chance to See TV series hosted by comedian Stephen Fry. It will be shown on BBC 2 beginning in August.

If you are in the UK, you can watch Fry and Carwardine discussing the original series and Douglas Adams' legacy here:

You can get the latest information about the series and related information on the unofficial Another Chance to See blog.

Image: Thumbs Up by kreg.steppe on Flickr.
Tags:Towel Day, Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

The American Youth That Never Were

2009-05-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

The first engagement in the Little War took place at Fifteenth and K street in front of the Sheraton Bar and Grill in the heart of Washington. For over a month young people had been pouring into the city, massing for a huge demonstration to protest the Thirty-ninth Amendment to the Constitution. Like other prohibitions before it, this Compulsory Birth Control Act was impossible to enforce, and youth had taken the stand that it was a direct infringement of their rights. Bitter resentment was directed against the two arms of Governmental enforcement, the National Council of Eugenics and the Federal Birth Study commission. Washington had no business regulating the number of children a citizen could have. Bitterness turned to talk of rebellion.
~ Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

In 1967, the year Logan's Run was published, tens of thousands of young Americans descended on San Francisco for the fabled "Summer of Love", and it must have seemed like teenagers really would take over the country. It was the perfect backdrop for William Nolan and George Clayton John's future dystopian youth culture, where all upstanding citizens went voluntarily to their death by their 21st birthday.

The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 per cent of the people living on earth were under twenty-one years of age. The population continued to climb - and with it the youth percentage.
In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 per cent.
In the 1990s, 82.4 per cent.
In the year 2000 - critical mass

But, as Charlie Stross has pointed out, it's extremely difficult to write near-future science fiction that stands up to history. As it turns out, in 1967 the 25- and under population was at its peak, and only declined from that point on. Today the US the population is older than it has ever been, with the largest group age 25-44. The reason is a combination of longer life spans*, aging of the baby boom generation combined with the increased availability of effective contraceptives and declining fertility. Teen birth rates are the lowest level ever.

So while the novel is still an entertaining read, the backstory hasn't aged very well. It makes me wonder how the on-again off-again on-again off-again on-again movie remake of Logan's Run will approach the material. Director Joseph Kosinsky claimed back in 2007 that the story would "hew closer to the book than the 1976 movie." That wouldn't be too difficult, since the movie didn't follow the novel much beyond its basic premise. In particular, I think the original movie's shift of the age of death to 30 from 21 significantly changed the tone of the story - for some reason I find 16-year-old enforcers more disturbing than 26-year-olds in the same role.

While the new movie will supposedly be released in 2010, there probably won't be any official word until later this year as to whether it's actually being made. Until then, enjoy this trailer for the original film, that really captures it's cheesy 70s goodness:

* Life expectancy at birth was 47.3 in 1900, 70.8 in 1980 and 77.8 in 2005 (See Table 26)

Image: Sexy-but-significantly-older-than-21-year-old Michael York in the original Logan's Run movie (via the excellent City of Domes web site).

Tags:science fiction, Logan's Run, life expectancy, demographics

The Missing Link and other Science Fictions

2009-05-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

"In South America there are, if my memory serves me—you will check the observation, Professor Summerlee—some thirty-six species of monkeys, but the anthropoid ape is unknown. It is clear, however, that he exists in this country, and that he is not the hairy, gorilla-like variety, which is never seen out of Africa or the East." (I was inclined to interpolate, as I looked at him, that I had seen his first cousin in Kensington.) "This is a whiskered and colorless type, the latter characteristic pointing to the fact that he spends his days in arboreal seclusion. The question which we have to face is whether he approaches more closely to the ape or the man. In the latter case, he may well approximate to what the vulgar have called the 'missing link.' The solution of this problem is our immediate duty."
~ The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle (1912)

If you've watched the news - or used Google today - you can't have missed all of the publicity about the well-preserved 47-million-year old primate fossil nicknamed "Ida" (or more technically, Darwinius masillae). She is both beautiful and important scientifically. As the authors summed up in their paper describing the find:

Darwinius masillae represents the most complete fossil primate ever found, including both skeleton, soft body outline and contents of the digestive tract. Study of all these features allows a fairly complete reconstruction of life history, locomotion, and diet. Any future study of Eocene-Oligocene primates should benefit from information preserved in the Darwinius holotype.

