Fantastic Mr. Fox

I am going to go back on my statement that I would “leave the world of animated films alone” for two reasons: One, I have received several requests to review more movies, and to be quite honest, there are not a whole lot being released that are based on the natural sciences or have much science content at all. Two, animated films are becoming more and more scientifically accurate, which should make everyone happy as it’s teaching today’s youth accurate information rather than making them decreasingly intelligent (Which I’m sad to say is still happening in ‘adult films’). So put aside the fact that animals don’t speak English, wear clothes, play sports, buy real estate, and most don’t walk on two legs like humans but are quadrupedal and walk on four appendages. Without further ado, if you haven’t already met, let me introduce you to the Fantastic Mr. Fox.

PLEASE NOTE - SPOILERS BELOW:

1. Mr. Fox, as with all foxes, is an omnivore, eating both plant and animal material. In the opening sequence we see him eat an apple off the tree, and take aim at a squab farm, which Mr. Fox accurately describes as ‘a pigeon I suppose’ which is exactly what a squab is. He also eats a minnow (fish), chicken, duck, goose, and turkey.

2. We learn that Mrs. Fox is pregnant and we soon meet Ash, their sole kit (also called cubs or pups). Foxes have fairly large litters, with the average being around 5 or 6 kits per litter, but can have as many as a dozen or so. The kits are sexually mature around 10 months of age, and typically leave the den several months after birth, so when we meet young Ash, we can either assume he was a the only kit in the litter, or that the rest of his litter mates had already left the den when they were of age, which is more probable.

3. In the laboratory with Ash, Agnes and Kristofferson, the beaver blows up the experiment and Kristofferson states that he better extinguish the magnesium. He is a wise fox as Magnesium is a highly flammable metal, and although it is easy to ignite when in a powdered form, which is how beaver spoons it in, and it is difficult to extinguish as it is able to burn in the presence of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, the primary extinguishing chemicals used in standard dry chemical fire extinguishers.

4. Its true, tails don’t grow back. At least mammal tails. After Mr. Fox’s tail is shot off, Kylie the opossum is partially right when he says that only lizards’ tails grow back. While some lizards (and a few salamanders) can regenerate their tails, others cannot. Known as autonomy, or self-amputation, some species of lizard can detach their tails from their bodies as a form of defense. A wriggling detached tail, can distract predators long enough to allow the lizard to escape. Tails cast in this manner generally grow back over time, though the replacement section will contain cartilage rather than bone, and the coloring may be distinctly darker compared to the rest of the body. Autotomy in lizards is made possible by weakened areas in the vertebrae below the vent, which allow the tail to be dropped. Special muscles in the tail then contract around the artery to minimize the bleeding while the animal escapes.

5. Yes, foxes can dig, but not at the high rate of speed that Mr. Fox and family digs. They typically only dig their dens and some don’t even do that, rather, they find a burrow another animal, such as a badger has dug and inhabit that, which makes it sort of fitting that the real estate agent Mr. Fox enlists to purchase his new home is a badger.

6. Whilst digging, it should be noted that there are all sorts of accurately placed natural occurring deposits that are encountered. First Mrs. Fox requests to speak to her husband in a mineral deposit. Mineral pockets such these are exactly how minerals are formed. The Fox family also comes across some prehistoric cave paintings (Ash and Kristofferson’s discussion about beagle ticks and pelt lice), along with fish fossils and ammonites (in the cross section below the reporter and Petey, the banjo player, leading to the Fox’s underground retreat) and a whole lot of plant roots.

