Archives for : science

Blast from the Past 8 – Time travel’s a bitch!

Posted by :David Manly On : August 11, 2014
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Category: lost, review

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In season five, LOST began to dig in its heels about science fiction and the nature of destiny. Source.

In season five, LOST began to dig in its heels about science fiction and the nature of destiny. Source.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been fascinated with the nature of time-travel, specifically paradoxes. In a much, much earlier post, I tried to explain what makes a paradox in my post entitled: “We have to go back!” “Back where?” “BACK, to the FUTURE!!”. So, you can imagine my joy when this came right to the forefront of LOST’s fifth season.

LOST – Views from a Veteran – Season Five: Episodes 1-7

“Time travel’s a bitch” – Sawyer in “The Little Prince”

While episode seven does not technically reach the “half of the season” reviews I have been writing, I decided that since it was such a large game-changer, I will factor it into the next post.

Now, to the first half of season five!

This season takes the science fiction aspect of Lost and amps it up to around 11. This turned many people off of the program, as Lost was more of a multi-genre style of show for its first four seasons. But, after season four’s “The Constant” aired and introduced of time-travel, Lost officially came out and said that it was a science fiction television show.

This season also was split into two very distinct parts – the survivors on the island slipping through time, and the Oceanic Six attempting to get back to the island. These “flash-sideways” that some poeple called it, are still considered a flash-forwards, as the Oceanic Six elements are taking place three years ahead of when the island was first moved. While it is possible the survivors time-skipped into the future, for the vast majority of the time, they remained in the past. Flash-sideways were not introduced until season 6.

When this season aired, I remember quite enjoying the sci-fi aspect becoming front and centre, and them addressing so many staples of science fiction. The main one that they address is the notion of a paradox. If you could go back in time, could you change the events to alter the course of the timeline?

Daniel Farraday, the absent-minded expert on time-travel, rightly says no in a very easy to understand way – “If it hasn’t happened, it can’t happen.” And Sawyer, who encounters a heart-breaking moment with seeing Kate delivering Claire’s baby, comes to the sudden realization that he can’t alter history. “What’s done is done,” he says, with such emotion that would not have been possible from Sawyer in the first few seasons.

Many of the characters have changed since we first saw them back in season one, and are slowly becoming the individuals that we see at the end of the series. The most obvious are Jack and Locke. Jack, whom was the rigid man of science, has slowly begun to shift to the man of faith he needs to be to accept Jacob’s offer and defend the island with his life. Locke, on the other hand, finally embraced his destiny to be a keeper of the island, only to be manipulated by forces beyond his control. Thankfully, that Locke reappears in season 6 in the flash-sideways reality.

It is interesting, especially in this season, knowing that Christian Sheppard is an avatar of the MiB, and how he manipulates Locke and other characters to meet their eventual fates. And, if he wouldn’t have done so, he never would have been destroyed.

So, in effect, he was the architect of his own destruction. But, that’s a discussion for season six, not five.

And now, because you demanded it, it’s time for the various “Lost-isms” for the beginning of season five!

There have now 27 fights, with Ben & Sawyer in the lead with three, and Jack & Ethan, Sawyer & Sayid and Sawyer & Pickett tied with the second place with two fights each.

Sawyer has said “Sonofabitch” 25 different times, while Ben has been beaten up five times. Meanwhile, Desmond has said “brother” an incredible 40 times!

Finally, as always, I will now end with the top “Sawyer-isms:

“Freckles” still maintains its commanding lead with Sawyer saying it 32 times, with “Doc” trailing behind with 27. Still tied for third are “Boss” and “Hoss” with five references, and “Chief,” “Sweetheart” and “Chewie” tied for fourth with four mentions each.

“I help people get to where they need to get to” – Matthew Abaddon in “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”

Not everything on the internet is true?

Posted by :David Manly On : May 12, 2014
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Category: Animals, Science

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After I saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – which wasn’t horrible, and had some decent moments (especially for a comic book fan like myself) – I was going to write a post about just how scientifically accurate Spider-Man is. Namely, could such a creature exist?

After the obvious answer of “NO,” I came upon a video from the makers of Animation Domination entitled: Scientifically Accurate Spider-Man.

WARNING, there is some graphic language and images, so you may need to sign in to view it.

However, I had a few questions after watching the video. While I am no entomologist, I do know more than your average person about insects and some of these “scientifically accurate facts” the video kept flailing about did not seem right to me. And by the might of Google, I found a post written about how inaccurate that very video is, written by a friend of mine from the science communication world – Gwen Pearson AKA Bug Girl.