Ida is a prosimian in the family Adapidae - similar to present-day lemurs - and the type of primate that may have been ancestor to Anthropoidea - including present-day monkeys, apes and humans. The scientists studying Ida were careful not to claim that she was necessarily of a species ancestral to humans.

Note that Darwinius masillae, and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids, could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either Darwinius or adapoids to be anthropoids.

At least they were careful until they started talking to the press, where one author claimed Ida is "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor". The hype may have something to do with the History Channel special - "The Link" - featuring the discovery, which was announced alongside the paper. The program's web site has more hyperbolic quotes, my favorit being from the paper's lead author Jens Lorenz Franzen:

"When our results are published, it will be just like an asteroid hitting the Earth."

Presumably without all the death and destruction.

To add to the hype, many of the articles in the mainstream media have touted the find as "the missing link" - a non-sensical term, since every new fossil species is a new link in the evolutionary record. As the quote from The Lost World suggests, the phrase had already fallen out of favor by the beginning of the 20th century, so it's simply bad science journalism for news reports to be using it now.

And it's not just the media hype that's at issue. At Laelaps Brian Switek has raised some questions as to the quality of the paper's analysis of the fossil. I'm not well-versed enough in paleontology to give my opinion on that. However, I do find it troubling that the History channel's PR department and the scientists' own self-promotion are providing a false picture of the significance of this fossil find. I suspect that the over-the-top promotion will be a turnoff to many people who already assume that scientists routinely exaggerate their findings.

And I doubt Stephen Baxter will feel the need to add a chapter to Evolution.

For more coverage, Carl Zimmer has a nice post about the science and they hype and see Bora's roundup of related links at A Blog Around the Clock.

Images from Franzen JL et al. "Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology" PLoS ONE 4(5): e5723. (2009) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005723
Tags:science fiction, evolution, paleontology, Ida

Biology in Science Fiction Roundup: May 16 Edition

2009-05-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Some miscellaneous biology-related science fiction links from around the web:

On SF

Charlie Jane Anders @ io9: Is "Sense of Wonder" Just a Code for Returning to Childhood? (my answer: no way!)

Nancy Kress: SF is Dead - Again

Ben Bova: Science is so important to us, yet so unappreciated

Written Word

Wired Science lists science fiction novels that feature memory alteration

SF Signal interviews CJ Cherryh about her new novel Regenesis.

Jo Walton @ Tor.com reviews Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

From A Sci-Fi Standpoint reviews James E. Gunn's 1962 novel, The Immortals.

Actually the Immortals appear very little in the book, primarily at the beginning, and play a relatively small role. As you read on, you find that the book is really all about issues relating to medicine and its role in society, and especially about its differential availability to those at various economic levels. Indeed, the hunt for the Immortals is really a metaphor of sorts for the privileged status of the ultra-rich who have access to the best, most cutting-edge medical care.

In a BBC interview, author Peter F. Hamilton (Night's Dawn) talked a bit about genetic engineering:

PFH: The genetic technology that hopefully will cure Spina Bifida one day could also be used to create viruses that could just wipe us out completely.

But does that mean you should stop researching genetics? We laugh, we hold politicians and the political process in contempt, but the societal structure of international law and order does actually hold that off.

Movies

What do you call a movie that is set in the very near future, explores biotechnology that is almost-but-not-quite-yet possible, but doesn't otherwise use any science fictional tropes? What if it's a bit too speculative to be considered true realism, but too realistic to quite be SF? I don't really have an answer (speculative bioethics?), but there are a couple of recent films that seem to fit the bill: My Sister's Keeper (watch the trailer at Genetics and Health) and The Baby Formula.

