The Biology of B-Movie Monsters (2003)

96 点作者 cainxinth大约 2 个月前

13 条评论

pmags大约 2 个月前

LaB was my PhD advisor! A thoughtful, creative, and curious scientist and a teacher extraordinaire.For a slightly longer form take from Mike on B-movie monsters see:LaBarbera, M. 2013. It’s Alive! The Science of B-Movie Monsters. Univ of Chicago Press. <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo17841391.html" rel="nofollow">https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo178413...</a>For more about Mike and his impact on the biological sciences at the Univ of Chicago see: <a href="https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/life-aquatic" rel="nofollow">https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/life-aquatic</a>

medymed大约 2 个月前

Zombie physiology also seems a stretch—-how do organisms with so many open and often bleeding dirt-covered wounds maintain hemodynamic stability in the face of inevitable septic shock and/or blood loss? A movie where a virus just makes infected people seem normal and very friendly but want to furtively bite other people to spread disease and then have delayed onset terminal sickness, like a subtle version of rabies, would be terrifying and more plausible.

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hydrogen7800大约 2 个月前

The first section about "The Incredible Shrinking Man" reminded me of "Life At Low Reynolds Number", with the concept of "scaling".>It helps to imagine under what conditions a man would be swimming at, say, the same Reynolds number as his own sperm. Well, you put him in a swimming pool that is full of molasses, and then you forbid him to move any part of his body faster than 1 cm/min. Now imagine yourself in that condition: you're under the swimming pool in molasses, and now you can only move like the hands of a clock. If under these ground rules you are able to move a few meters in a couple of weeks, you may qualify as a low Reynolds number swimmer.[0][0]<a href="https://cooperlab.wustl.edu/PracticalAdvice/Purcell%201977.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://cooperlab.wustl.edu/PracticalAdvice/Purcell%201977.p...</a>

yesfitz大约 2 个月前

Always (usually) fun to read an expert talk about their field as it crops up in unusual places, at least when it's done without an ego. I've avoided the YouTube clickbait "real bank robber reviews movies" videos, but maybe I shouldn't.Meta: Unfortunately, even the earliest snapshot of this page on the Wayback Machine doesn't contain working images: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040624122432/https://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20040624122432/https://fathom.li...</a>

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damnitbuilds大约 2 个月前

I always thought that the Hulk running fast and landing too gently makes him appear too light:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzceykTiwjs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzceykTiwjs</a>

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bediger4000大约 2 个月前

I worked as a stress analyst in aerospace for a while. Lots of good insights here about buckling of thin walled structures, with respect to arthropods and how to attack giant arthropods.

staplung大约 2 个月前

Another scientific bit that's almost always ignored in the growing/shrinking trope is that the pitch of one's voice would change. The incredible shrinking man would presumably have an inaudibly high pitched voice. His own cilia are shrinking too so it'd be interesting to work out if he could hear himself.Variants like the Hulk also seem to violate the conservation of mass but it's amusing to imagine using that property to make an infinite power source. Put Bruce Banner/Hulk on one side of a teeter toter and a mass between that of Banner and the Hulk on the other, then get Banner/Hulk to alternate forms. Profit!

wrp大约 2 个月前

I highly recommend the books by Mark Glassy, The Biology of Science Fiction Cinema and Biology Run Amok!: The Life Science Lessons of Science Fiction Cinema.

fumufumufumu大约 2 个月前

Just the title reminds me of this wonderful talkGodzilla: History, Biology and Behavior of Hyper-Evolved Theropod Kaiju<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXgX2WErXQo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXgX2WErXQo</a>

noob_justasking大约 2 个月前

For Jurassic park, I always wondered about how quick these adult dinosaurs must have grown. The large ones must have been, I don’t know, atleast 10 years? But then the park must have been much older than that. Is there some average or maximum kilograms per year that an animal can conceivably grow?

api大约 2 个月前

Now do space opera!The Expanse is probably the most realistic of fast-paced battles in the stars space opera, and I've seen analyses that show that the Epstein drive is at the edge of what physics would possibly allow. But those UN, MCRN, and Belter ships would need something you don't see at least in the series (or described in the books): heat sinks. They'd have to have radiators or they'd melt. Even if the drive was insanely efficient (like >90%) it would still generate hundreds of megawatts of heat at those power outputs. I suppose you could cool with propellant, but that would greatly reduce your specific impulse. To jet around the solar system like that would require very high specific impulse, meaning tiny amounts of propellant emitted at relativistic velocities.Speaking of propellant velocity: those Expanse fusion rockets would not look like blowtorches. They'd look a bit more like the "laser beams" depicted here -- rocket plumes that look like straight lines because they're made of particles accelerated to like 3-5% 'c': <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8vh2ER3ao4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8vh2ER3ao4</a>Edit: ... and one more big inaccuracy: a torch rocket is also a death ray that would be horrifically effective even at very long range. The scenes where "they're trying to burn us up with their drive plume" would have to take place at much longer range or they'd just be dead. If you were near a ship all you'd have to do is flip around to hose your enemy down with X-rays and superheated plasma. You'd also never fire up one of those things anywhere remotely near a space station like Tycho unless you wanted to at least give everyone on board cancer. You'd have to use conventional rockets to get well clear before turning on the fusion drive.No space opera I've seen gets this right. Any sufficiently powerful space drive (fusion/antimatter torch, let alone warp drives) is a weapon of mass destruction. Does Star Trek ever even examine what happens if you point the Enterprise at a planet and say "warp 9, engage!"? In The Expanse if the belters wanted to stick to Earth and Mars they could do simpler things than throwing stealth rocks if you really think about it. Those drives would be insanely deadly in many different ways.It's one of the reasons I think war in space is gonna be rare. If it happens it's basically mutually assured destruction (MAD) given the power involved. Even a chemical rocket can generate velocities that make an impact have a yield comparable to a small nuclear device.For All Mankind is almost space opera and is probably the most realistic.

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Jiro大约 2 个月前

Mothra is a naturally large creature, not a small creature that was enlarged.

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anthk大约 2 个月前

Now to the same with Pokémon, 1st and 2nd gens. There are tons of 'monsters' with real life counterparts, such as electric eels, an iron shell based snails (living on boiling, geisers?) and so on...

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