Her post details what is right, wrong and plain weird about the lyrics in the song, and it is a brilliant read. You can find it here: http://membracid.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/scientifically-accurate-spider-man-is-not-accurate/

Gwen raises an interesting point, as when she initially wrote about Spider-Man, she admits she cut some corners to make it more interesting to non-entomologists. But by doing so, you lose some of the science-ness. Jargon is a great thing in certain circles, but if you aren’t in on it, then readers will rapidly lose interest and then you have failed as a science communicator.

It is tough to walk the fine line between established fact and preventing it from being bogged down with the nitty-gritty of science. Personally, I love the nitty-gritty science, but that’s me. And I primarily don’t write for me. I write for a farmer in Saskatchewan, a waitress in Tulsa, a receptionist in Darwin and everyone in-between. I write to communicate science, animals, the weird and wonderful, and the general oddity of everyday life so that anyone can read it and hopefully learn something, or go “huh, I didn’t know that.”

Whenever someone says they learned something or thought it was interesting, I’m right as rain.

But the Internet is a fountain of knowledge, but also a dangerous pit of misinformation, and requires every reader be knowledgeable that anyone can publish anything online and that doesn’t mean it is right.

But that said, these cartoon are really entertaining, do contain some real information and I am talking about them on my blog. So, I guess that counts as a win.

Only skin deep

Posted by :David Manly On : April 22, 2014
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Category: Science, superheroes

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With Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie now out in theaters for a few weeks (it is quite good and I recommend everyone go see it), I have had the Marvel Universe on the brain. I find myself giddy with anticipation over the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film, which opens in August, and ravenous for any news about the Avengers sequel next year, entitled Avengers: Age of Ultron.

And with Marvel thoughts running around rampant in my brain, I began to dwell on the upcoming multiple mini-series that will premiere on Netflix next year, featuring Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Daredevil and Luke Cage, eventually culminating in a giant team-up event called The Defenders. There is so much news and excitement coming in the next few years that the comic fan in me cannot stand it!

But the scientist in me began to ponder about superpowers, namely of these so-called “street level” heroes and if they could actually exist. Luke Cage, also known as Power Man, is one of the most durable superheroes in the Marvel Universe, thanks to his unique set of powers that allow him to have superhuman strength, and most notably, unbreakable skin due to being exposed to a variant of the Super Soldier serum that created Captain America.

Luke Cage started out in a street gang, but due to some events with a girlfriend of a friend, he was framed for heroin possession and locked up in Seagate Prison. There, he was “volunteered” for experiments, which resulted in his superpowers. He started a group called “Heroes for Hire,” which was a for-profit superhero business, and eventually joined the Avengers and headlined the New Avengers.

According to the official Marvel comics database, Cage’s powers are that his skin is steel-hard and his muscles and bone tissue are super-dense and resistant to damage. “He can withstand conventional handgun fire at a range of four feet and cannot be cut by the sharpest of blades, although in the event of required surgery, his skin can be lacerated by an overpowered medical laser. He can withstand up to one-ton impacts or blasts of 150 pounds of TNT without serious injury, and is impervious to temperature extremes and electrical shocks. His recovery time from injury or trauma is usually one-third that of an ordinary human.”

But what about the skin on everyone else?

Skin is separated into different layers: the epidermis, dermis and subcutis (or hypodermis).

The epidermis is the outermost layer, which has the nerve cells, melanin (which creates the colour of your skin), and immune cells to protect against infection. The epidermis heals itself very quickly and leaves no scars, unlike the lower layers. While the epidermis is what is shown to the world, it really varies in thickness across your body – from 1.5 millimetres (mm) on the palm of your hands to only 0.5 mm on your eyelids.

The dermis is right below the epidermis and is much thicker, up to 1.5 mm thick, which makes up around 90 percent of the total thickness of the skin. It is used mainly to help regulate body temperature and blood supply. The dermis is also where blood vessels are, along with hair follicles, sweat glands and many more. Because it is below the epidermis, it doesn’t heal as quickly, so when it is injured, special cells come and fill up the hole that are not as sensitive or flexible, which create scars.

The last layer, the subcutis or hypodermis, is where fat is stored and serves as a way to protect the organs, regulate body temperature and use fat as an emergency energy reserve for the body.

In total, the average skin thickness is 2.5 millimetres thick … but how thick would it have to be to, like Luke Cage, survive the shot of a conventional handgun fired at a range of four feet?