According to SciFi Wire, Warner plans to remake the BBC's Primeval as a big-screen movie.

Warner and Goldsman will transplant the action to the United States and ramp up the spectacle.

Because battling dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures clearly just isn't actiony enough. BBC-America will show season 3 of Primeval beginning tonight, and SciFi is currently airing season 1 on Friday nights.

Center for the Study of Science Fiction has video of Forrest J. Ackerman on Mad Scientists in the Movies

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is being made into a movie starring Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. It is being filmed in the UK and there is no word on whether the spectacle is bing

At SciFi Scanner Christine Fall writes about Sleep Dealers and new technological advances that may help allow scientists to translate brain activity into images.

Miriam at The Oyster's Garter compares Vampire ecology in Twilight vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

CHUD.com reviews The Gene Generation, recently released on DVD. Bottom line: be very glad you didn't pay to see this movie in the theater.

Live Science: Can You Have Bones Like Wolverine?

ComputerWorld asks "Do sci-fi films get advanced tech right?" including genetic engineering.

Television

Science Not Fiction has a series of posts reviewing the science of each Fringe episode.
Popular Mechanics also has a series of posts reviewing the science of Fringe.

Also at Popular Mechanics: Dollhouse's Memory Science Mixes Fact With Fiction
Annalee Newitz @ io9: Five Brain-Maanipulating Technologies That Prove Dollhouse Exists Right Now

If you are interested in the science of Eleventh Hour, check out the regular Eleventh Hour posts at Science Not Fiction and Genevieve Valentine's posts at Tor.com.
Also Åsa Karlström has an article about the depiction of biophysicist Dr. Jacob Hood at LabLit.com

Tags:science fiction, biology

Robert J. Sawyer Talks About Cognitive Science

2009-05-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, Robert J. Sawyer gave a talk on "Webmind: When the Web Wakes Up" as part of the University of Pennsylvania Neuroethics Program talk series. He talked about his recently-released novel Wake, which features a sentient World Wide Web, and the uploaded consciousnesses in his 2005 novel Mindscan.

Listen to the talk (MP3)

And as Sawyer notes in his blog: the talk contains "major spoilers for both books", so you've been warned. If you are interested in learning more about the novels check out Sawyer's web pages for Mindscan and Wake that include sample chapters and reviews.

Tags:science fiction, neuroscience

Kim Stanley Robinson on Genetically Engineering Martians

2009-05-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

Genetically engineered microorganisms, or GEMs, had been on the scene only about half a century when the first hundred arrived on Mars. But half a century in modern science is a long time. Plasmid conjugates had become very sophisticated tools in those years. The array of restriction enzymes for cutting, and ligase enzymes for pasting, was big and versatile; the ability to line out long DNA strings precisely was there; the accumulated knowledge of genomes was immense, and growing exponentially; and used all together, this new biotechnology was allowing all kinds of trait mobilization, promotion, replication, triggered suicide (to stop excess success), and so forth. It was possible to find the DNA sequences from an organism that carried the desired characteristic, and then synthesize these DNA messages and cut and paste them into plasmid rings; after that cells were washed and suspended in a glycerol with the new plasmids, and the glycerol was suspended between two electrodes and given a short sharp shock of about 2,000 volts, and the plasmids in the glycerol shot into the cells, and voila! There, zapped to life like Frankenstein's monster, was a new organism. With new abilities.

~ Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson (1993)

Robinson's description of engineering DNA sequences and introducing them into cells using electricity almost reads like an excerpt from a biology textbook. It was (and pretty much still is) the standard molecular biology technology of the present day. In Red Mars genetic engineering is used to modify microorganisms, fungi, algae and plants to aid in the terraforming of Mars. It's pretty mundane science - and that's the way he meant it to be.

Back in 1996, Robinson answered readers questions for Science Fiction Weekly, including the following:

Why couldn't the geneticists of the Mars trilogy alter the human genome to allow humans to breathe and live in a less-altered environment?