7. Mr. Fox starts the second incarnation of his toast and begins listing off the wild animals by their scientific sounding Latin names, which are nicely printed on the screen for easy reference – though the first word (the genus) should be capitalized while the second word (the species) should be in lower case. But I’m going to let the filmmakers slide on this one on the basis that I’m assuming they are capitalizing both as in a first and last name, I however, will print the Latinized Genus and species correctly below:

Lutra lutra – The European Otter
Talpa europea – The European Mole
Oryctolagus cuniculus – The European Rabbit
Castor fiber – The European (or Eurasian) Beaver
Meles meles - The European (or Eurasian) Badger
Mustela nivalis – The Least Weasel
Microtus pennsylvanicus – The Meadow Vole

And poor Kylie, whose name Mr. Fox didn’t know as he ‘doubts they had opossums in ancient Rome’ (which is true – opossums are native to the New World (the Americas) while Rome is in the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia) is Didelphis virginiana. This is the Virginia (or North American) Opossum – at least that’s my guess, as Foxy constantly refers to Kylie as an opossum, and Virginia Opossum is the original animal, named ‘opossum’. The word comes from an Algonquian (Native American) word meaning ‘white dog’.

8. Spitz the beagle is, more or less, correctly identified on his collar with the Latin name Canis familiaris. Many sources list the domestic dog as Canis familiaris, but others more precisely list it as a subspecies of Canis lupus. Spitz’s rabies medication, on the other hand, is completely fictional. Phenomoxylcarbobubytol does not exist as a rabies treatment, or otherwise. There is no treatment or cure for rabies once the more severe stages occur, such as foaming at the mouth.

9. Canis lupus, The Gray Wolf, is identified at the end along with Mr. Fox’s Latinized name, Vulpes vulpes (The Red Fox). To thwart any confusion, Canis lupus and Canis lupus familiaris are, in fact, different. The domestic dog is listed as a subspecies (familiaris) of Canis lupus as it is a domesticated form of the Wolf.

Grade: A-

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

After a brief hiatus, the theaters are once again hopping with summer releases, so on we go to Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

PLEASE NOTE - SPOILERS BELOW:

1. Opening sequences can be troublesome for movies, and this was the case here as the cast gets packed in a variety of craft store stuffs such as raffia and Styrofoam peanuts, which are definitely not archival storage supplies for proper artifact handling. The diorama men would be individually enclosed in archival wrap and the others would be heavily wrapped and packed for transport. Also of note is the production mistake with Sacajawea being packed in mossy stuff but unpacking herself from peanuts.

2. Stiller’s sidekick monkey makes another appearance and is properly introduced as a Capuchin monkey, but our brilliant security guard continues on and misidentifies it as a ‘rare breed.’ Capuchins are a group of small monkeys from Central and South America that are often recognized as organ grinder monkeys or kept as exotic pets. They live in groups up in the trees and are most active during the day, when they forage for food. They are fairly prevalent and are known to pillage fields and crops, becoming troublesome to nearby human populations. Recently they have become regionally rare due to habitat destruction but they are not currently listed as rare or endangered.

3. There is reoccurring octopus that is consistently seeking water after being released from his daytime cave and there are quite a few issues with it. First, octopi are not covered in slime or mucus. They have fairly a smooth body covering which is slippery when wet but does not ooze any additional liquids via glands. What they can exude, as a normal defensive function, is ink, which I was a little shocked that I didn’t see incorporated into the film as it seemed like a comedic no brainer. And speaking of no brainer, most people know that octopus live in marine environments like the ocean! Their body systems operate in salt water alone and are not adapted for life in fresh water. This would make it extremely difficult to survive when dumped in the Washington D.C. Reflecting Pool, which is not a body of saltwater.

4. Amelia Earhart takes the 1903 Wright Flyer from the National Air and Space Gallery out for a spin with better results than Wilbur and Orville. After two attempts to fly the machine, one of which resulted in a minor crash, Orville Wright took the Flyer out for the first powered, piloted flight in history. The brief adventure lasted for a 12-second, sustained flight on December 17, 1903. Ms. Earhart was able to pilot the flyer all over the gallery and the greater D.C. area, putting to shame the younger Wright.