According the Federal Bureau of Investigation, all handguns must be capable of 12 inches of penetration in order to run the greatest chance of injuring vital organs and incapacitate the subject in order to be used by agents in the field. The 12-inch guideline accommodates for the presence of bones, vital organs, etc., as most people are far less than 12 inches thick. In fact, I’m only about 7.5 – 8 inches thick at my torso; so being shot by a bullet that can penetrate over 1.5 times that is more than enough. So, that seems like a pretty good baseline to start with.

Penetration power of a handgun is usually achieved by firing it at a block of ballistics gel, which estimates tissue density and viscosity (or how solid and liquid a substance is) to estimate the force of the shot. While the gel simulates muscle tissue, which has a density of 1.06 kg/litre, fat has a density of 0.92 kg/litre. Therefore, since skin is a mix of both, as well as some extras thrown in, the density is probably around 1-1.1 kg/litre. Therefore, while ballistics gel is not optimal to gauge skin penetration, it serves as a good ballpark figure. Therefore, if the FBI requires that its handguns be able to penetrate a minimum of 12 inches of ballistics gel, it is time for some math.

12 inches = 30.48 centimetres = 304.8 millimetres

And average skin thickness = 2.5 mm

If we divide the thickness of the handgun penetration into ballistics gel by the average skin thickness, we can calculate how much thicker your skin would need to be in order to be at the maximum end of the minimum FBI ballistics requirements.

304.8/2.5 = 121.92, or roughly 122 times the thickness of skin.

What that means is that hypothetically, if your skin were to be 123 times thicker than normal (around 307.5 mm thick), you might be able to survive being shot by a bullet from the end of an FBI standard issue handgun, but it would still hurt. Probably a lot. You would probably be better off wearing a bulletproof vest, which slows down bullets extremely quickly to a survivable level, or simply not getting shot at all.

Sources

http://marvel.com/universe/Cage,_Luke

http://training.seer.cancer.gov/melanoma/anatomy/

http://www.histology.leeds.ac.uk/skin/skin_layers.php

http://greent.com/40Page/general/fbitest.htm

http://www.scrollseek.com/training/densitiesofdifferentbodymatter.html

The next step

Posted by :David Manly On : April 7, 2014
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Category: Blog Posts, blogging, comics

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Superheroes have always presented a very interesting dilemma to me; in that they are often impossible flights of fancy yet simultaneously a form of wish fulfillment. Who hasn’t, at some point or other, wished that they could fly, teleport, read people’s minds or heal from any injury? I am not embarrassed to say that I have often found myself wishing I could fly to work, be super-strong so I could protect those I love or just be a badass like Wolverine or Batman.

I’m also not ashamed to say that I love superheroes and comics, and I have since I was a kid. I adored the thrill of opening up a comic for the first time and getting lost in the conflicts that filled their days – some relatable to my everyday experience, others not. But it never mattered, because I would always take something away from those books I would read as a child. Even though they were stories about individuals with extraordinary powers, they had personality traits that I admired and wanted to emulate, but most importantly, they had flaws.

Back then, I read as much as I could by the big companies, as well as some smaller ones. But my favourites were always Marvel heroes (and Batman), and they still are to this day.

The characters that probably had the largest impact on me as a child were the X-Men. Sure I loved Spider-Man, Daredevil, Captain America and the rest, but the X-Men were my go-to series. They dealt with ostracization, racism, bullying, being true to yourself, etc. And all of those themes spoke to me, as I encountered that during my young life. But comics, and reading in general, were an escape from the trials of being a kid, like bullies and feeling like an outcast sometimes.

I loved going to the comic book store and seeing what issues were new, talking to the owner about my favourite characters, and being so excited to read an issue that I couldn’t wait until I got home to crack it open. In fact, I still have a few comics from those days that are hidden away somewhere that I could not bear to part with. Some of them are collectibles and first issues, while others have great memories, like the great DC vs. Marvel comics crossover event from the mid-1990s.

But why am I talking about comic books and superheroes in what has (mostly) been a blog about science, animals and journalism?

I have decided to expand my blog to talk more about video games, movies, comics, etc., while still striving to maintain the science-bent, tone and style that was here previously. I am a big fan of pop culture and an avid consumer of it, so I will be putting that absurd amount of knowledge to good use here, and I hope you enjoy it. I will be writing more along the lines of previous posts, such as “The Science of Smaug the Terrible,” where I discussed the feasibility (using biomechanics) about if dragons could exist, and “Man of Steel shows its rust” highlighting issues I had with the changes made to the Superman mythology in the latest reboot.

Stay tuned true believers!

To be continued …