His answer made it clear that he was sticking to science that would be achievable in the near-future of Red Mars, which is set in 2026:

The technology described in the Mars trilogy is not super-science, and the genetic engineering as outlined in some detail in Red Mars is not that far beyond what they are doing now. So you can make some changes, but you can't just drastically remake creatures and plants. The existing Martian environment has an atmosphere of 10 millibars of mostly CO2, and no genetic engineering is going to make us able to breathe that, nor keep all our capillaries from exploding (die by hickey as Damon Knight put it), etc.
And so, if you're altering the environment a little, you might as well go for a little more and not get into the realm of super-science, or the postulated realm of radically altered bodies. I like our bodies the way they are.

I like the plausibility of that, as if colonizing Mars is within our current scientific means.

You can read Red Mars for free by downloading a copy from the Suvudu Free Book Library (pdf version, Kindle version).

Tags:Red Mars, genetic engineering

Technology on Star Trek

2009-05-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

As part of the media blitz for the new Star Trek movie, Newsweek published "Confessions of a 'Star Trek' Writer" by writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow. He provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what it was like writing for Star Trek: The Next Generation - including an explanation as to why the science could be so very bad on the show:

One of the first staff meetings I attended concerned a script that had come in from the outside, and was considered insufficiently exciting. The consensus was that it needed a good injection of crew jeopardy so that it wouldn't drag. That could be difficult because it had to make sense in the context of the existing story, and, to keep from sending the episode over budget, it had to be cheap to film even though special effects are generally costly. I had what I thought was an idea that fit those constraints and, even more exciting (for me), an idea rooted in real astrophysics. I took about half a minute to pitch it, and for the first time everyone's attention was focused on me, the new guy. When it was over I turned to my boss, a producer who was a gruff middle-aged former NYPD homicide detective. He stared at me for a moment, his face totally unreadable. Then he said, with great force, "Shut up, you f––king egghead!"
That producer and I eventually became close enough that when he later sensed he was going to be axed, he gave me advice on what to do in the unlikely event that I survived. (No. 1: never mention the "old days." No. 2: when you do see the inevitable pink slip coming, turn down the heat on your swimming pool.) One thing I learned from him is that I had had it backward. The fun in "Star Trek" didn't come from copying science, but from having science copy it. My job wasn't to put real science into "Star Trek," but to imagine new ideas that hadn't yet been thought of.

Trek is about gadgets and engineering, not science.

Mlodinow then goes on to talk about the similarity of Star Trek's "free thinking" point of view to the burst of American post-WWII technological innovation, which makes sense to me. The future depicted on Trek is one in which technology - particularly American inventions - has made the world a much better place. Well, except for human genetic engineering, which resulted in a war that killed 30 million people. No wonder we don't hear much about their innovations in biotechnology.

Tags:Star Trek, biology

Aliens on Earth: Extreme Embryos

2009-05-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

National Geographic Channel has a new special - In the Womb: Extreme Animals - which uses "4-D ultrasound images" to follow the gestation of four different critters: red kangaroo, lemon shark, emperor penguin and parasitic wasps. Despite the title of the program, there isn't really much in-womb development: the kangaroo develops in its mother's pouch, the lemon shark initially lives off a yolk sac then becomes attached to it's mother via a placenta, the penguin embryo develops inside an egg kept warm on its father's feet.

And then there are the parasitic wasps. Wasp eggs are injected into a caterpillar, which provides a cozy protected space for the embryos to develop. Once they have matured, the larvae paralyze their host and bite their way out. Sound familiar? They were the inspiration for the "birth" scene in the 1979 movie Alien (The Director's Cut), which used John Hurt in the caterpillar role. *shudder*

Here's their video of the parasitic wasp larvae emerging from a caterpillar:

(via BoingBoing)
Tags:science fiction, parasitic wasp, Alien

Ursula Le Guin and Anthropology

2009-05-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting profile of Ursula Le Guin in today's LA Times. Le Guin's parents were both prominent anthropologists, and their work has in turn influenced her own.