5. And just as we had issue with the opening credits, we also find inaccuracies in the closing credits. Earlier in the film, we were introduced to a sailor from a snapshot of V-J Day in Times Square who finds the lost cell phone. As the credits role, we are reintroduced to the young sailor, Joey Motorola as he tinkers with the cell phone. There are several inaccuracies here as Motorola was founded in 1928 (as Galvin Manufacturing Company) in Chicago, Illinois where its sole product was a battery eliminator for radios. Founders Paul Galvin and Joseph Galvin devised the name Motorola when the company began manufacturing car radios in 1930; as the trademark name combines "motor" and "Victrola” (a household turntable enclosed in a cabinet)." Many of its products are radio-related (not necessarily cell phones) and in 1940 Motorola developed the first walkie talkie in the world. Victory in Japan Day occurred in 1945 and celebrations spread to Times Square in New York after Japan’s Emperor Hirohito surrendered, seventeen years after Motorola opened its doors.

Grade: C

Bee Movie

So, I normally leave the world of animated films alone, as they are typically completely inaccurate. So we have to first squash some general animation mistakes before getting into the nitty gritty of it: Bees have 6 legs (not 4), and they do not have the typical mammal face. Instead, they have 2 compound eyes, no nose and no teeth. So now that we have that out of the way, let’s venture into Bee Movie!

1. The first glaring mistake happens right off the bat as the DreamWorks boy floats up with his bundle of balloons and gets stung by a bee. The main problem with this is the fact that the stinger is an integral part of the bees’ anatomy. When the stinger detaches in honeybees, it takes with it the entire back portion of the bee's abdomen, along with a nerve ganglion (brain), various muscles, a venom sac, and the end of the bee’s digestive tract, basically gutting it. The venom sac continues to pulse, continuing to pump venom into its victim. Had our bee friend actually stung the boy, it would have been dead on the ground with a gaping hole where the stinger once was, not resting leisurely on the DreamWorks moon.

2. As our star bee Barry Benson, gets ready for graduation, he sharpens his stinger for his big day. Problem here is that boy bees do not have stingers. Stingers in ants, bees, and wasps (Order: Hymenoptera) are modified ovipositors or egg layers. In social Hymenoptera, there is typically one “queen” that lays all the eggs, so the rest of the bees have evolved modified ovipositors to help protect the hive in case of attack. The queen has a true ovipositor and therefore does not have any means to protect herself or her hive. But since Mr. Seinfeld was one of the writers on the film, and assuming he wanted to be the star, we can let this very large error slide, as it would probably be less convincing to have him play a female character.

3. It is also apparent that this is not a normal beehive as there are way too many male bees present in the hive. Males, also known as drones, are a very small percentage of the hive. The males have one purpose, to fertilize the queen. They do not work, they do not take care of the young, they do not make honey and they do not protect the queen (since they don’t have stingers).

4. As Alan and Barry enter the workplace they are told that they will stay in the job they pick for the rest of their life. Although it is true that bees have the same job their whole life, they do not have the luxury of picking what that job is. It is a true caste system that they are born into. The queen, for example, starts as an egg, laid as any other egg, but is fed a certain substance (royal jelly) by the nurse bees once the egg hatches. Royal jelly is fed to the larvae (baby bee) only when the ”queen” position is vacant or the reigning queen is sick or old. When more workers are needed to maintain and protect the hive, or drones are needed to fertilize the queen, that is what is produced.

5. And then there are the pollen jocks. These steroid-injected characters hold their pollen in some fancy contraption strapped to their backs. In actuality, these carriers would be female, since we’ve learned the females do all the work in the hive, including the acquisition of pollen, and they would store their pollen in pollen baskets located on their hind legs.

6. Barry mentions to Vanessa that the queen of his hive was elected on the campaign slogan “My only interest is flowers” but as we know queens are born, not elected.

7. Again we encounter sex determination issues when we are introduced to Mooseblood, a friendly mosquito that Barry meets on a truck windshield. Mooseblood talks wildly about acquiring his next blood meal. But unfortunately male mosquitoes do not feed on blood. Most of them feed on nectar or pollen. Female mosquitoes are the only mosquitoes that feed on blood and that usually occurs when they are producing eggs, blood being a protein requirement for the flies to properly nourish their young.

