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



A piece of humor :D

Today is a beautiful day and we are very happy, so we want to share some jokes about science and genetics that we think are so funny that you´ll fell down from your computer.

• The answer to cardiovascular genetics

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

Conclusion:

Eat and drink what you like. It is speaking English that kills you.

• Is it true that if you clone yourself four times, one will be Chinese

Who said science can't be sexy?



The Fly (1986)

It´s a remake of the 1958 film "The Fly", but retains only the idea of a scientist merging with a housefly during a teleportation experiment. Seth Brunble is an accentric researcher who creates a  project that will change the world: a set of "Telepods" that allows instantaneous teleportation of an object from one pod to another.

To prove the efectiveness of his project, Brundle teleports himself, unaware that a common housefly is in the pod with him. Brundle emerges from the receiving pod, seemingly normal. However, he soon becomes violent, and eventually realizes that something went horribly wrong when his fingernails begin falling off. Brundle checks his computer's records, and discovers that the Telepod computer, confused by the presence of two separate life-forms in the sending pod, merged him with the fly at the molecular-genetic level. Over the next few weeks, Brundle continues to deteriorate, losing various body parts and becoming progressively less human in appearance. He theorizes that he is slowly becoming a hybrid creature that is neither human nor insect .



Trivia

• There were plenty of scenes which were filmed but cut from the final release. For example, a scene were Brundle sends a cat and a baboon through the telepods. This results in a hybrid creature Brundle beats to death with a pipe.
• It took almost five hours to apply the makup to the actor Jef Goldblum
• The original director was suposed to be Tim Burton
• The line:  "I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it, but now that dream is over and the insect is awake," is a reference to Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis"
• "The Fly" was the first theatrical film to have its broadcast premiere on the Fox television network
• Two pupeteers were located underneath the floor for the cat-baboon scene and a third one pumped blood. The rest of the crew would sometimes have a break for lunch, forgeting about the three underneath the floor.
• There were at least 20 versions of the "space bug" (Brundle's final mutated form)
• The fly's vomit was made from honey, milk and eggs

Splice (2009)

Hello! Today we are happy to show you a movie that changed our perspective of the ethics in genetical science.

Scientists Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast became famous for their experiments in genetics, obtaining hybrid animals by splicing together DNA from other animals. But the next step in their experiments was to use human DNA despite the fact that the company (N.E.R.D.) that funds their research forbids it.

The name of their creation was Dren, who begins to grow and learn things at an accelerate rate. Because of this growth, Clive and Elsa are not able to keep the creature in secrecy at their laboratory, so they move to Elsa's late mother's farm.
In the meanwhile, one of the other creatures they created suddenly changed it's gender from female to male without Clive and Elsa knowing because they were too focused in Dren, who developed certain features they never expected.
When Dren reaches adulthood, Clive and Elsa learn they have a serious problem that threatens not only their careers and the company where they work, but also their safety.

 

Trivia

· N.E.R.D. is the laboratory where both Clive and Elsa work (it stands for Nucleic Exchange Research & Development). The name is the word NERD in reverse.

· The two genetically spliced organisms introduced in the beginning of the film, Fred and Ginger, are references to the classic singing and dancing duo Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

· The gestation cell that Clive and Elsa use to splice Dren has the acronym BETI placed on the front of the machine. BETI stands for Biomechanical Extroutero Thermal Incubator. However, interestingly the word "BETI" means daughter in Urdu and Hindi.

How real is the science behind “Splice”?

Splice is a film that explores the ethical and scientific conundrums of biotechnology. The writer-director tried to keep the science of the film as plausible as possible, incorporating real elements, such as a cloning technique called SCNT (somatic cell nuclear transfer).

We don´t have enough knowledge to create an hybrid like Dren, but in 2008 was created a human-pig chimera, which showed the existence of hybrid human-pig cells. So it could be possible in the future.

The film also explores the corporate motivations that drive much of today’s research. Last year, for example, ExxonMobil invested $300 million in Craig Venter’s firm Synthetic Genomics to look for ways of making biofuels from algae.

See more:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1017460/

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/06/06/how-real-is-splice/

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Gattaca (1997)

The first film to be showed in this blog is Gattaca. Released in october 24, 1997, Gattaca is a science fiction, romance and drama film which is about a sterile, genetically-enhanced world where babies are "designed" in order to avoid diseases and imperfections.
Vincent is the last natrually born baby in this society, and therefore, full of imperfections. He is born with a heart condition, and in consequence, he is only useful in menial jobs. However, Vincent has a dream: travel to space.
In order to do this, he asumes the identity of Jerome Morrow, a genetically perfect man who's paraplegic as consequence of a car accident. Vincent manages to deceive DNA  and urine sample tests, but when he is finally scheduled to go to the space, the program director is murdered and the protagonist is one of the suspects. The police begins an investigation, probably threatening his secret.

Trivia

• The name "Gattaca" is composed of the letters used to label the nucleotide bases of DNA: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine.
• As part of the marketing campaign for the movie, there were adverts for people to call and have their children genetically engineered. The worst part is that thousands of people actually called.
• Urma Thurman and Ethan Hawke (the two main characters) became couple during the filming and eventually married.
• The film's name was originally going to be "The Eighth Day" as reference to the Biblical creation story, which states that the earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God rested.

Hi, welcome to this wonderful blog.

You will have the opportunity to discover the great world of genetics in sci-fi movies.
You´ll read curious topics about this kind of films, such as the synopsis, background, what is real and what is false, interesting data, and videos.

We hope that after reading this blog, you have a realistic judgment of genetics and learn to love science.