Le Guin's early years help explain her abiding concern: Is there such a thing as a stable human nature? She grew up in Berkeley, the daughter of Alfred Kroeber, a founder of modern anthropology, and Theodora Kroeber, author of "Ishi in Two Worlds," about an American Indian who had outlived his tribe. Her childhood, which included summers at a family ranch in Napa, was full of reading, storytelling and visits from European intellectuals and Native Americans.

"I was privileged," she says, "to know the kind of people that most American kids, most bourgeois white kids, don't." She was raised "as irreligious as a jack rabbit."

Eric Rabkin, who teaches at the University of Michigan, sees her work as profoundly shaped by her exposure to alien cultures as well as her father's ambition to find as specifically as he could the time and place from which Western civilization had sprung. "There's a kind of romance to that view," Rabkin says. "That once upon a time, the worst antagonisms were merely inter-familial -- that basically we're all alike and trustworthy. And I believe she grew up in a family in which that was considered not a fantasy but a scientific fact."

[Note that I added the links to the excerpt above.]

While most of Le Guin's science fiction would be considered of the "soft" rather than "hard" variety, that doesn't mean that there is no science - or technology - in her work, as she aptly points out in this rant:

How can genuine science fiction of any kind lack technological content? Even if its principal interest isn't in engineering or how machines work — if like most of mine, it's more interested in how minds, societies, and cultures work — still, how can anybody make a story about a future or an alien culture without describing, implicitly or explicitly, its technology?

Nobody can. I can't imagine why they'd want to.

Its technology is how a society copes with physical reality: how people get and keep and cook food, how they clothe themselves, what their power sources are (animal? human? water? wind? electricity? other?) what they build with and what they build, their medicine - and so on and on. Perhaps very ethereal people aren't interested in these mundane, bodily matters, but I'm fascinated by them, and I think most of my readers are too.

Read the whole essay. I can't help but think that her ability to clearly explain how silly it is to limit "technology" to modern shiny gadgets has something to do with the anthropology in Le Guin's background. It's excellent food for thought.

Tags:science fiction, anthropology, Ursula Le Guin

Biology of Star Trek Revisited

2009-05-06T23:50:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of the release of the new Star Trek movie, neuroscientist Athena Andreadis has posted an epilogue to her 1998 book, To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek. Despite the show's tendency toward pseudoscientific technobabble, she notes that some of the biology depicted - like human genetic engineering and organ regeneration - are not only possible, but may be feasible in the near future. And she makes what I think is a very good point: the real value of Star Trek in promoting science lies in its positive depiction of science and technology, rather than the actual scientific details in each episode.

On the other hand, technobabble and all, Star Trek fulfills a very imporant role. It shows and endorses the value of science and technology — the only popular TV series to do so, at a time when science has lost both appeal and prestige. With the increasing depth of each scientific field, and the burgeoning of specialized jargon, it is distressingly easy for us scientists to isolate ourselves within our small niches and forget to share the wonders of our discoveries with our fellow passengers on the starship Earth. Despite its errors, Star Trek’s greatest contribution is that it has made us dream of possibilities, and that it has made that dream accessible to people both inside and outside science.

You should read her entire post, Forever Young, at Starship Reckless. I also recommend her article Making Aliens: The Repercussions of Planetary Settlement, which proposes that human settlements on other planets will end up evolving into new non-human species.

Athena is guest blogger at Sentient Developments this month, and I'm looking forward to reading her posts.

Tags:Star Trek, biology, Athena Andreadis

Check out the Latest Mind Meld

2009-05-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

The topic of this week's Mind Meld over at SF Signal is near and dear to my heart: "What are the most realistic (and the most ridiculous) uses of science in SciFi film and TV?"

Head over there to see what I and the other Mind Melders have to say on the subject.

Tags:science fiction, biology, television, movies

Exploring the Final Frontier

2009-05-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

I have a guest post at The Reef Tank Blog about marine science fiction. The focus of the post is SF with an ocean setting you can read for free online. Go check it out!

Photo credit: U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program
Tags:science fiction, marine biology