8. The accuracy of the apiary (bee farm) is quite good. Bee boxes are set up in fairly close proximity and on a fairly regular basis men (or women) in bee suits and veils remove the combs and extract the honey. To do this without agitating the hive, a smoker is used to relax the hive. The smokers do not contain nicotine or tar, but rather paper and/or wood chips which can often be quite nice smelling (at least to this human).

9. Once the trial against the humans begins, Adam becomes enraged and stings the lawyer in the courtroom.

a. First, bees don’t sting because they are angry; they sting for one reason - to protect the hive and more importantly their queen. Since the lawyer was not posing a threat to either home or queen, Adam had no reason to sting.
b. Second, he should be dead, since, as we know, the stinger is part of the animal, and when the Adam’s stinger is released, the entire venom sac is ripped from his body along with most of his innards.
c. And of course, Adam is a boy, and boy bees don’t have stingers.

10. Barry declares that bees have been around for 27 million years. While I'm sure the writers were attempting to point out that bees have been around for a really long time, they really could have driven the point home by referencing a figure a little closer to the truth. Fossils have been found dating bees to the early Cretaceous, approximately 100 million years ago. And more specifically, honeybees have been around at least 35 million years.

11. When the bees get all their honey back and quit their day jobs, the picture that is painted is fairly accurate (though it wouldn’t be quite so desolate as many plants are not dependent on insect pollination). If all bees were to go away (or stop the inadvertent pollination of plants) we would lose a vast majority of the following plants, all of which are at least partly dependent on bees:

Allspice, almond, apple, apricot, avocado, blackberry, blueberry, brazil nuts, broccoli, brussell sprouts, buckwheat, cabbage, cardamom, cashews, canola, cantaloupe, cauliflower, celery, clover, coconut, coffee, coriander, cotton, cranberry, cucumber, fennel, guava, kidney bean, kiwifruit, lima bean, loquat, lychee, macadamia, mango, mustard, nectarine okra, onion, pawpaw, peach, pear, persimmon, pomegranate pumpkin, raspberry, sesame, soybean, squash, star fruit, strawberry, string bean, sunflower, walnut, watermelon, and zucchini.

As a note to the above, when the bees returned, they would not transform the landscape quite so quickly. It would take many months for the pollination to take effect and produce seeds, which in turn would grow into new plants.

Grade: B (really, what did you expect?)

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Jumping back to new, theatrical releases, let us Journey to the Center of the Earth.

PLEASE NOTE - SPOILERS BELOW:

1. It’s been a while since I've seen a film in which the opening sequence was so wrought with scientific inaccuracies. We start our adventure with a cute little trilobite (the cute critter that looks like a brown pill bug on steroids). Portrayed fairly accurately, I was pleased for about 5 seconds until a large Tyrannosaurus rex entered the frame. Problem is, the last of the trilobites died out at the end of the Permian, (about 250 million years ago) and T. rex didn’t appear in until the end of the Cretaceous (68-65 million years ago). So we are looking at approximately 180 million years between when the two existed. As I know many of the readers of this blog are not scientists or mathematicians, I will enlighten you. . . 180 million years is a really long time! Now, I do realize that this was a dream sequence but Trevor Anderson (Fraser) should have known this simple fact being the scientist/professor that he was.

2. As our three travelers begin repelling down what we later learn is a supposed volcanic conduit (the pipe that facilitates the lava flow from the magma chamber out the vent at the top of the volcano) Fraser makes a reference to schist as the material covering the walls around them. Schist is a metamorphic rock (an igneous [volcanic origins] or sedimentary rock [originating from biological remains] which over time has been changed from its original state. What would later be the basis of several jokes, this material could not possibly be schist as schist transforms not from volcanic, igneous rock, but rather from sedimentary rock, the remains of deceased plant and animal life.

3. Continuing in their travels, Fraser lights a flare and after a brief pyrotechnic show, realizes that the walls of their underground chamber are now made of magnesium. Magnesium is highly flammable but while it is easy to ignite when powdered or in small shaved quantities, it is difficult to ignite in mass or in this case imbedded in walls of rock. Additionally, when lit, it gives off a brilliant white light, not the orangish tinge we are offered.

