miércoles, 18 de julio de 2012


 Hi! This blog has been created as a project for our English Class. We are students of Biotechnology Engineering, and we will continue updating information in the next months.

We want to create a blog about  mexican biotechnology, if you are interested you must be in touch with this blog.

Have a great day!


lunes, 16 de julio de 2012

Resident Evil (2002)

 
The Umbrella Corporation, one of the most powerful companies in the world, has its success based on a secret undergriund laboratory, called "The Hive", where viral weapons are made. A new virus escapes and turns hundred of scientists into zombies and releasing the mutated Lab "Animals" that they were studying. A special task force is sent in to shut down the main computer and quarantine the deadly virus. What awaits them is beyond ordinary procedure.

 



Resident Evil Series

The video game series Resident Evil involves the creation of genetically engineered viruses which turn humans and animals into organisms such as zombies, the Tyrants or Hunters by a worldwide pharmaceutical company called the Umbrella Corporation.

Trivia.

  • When Matt's arm begins to mutate there are no digital effects until the very end.
  • Even though they're everywhere, the word "zombie" is never spoken in this film.
  • The presidents of Capcom Japan and America have cameos as zombies. Capcom created the Resident Evil series.
  • This film was originally titled 'Resident Evil: Ground Zero', but the title was changed after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA.
  • Like in the games, after something is switched on/off, something else happens elsewhere. When the Red Queen is deactivated for the first time, all doors elsewhere are opened.
  • “Resident Evil” was the second movie based on a video game directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The first was Mortal Kombat.
  • The movie has connections to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • Anna Bolt learned how to scuba dive in order to portray the drowned research scientist who revives underwater.

 

miércoles, 11 de julio de 2012

Jack (1996)


A baby is diagnosed with an exaggerated form of Werner syndrome, as stated by Dr. Benfante and Dr. Lin. According to them, as this very rare autosomal recessive disorder progresses, Jack Powell will age at a rate four times faster than normal children due to his internal clock that seems to be developing faster.
Ten years later, Jack is seen as a 10-year-old boy in the body of a 40-year-old man. Fearing ridicule from the outside world, Jack's parents have kept him secluded in their home, which they have stocked with every toy a young boy could want. But toys can't take the place of the real friends which Jack craves.
His tutor, Lawrence Woodruff, introduces the idea that he should go to public school. When he first attends school, he is exploited by the other kids to win at basketball against bullies, and eventually to get adult magazines. As time goes by, he is accepted by them, having new adventures.


The disease is real.

Werner syndrome (also known as "adult progeria") is a very rare, autosomal recessive disorder characterized by the appearance of premature aging. Werner syndrome more closely resembles accelerated aging than any other segmental progeria, so it is often referred to as a progeroid syndrome, as it partly mimics the symptoms of progeria. Werner syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder. The WRN gene associated with Werner Syndrome lies on chromosome 8 in humans and it is the only gene known to be associated with Werner syndrome. The disease is caused by a mutation in the WRN gene, which codes a DNA helicase.

Trivia
  • Tom Hanks was the original choice for the lead role because of his performance in Big
  • In a classroom scene when Jack is being introduced to the class, it is possible to spot the mic. This also happens in a scene at the cafeteria
  • Francis Ford Coppola gave Robin Williams camping gear to spend the night in his backyard and $10 to spend at Toys R Us before shooting the film.
  • When Jack is talking with Dolores, he puts his hands up his shirt and you can see the wire for the Lavalier microphone.

lunes, 9 de julio de 2012

The Amazing Spider-man (2012)


 
 
Peter Parker is a student who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him with his uncle and aunt so they raise him. As a high shooler,  he is trying to find a way with his crush, Gwen Stacy. Everything changes when Peter discovers a briefcase which belonged to his father and decides to investigate his parents' dissapereance. This leads him to Oscorp, where he infiltrates; there. he finds his father's former partner, Curt Connors, who's in a research about adapting other species' genes into the human body in order to cure sicknesses. Before leaving Oscorp, a spider biteshis neck, which causes his body to mutate. Everything goes wrong when Connors injects himself with lizard genes (based on a successful past experiment with mice) to recover his arm, but instead, turns into a huge reptile: The Lizard.

 

Trivia

  • T-shirts depicting the film's Spider-Man to help the cause for Stand Up to Cancer are being sold.
  • The Kellogg Company and the Keebler Company teamed up with Sony for a marketing campaign to access clips from the film.
  • A teaser trailer was leaked on the Internet and aired at San Diego's Comic-Con International in July 2011, attached to the superhero film Captain America: The First Avenger.

Genetics in the movie.