4. After an Indiana Jones-esque ride through the mines, our faithful friends land in a gem pocket. Gem pockets are cavities in the earth previously filled with gasses or water in which minerals’ growth is made possible. Basically they are larger versions of Geodes (those ugly rocks you broke open when you were a kid with all the pretty gems inside). Pockets are fairly common and occur all over the world but usually contain like minerals made up of the same or similar occurring elements. Diamonds (a carbon based gem usually embedded in the mineral kimberlite), emeralds (a variety of the mineral beryl), smoky quartz and amethyst (varieties of the mineral quartz), and rubies (a variety of the mineral corundum) would not all be found in the same pocket as they are derived from very different minerals and basal elements, which lend them their exquisite colors.

5. As our fearless trio progresses, we meet up with another lovely mineral - Muscovite, the thin fragile ground which begins to crack as they move. Also known as mica and occurring among granites, schists, and other rocks, this was a fairly accurate depiction of the thin laminate sheets usually colored gray, yellow or brown (as in this motion picture).

6. We meet another creature as we enter the “center of the earth,” a small, glowing bird that Fraser states has been extinct for 150 million years. This small bird is crammed with mistakes:

a. First, lets start with bioluminescence, the production and emission of light by a living organism. No living bird exhibits bioluminescence. Most animals that do light up do so for a variety of reasons including attraction (prey or mates), communication, camouflage and illumination (for animals that live in dark locations such as deep in the ocean where sunlight does not exist). Birds have many adaptations, and are highly evolved animals with elaborate attraction displays, advanced communication skills, and coloration, which keep them well camouflaged.
b. This adorable little bird is clearly a passerine (or perching bird for the non-scientists among us). Passerines are the most common of all birds accounting for more than one-half of all bird species. But scientists believe that passerines didn’t evolve until the late Paleocene, some 55-60 million years ago, which means this bird couldn’t have gone extinct 150 million years ago.
c. Finally, birds, like other animals, typically have a built-in instinct that other animals, which are not familiar, are potential predators and seen as threats. This is why when you venture out into nature, it is not the best plan to try to grab an animal out of its natural environment as you will probably get bit. This is a defense mechanism, as most animals that have tried to grab it in the past were likely predators, trying to capture it for a meal. That being said, it is highly unlikely that our diminutive glowing friend would have followed Fraser and company throughout the rest of their adventure.

7. The giant dandelion clocks (the big poofy tops of the dandelion that Fraser blows the seed parachutes off of) are a bit large for any dandelion described by modern science (as opposed to science fiction). And dandelions did not arrive on the floral scene until about 30 million years ago, making these dandelions at least 20 million years ahead of their time (based on the other plants and animals portrayed in the “center of the earth”).

8. And while we are on the topic of things being out of place, the ginormous fossilized mushrooms didn’t belong either, especially since the word ‘fossil’ comes from the Latin, literally meaning “having been dug up.” Unless Fraser’s long lost brother did some excavating while he was hanging out in the center of the earth, it’s impossible that the mushrooms would have just fossilized intact, as that is not how fossilization works. The most common way for a plant or animal to turn into a fossil is after burial, when the (sometimes very tiny) empty spaces within an organism fill with mineral rich groundwater. As the minerals or sediments separate from the groundwater they, in essence, replace the once biotic (living) material with abiotic (nonliving) material; such as when a bone turns into a rock. The other problem with the idea that these gargantuan mushrooms are fossils, is that mushrooms rarely fossilize. Why? Because they are very soft and have no rigid fibers in them so they are usually smashed or disintegrate before they have the time to fossilize.

9. Coming back to the trilobites, there is a funny exchange between Fraser and the boy in which he instructs him to “eat your trilobite to keep up your strength”. The trilobite Max is consuming has innards that look surprisingly similar to the insides of a cockroach: whitish and pussy. Now, although scientists do not know what the insides of trilobites actually looked like (as these parts do not fossilize), it would be accurate to assume that they would very much resemble those of a roach, which has a comparable body shape and structure. So a point goes to the filmmakers on this one.

10. Score another point for the filmmakers as our adventurers hit the high seas. Here we meet some small, jumpy fish, which one would assume was an Enchondus fish. These fish were present in the late cretaceous (100-65 million years ago) and were fairly formidable predators. We also meet the large, but fairly slow moving Plesiosaurs - the long necked reptiles meandering through the water, one of which seizes an Enchondus. Plesiosaurs were also know to have existed in the late cretaceous and although slow moving, it is widely believed that they used their long, flexible neck to move their head into position to snap up unwary fish. This is further supported by the fossilized stomach contents of Plesiosaurs in which remains of the Enchondus fish were found.

11. Moving from fauna to flora, and back to the land of the giants, our fearless friends meet some very large carnivorous plants.

a. First off, venus flytraps, or any carnivorous plant for that matter, do not grow that big. The largest of the carnivorous plants is the pitcher plant, and it is the vines, not the pitcher itself (the carnivorous part) that actually reaches up to 10 meters in length.
b. Secondly, because of their real, more diminutive size, they do not consume large prey. Most flytraps “eat” flies, beetles, and sometimes small frogs or lizards. Furthermore they do not have teeth, so they cannot chew or break their prey down into smaller sizes. The largest prey they can consume is what fits in their modified leaves (the part that opens and shuts like a bear trap). Because they cannot break off parts of the animal and therefore have to eat it whole, the largest animal the plant Fraser and friends encounter could consume would be a medium size rat or pigeon, definitely not a full grown human.
c. Flytraps are also non-aggressive. They eat what comes to them, they don’t seek out prey and do not have any sort of viney structure for prey capture, which we see grabbing the Icelandic heroine.

12. One of my favorite scenes, though completely inaccurate, was the scene with the floating rocks. I was first impressed with the thought that these rocks were floating due to magnetic forces. Each magnet has 2 poles, a north pole and a south pole. Since opposite poles (north and south) attract whereas like poles (north and north, or south and south) repel, we assume that the repelling of poles is what is at play here . . . until the rock Max is on flips over. Now although the Earth's magnetic field occasionally reverses itself, it is highly unlikely that this just so happened at this precise moment in time and then instantaneously reverted back to its original state of polarity for him to escape.

13. We started with a T. rex and will end with a T. rex as Fraser and nephew try to outrun the large beast. While many scientists still argue whether T. rex was a fast runner (fueling the debate that he was a scavenger rather than a hunter), it is agreed by most that he was not good at turning or weaving. Due to his horizontal stance causing the bulk of his mass to be far from his center of gravity, it would take up to 2 seconds for the animal to rotate 45 degrees: a slight right or left turn. Our T. rex is turning and weaving all over the place. Secondly, whether you believe T. rex was a fast runner or slow runner, either way, our friends would have been lunch. Scientists have produced a wide range of maximum speed estimates from 12-25 miles per hour for the large Therapod dinosaur. Problem is, humans can’t run that fast. Maurice Green achieved the fastest sprinting speed of 26.7 mph but this is not sustained running. The highest sustained speed is just over 15 miles an hour - i.e. a 4-minute mile, which I’m sure neither or our contenders could have accomplished.

Grade: C+

Snakes on a Plane

Dusted off this dvd gem for a thorough review of its herpetological accuracy. Onward and upward we go to our next film, Snakes on a Plane.

1. First off, where did all these snakes come from? The plane takes off from Hawaii, which has only one native snake, the island blind snake, which looks a big black worm. They also have a few invasive (introduced) species, including the brown tree snake, but apparently those guys got delayed on the island as neither of them made it on the flight.
Instead there was a bevy of extremely accurate (except for the teeth) looking critters including the gopher snake (North America) in Mercedes’ purse, several shots of a milk snake (the Americas) a handful of eyelash vipers (central and south America), a couple of corn snakes (north America) slithering on the floor and coral snakes (widespread distribution) on the captain’s control board.
And then the big cabin attack with lots of coloubrids (a large group of snakes containing ½ of all snake species, most are non-venomous). The same cast of characters we met before and a few new including the venomous eastern diamondback (Southeastern U.S.) and cobras (Asia and Africa).
There is some mention at the end that they were acquired from some cohort from the southwest desert but Hawaii, being an island, has some of the most stringent importing regulations to protect their native wildlife, basically making it near impossible to sneak this quantity of illegal snakes onto the island) but I’m going to let this one slide as its a stretch, but the possibility of snakes passing inspectors at the airport is far more believable than some of the loosely concocted plot explanations I’ve seen.