Perhaps the biggest plot hole in the film comes after Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), with the assistance of Peter Parker, figures out a new formula to merge lizard DNA with other species in order to help them regenerate cells and heal themselves, something important to Conners who is missing his right arm. Once a lab mouse shows promising results, Connors' superior Rajit Ratha (played by Irrfan Khan) wants him to jump straight to human trials and threatens to can Connors if he doesn't follow through. There's allusions to a similar stand that Parker's father took which may have led to his demise as well, but no more details are given. Here the thread to Parker's past and the different origin story to his becoming Spider-Man begins. However, after Connors decides to test the new formula on himself, he learns Ratha is already on his way to a veterans hospital to test the formula on a different subject. Before he can stop him, Connors transforms into The Lizard and wreaks havoc across the city trying to stop Ratha.




miércoles, 4 de julio de 2012

The Boys from Brazil (1978)




Dr. Josef Mengele, an infamous Auschwitz doctor, secluded several surrogate mothers in a Brazilian clinic and fertilized them with ova each carrying a sample of Hitler's DNA preserved since World War II. Ninety-four perfect clones of Hitler had then been born and sent to different parts of the world for adoption.
Lieberman, a man that discovered the complot, is encouraged by an American Nazi-hunter to expose Mengele's scheme to the world. Lieberman is asked to turn over the list identifying the names and whereabouts of the other "boys from Brazil" from around the world, so that they can be systematically killed before growing up to become bloody tyrants. Lieberman objects on the grounds that they are mere children. He burns the list before anyone can read it.
In the final scene, Bobby, one of the clones, is shown in his dark room, absorbed and excited by photographs he has taken of Mengele's body after it has been savaged by dogs. Bobby is unaware that, as a boy his own age, Adolf Hitler had a related interest as an amateur artist.


Trivia

  • The real Josef Mengele was still alive in Brazil while the movie was being made. He died shortly after ther movie's release
  • Bruno Ganz (who played Dr. Bruckner) played himself the role of Adolf Hitler several years later

  • The character Ezra Liebermann was called Yakov Liebermann in the original book
  • Gregory Peck felt his role as Josef Mengele was the only unsympathetic role he's ever made
  • After Kohler's death, you can see him blink in a scene afterwards.

lunes, 2 de julio de 2012

The Island (2005)



In the year 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo lives in a Utopian, but contained facility. Like all the inhabitants, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to "the Island", apparently, the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. However, he soon discovers that his whole life has been a lie. He and his friend, Jordan Two-Delta escape the facility while being persued by the forces of the institute that housed them. The head of the facility hires mercenaries to tack them down before they have the chance to reveal his secret to the world.




Did you know?...

  • The phone used by Tom Lincoln is the Nokia 8800/8801 model. At the time of the movie filming this was a concept phone; it was subsequently mass released.
  • During the filming of the scene when Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor are running from the censors out of the atrium the camera operator was running with them for a tracking shot. He tripped on the dolly track, onto the camera, and was badly injured.
  • Michael Bay drove behind a flatbed truck carrying train wheels on the highway leaving Palmdale, and, noticing how dangerous it looked, was inspired to create a destructive chase scene involving one.
  • Robert S. Fiveson, director of “The Clonus Horror”, brought a copyright infringement suit against the makers of this film.
  • Scarlett Johansson wanted to show her breasts in the love scene with Ewan McGregor but director Michael Bay declined.

True or false?

The movie is based on the idea that, sometime in the near future, the wealthy citizens of the world might pay a private corporation to grow replacement body parts. A private corporation is selling this organ-replacement service, and telling them the organs are grown in a laboratory. But in reality, the corporation is cloning these wealthy clients and growing entire adult organisms, and then "harvesting" those humans when the replacement organs are needed.
There's talk today of not only growing human organs for precisely this purpose, there is also talk about using animals as hosts for human organs. There are plans to genetically modify pigs so that they can grow human hearts that could then be surgically taken out of the pig and implanted into customers.
The script of "The Island" is insightful, as it explores the issue of corporate and medical ethics.

 

lunes, 25 de junio de 2012

Jurassic Park (1993)


Jurassic Park is an epic science fiction film. The film centers on the fictional Isla Nublar near Costa Rica, where a billionaire philanthropist and a small team of genetic scientists have created an amusement park of dinosaurs cloned from the DNA extracted from insects preserved in prehistoric amber.
To verify that the island is safe, three experts are invited: Dr. Ian Malcolm, Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler. The three of them engage in an intense philosophical debate about the ethics of having cloned extinct dinosaurs.
Problems start when one of the parks own workers attempt to steal the dinosaurs embryos, and have to shut down all the electricity in the process. It's now a race for survival with everyone located all over the island.

Real life...

60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl spoke about Paleontologist Jack Horner's controversial theory that chickens can become dinosaurs through "reverse evolution."    

Trivia
  • All shots of full dinosaurs were made digitally, while shots of parts of them were done using animatronics
  • The full-sized animatron of the tyrannosaurus rex weighed about 13,000 to 15,000 pounds
  • In order to study the movement of the Gallimimus, the digital artists had to run along a stretch of road with some obstacles and with their hands next to their chest
  • Briefly held the box office record until it was beaten by Titanic
  • Both the film and the book generated so much interest in dinosaurs that the study of paleontology has had a record increase in students
  • For the scene where the T-Rex catches a Galliminus and shakes it in his mouth, the sound was taken from a dog shaking a toy in its mouth
  • When the T-Rex comes through the glass roof in the first attack to the Explorer, the glass was not meant to break. This generated genuine screams from the children
  • The real species called Velociraptor was much smaller than the animals in the film and were believed to have feathers
  • The sound made by the Dilophosaurus was a combination of the sounds of howler monkey, hawk, , rattlesnake and swan.
  • The Velociraptor's sounds were a combination of the sounds of elephant seal pups, dolphin and walrus
  • The T-Rex's roars are a combination of dog, tiger, penguin, alligator and elephant sounds
  • The sounds made by the Brachiosaurs were a combination of whale and donkey sounds
  • There are no opening credits after the title has been shown