2. Pheromones, the stuff being sprayed on the leis to make the snakes “go crazy” are extremely common in nature and, while they do exist in reptiles, they are very poorly understood in snakes. I will note that snakes do have excellent chemosensory devices, smelling not through their nostrils (yes, they do breathe through their noses, but that’s about it) but rather they “smell” by capturing scent particles in the air via tongue flicking and transforming the particles into olfactory information which is deciphered by the Jacobson’s organ, located on the roof of the snakes mouth.

3. While we are on the senses, some snakes (primarily the pythons, boas, and the pit vipers) also have keen heat sensory abilities. They use super-sensitive heat sensors in their face to zero in on the warmth given off by their preys’ bodies. The filmmakers try to relay this through the snakes’ eye view shots, which appear as a green blurry mess. Scientists aren’t quite sure exactly how good they can see, but in general, sight is one of their least developed senses, especially for the ground dwelling snakes.

4. At one point, the captain goes down to “reset the breakers” after the control board goes dead. Surprise, surprise, he gets bit by one of the plane’s serpentine passengers. His co-captain comes to his rescue and says to the flight attendant that the captain “must have had a heart attack.” Snake bites and heart attacks do have similar symptoms such as dizziness and fainting, excessive sweating, nausea and vomiting.

5. The dude back at the FBI office mentions that he needs the best poisonous snake expert in the time zone. Problem is there are no poisonous snake experts since there aren’t any poisonous snakes.
Poison is something that is ingested while venom is a substance that is injected. Snakes have fangs to dispense the venom into their prey and are not poisonous. In fact, several snakes apparently make good eating and are quite popular in some parts of the world

6. While we are on the topic of food: the scene with the Spanish woman asking for olive oil so she could suck out the venom from the little boy’s arm was slightly off. Yes, olive oil can be used to treat snake bites, but its usually mixed with plants to form tinctures or rubs which are applied to the affected area. Making cuts around the puncture or sucking out the venom has been tried in the past but most physicians find that cutting, sucking, or applying a tourniquet or ice to a snakebite can infect the bite and damage nerves and blood vessels in the victim, and sicken the rescuer if they use their mouth to try and remove the venom, doing more harm than good.

7. And then there is Dr. Price our “poisonous snake expert” who seems to have quite a bit of very accurate information (as well he should, since he’s the specialist).
- “Snakes don’t attack unless they’re provoked” - true.
- “It could possibly be a pheromone, that’s what female animals release to trigger mating behavior” – in other animals that’s definitely true, though not confirmed in snakes.
- “There are hundreds of species of snakes with hundreds of cocktails of venom” – true.
- “Some will kill you in 2 minutes others in 2 hours and some you can actually cure with a good nights rest” - true.
- “If you administer the wrong antivenin, that will kill you” –false (well, four out of five ain’t bad)

8. Then the pièce de résistance with the large Burmese python that falls through the glass ceiling. Except for the ridiculous teeth, this animal is fantastic. The way it strikes and constricts the small chihuahua is superbly accurate. It then moves on to the British man with whom the serpent flicks its prey’s head with its tongue (to “smell” if he is something good to eat) and then consumes the man from head to feet. This is exactly how snakes feed in reality, as the direction of hair growth in animals, from head to tail, aids consumption as the prey slides down the esophagus of the snake (think of how you pet a dog or cat, head to tail). Now the man is probably a bit bigger than what that snake could actually consume (they can expand their jaws up to 3 times the size of their head) but, then again, this isn’t a documentary.

So overall, a pretty decent offering for a Hollywood film and exceptional scientific accuracy for a “B”-movie.

Grade: B+

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

So, having just plopped down 14 bucks to view the new Indy, I have a few reactions to the Lucas/Spielberg escapade. Now, while most Indy fans are dissecting myriad issues of plot, dialogue, over the top sequences, and possible overuse of CGI, I plan to instead focus on the scientific aspects (or lack thereof) of this particular cinematic adventure:

PLEASE NOTE - SPOILERS BELOW:

1. The "Rat Snake" as it is referred to in the quicksand scene could not possibly be a Rat Snake as their range does not typically reach down into South America where the trio are in search of the crystal skull (maybe the LaBeouf packed it on the motorbike for just this purpose?) Nor do the animals get that big or have the tensile strength to drag Indy out of the pit.

2. The Tufted Capuchins (those cute little cgi monkeys swinging through the vines with the LaBeouf) are in fact native to South America but limited to the North Eastern portion of Peru, nowhere close to Cusco. On a slightly different note, they typically live in small male dominated groups. When they do party it up, they hang out in groups no more than 20 individuals. So unless there was a capuchin convention going on in the trees there were far too many to constitute a normal sized assemblage.

3. While we are on the topic of those vines, Liana vines are woody stems that typically support the weight of arboreal (tree-dwelling) monkeys, birds and other small critters. They can, in some rare instances, support small humans (which I guess would include the LaBeouf) but the chance that they were plentiful enough in the span in which he swings, and with such regularity, is very highly unlikely.

4. And onto the arthropods, my true expertise. Let’s start with the obvious – the ants. Although the filmmakers would have us believe these are Army Ants, the real deals don’t get nearly that big and look nothing like the ridiculous, ginormous cgi critters that they tried to pass off as army ants. So I’m going to make the assumption that they are Bulldog Ants (also known as Jack Jumper Ants), which are easily the largest ants in the world at a whopping 2 cm (slightly less than an inch). On the close ups they seemed to have the characteristic mandibles of the Bulldog Ants and, behavior wise, they do have excellent sight and will track intruders (which Indy et al were when they crashed their vehicles onto the poor Formicids’ home) up to 1 meter. Yes, that’s right, 3 FEET. So, the problems: those ants must have been marathon runners ‘cause they carried on for about the length of a football field tracking the group. Furthermore, these ferocious looking beasties actually feed on small insects, seeds, fungi, nectar and honeydew (a sweet sticky liquid deposited on leaves by various insects). Their larvae are carnivorous (meat eaters) and rely on their adult guardians to bring back food to the nest. They do not however, devour live HUMAN prey in seconds and drag the remains back to their nests. By the way, Army Ants, if that’s what they want us to believe these are, don’t have true nests, instead, the group is incessantly moving during its entire existence, devouring prey as they go. And of course the obvious: the Bulldog Ants are not found in South America. Rather they are almost exclusively found in Australia (with one exception Myrmecia apicalis that is found in New Caledonia.

5. And finally the scorpions. Yes its true that the larger the scorpions PINCHERS, the less one has to worry as the scorpion needs one, primary means to acquire their prey and defend themselves; larger pinchers means less effective venom in their stinger (and therefore, smaller pinchers equates to much more potent venom). Problem is that this was not the quote; Indy says big scorpions are nothing to worry about, but that’s a reference to the total size of the animal, and not the pinchers in relation to the size of the body, which is the real clue. Oh, and of course the Emperor Scorpions that were crawling all over tarnation are in fact native to Africa, not South America.

GRADE: C+

Introduction

I'm a scientist by training, with emphasis on Natural Science. Needless to say I have a fondness for the great outdoors, plants and wildlife. I grew up in Los Angeles and am currently married to a film maker. I find myself constantly entertained, annoyed, appalled and, every so often, impressed by how my field of specialty is portrayed in commercial Hollywood film. You may not consider what I write about as important as the more conventional 'thumbs up/thumbs down' criticisms of plot, character, or how realistic the special effects looked, but I hope you will make a little extra room in your heart for the intrigue of scientific accuracy (you'll probably learn something you didn't know!). So without further a do, I hope you enjoy my unconventional movie reviews!