REVIEW: Hubble IMAX—Editor’s Selection

Hubble 3D IMAX poster ©2010 Warner Brothers Pictures, all rights reserved.

The Hubble Space Telescope is the world’s first observatory that actually orbits—you guessed it—through outer space. Over the last decade, Hubble has captured some of the deepest and most detailed images of our universe. All those recent headlines about exoplanets: those discoveries come from Hubble. Scientists viewing pictures of light projected from stars over 13 billion years ago (almost at the origin of the universe): that’s Hubble, too. Hubble 3D documents the 2009 mission by the crew of the Shuttle Atlantis to make vital repairs to one of mankind’s most expensive, and significant, science projects. There would be no second chances. If the mission had failed, Hubble would be just another piece of junk orbiting above the earth, like my Direct TV satellite and Elvis’s body. The tension is real, the suspense extraordinary, and the imagery? Out of this world. And fortunately for terrestrial audiences, the entire mission was captured by the crew and director Toni Myers on some of the most breathtaking, brave film ever recorded. We are proud to make Hubble 3D an official ScriptPhD.com Editor’s Selection.
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Discovering LIFE on Planet Earth—Editor’s Selection

LIFE logo ©2010 Discovery Channel/BBC, all rights reserved.

In 2006, The Discovery Channel, in partnership with the BBC, premiered the 11-part Planet Earth, the most expensive natural history mini-series ever filmed, and the first in high definition. It gave viewers a sweeping, intimate overview of the Earth’s diverse natural habitats. Yet long before Planet Earth premiered, plans were already underway for its follow-up opus, LIFE, which would focus on the animals, insects, and creatures that call those habitats home. The result, four years in the making, is historic television—never-before-recorded mating rituals, survival scenes, and brutal savagery. For the naturalist and the nature-lover, LIFE will, quite simply, change your view of life. After the “continue reading” cut, we preview the first few episodes and offer a rare candid interview with executive producer Mike Gunton. We are proud to make LIFE on Discovery Channel an official ScriptPhD.com Editor’s Selection.
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REVIEW: The Crazies

The Crazies poster and images ©2010 Overture Films. All rights reserved.

Esteemed drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs has a single three-word critique of a certain kind of genre picture: “too much plot.” That’s a little easy and dismissive, but it does speak to an underlying truth: the best horror and suspense movies have to be easy to follow, or you’re in trouble. This particular genre is all about being In The Moment, especially if The Moment is designed to scare the heck out of the audience. Forcing them to pause and say, “Hey, wait a minute: why’s he doing that? Who’s that guy again? Why is he doing that?” rips the viewer out of that Moment. A better formula is to keep it simple. Or even better: keep it relentless. Out in theaters today is the well-made, competent, if flawed, bio-horror thriller The Crazies. Ironically enough, while The Crazies has some not-so-crazy plot and technical problems, the biology and science of this movie (with some minor exceptions) are the most enjoyable part. ScriptPhD.com full review and discussion under the “continue reading” cut.
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It’s Not Easy Being Green: Mountaintop Removal

An Appalachian mountain that has been decimated by coal mining.

One of the most pressing issues of our time is how and where we are going to get sustainable energy for a global population with a rapidly rising standard of living and the consumption that this entails. Approximately 10% of United States coal production [coal in general accounts for 40% of global electricity production] is procured through mountaintop removal, an environmentally-devastating extraction that literally involves blasting off (or removing) the top of a mountain to extract the coal inside. The practice gained popularity in the 1960s, when it started becoming too difficult and too costly to extract coal from underground mines. In our continuing “It’s Not Easy Being Green” series, ScriptPhD.com’s eco-blogger Captain Planet talks about the documentary Mountaintop Removal, exactly what it entails, and why this process is so much more costly than the immediate energy gained from it. Please click “continue reading” for more.
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Selling Science Smartly: Dow Human Element Campaign

When it comes to the interface of art and science, in many ways Madison Avenue finds itself in the position of the early days of sci-fi entertainment, where campy, unrefined productions took decades to evolve into the sophisticated films and shows we enjoy today. To be brutally honest, 95% of current science and technology advertising ranges from hackneyed to terrible; unimaginative, uncreative, uninspired. But here at ScriptPhD.com, we want to focus on the superlative 5%. What makes these campaigns work, what elevates their content above the crowd and most importantly, how do they fit within the theme of the science or industry they are promoting? This is why we are expanding our umbrella of coverage—which has heretofore included film, television and media—to the final frontier: advertising. In our brand new series entitled “Selling Science Smartly,” we will profile the best that science and technology advertising (print, TV, radio, digital and everything in-between) has to offer. Where possible, we will interview the respective campaign’s agencies and creative teams to give you a rarely revealed behind-the-scenes purview into the process and foundation of making these ads. We are proud to launch the series with the exceptional Dow Human Element campaign, including an in-depth interview with Creative Director and mastermind John Claxton of Draftfcb Chicago. For the full article, please click “continue reading.”

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Love is a Many-Splendored Algorithm

You spot someone across a crowded room. There is eye contact. Your heart beats a little faster, palms are sweaty, you’re light-headed, and your suddenly-squeamish stomach has dropped to your knees. You’re either suffering from an onset of food poisoning or you’re in love. But what does that mean, scientifically, to fall in love, to be in love, to stay in love? In our special Valentine’s Day post, Editor Jovana Grbić expounds on the neuronal and biophysical markers of love, how psychologists and mathematicians have harnessed (and sometimes manipulated) this information to foster 21st Century digital-style romance, and concludes with a personal reflection on what love really means in the face of all of this science. You might just be surprised. So, Cupid, draw back your sword… and click “continue reading” for more!
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Video: ScriptPhD Interviews the Science Advisor of ‘Fringe’

Fringe images ©2008 FOX Broadcasting Corporation, all rights reserved.

ScriptPhD.com’s coverage of Comic-Con 2009 included an interesting panel entitled Mad Science: The Science Behind Science Fiction, which consisted of a panel of top science fiction shows Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Caprica and Fringe. There, we met Dr. Ricardo Gil da Costa, a neurobiologist who is one of the official science advisors to the writers of Fringe. We recently had the opportunity to visit Dr. Gil da Costa on location in his laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, CA. We sat down to talk about his science, what it’s like to be “on-call” for one of the biggest hit shows on television, how the writers use his knowledge and integrate it into the show, and more broadly, how creatives in the entertainment industry can best utilize the skills of research scientists as they integrate more sophisticated material into their scripts. Watch the full video below.
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Guest Article: HBO’s ‘Temple Grandin’ Biopic Honors Autistic Scientist

Temple Grandin film

poster ©2010 Home Box Office, all rights reserved

This was a remarkable week for autism science and publicity. In a stunning and rare reversal, medical journal The Lancet retracted the 1998 paper responsible for suggesting a link between autism and MMR vaccinations, incurring over a decade of acrimonious debate and frightened parents. Ironic then that this should be the week when HBO premieres their new feature film Temple Grandin, about the eponymous world-famous scientist. Dr. Grandin has written and spoken openly about her struggle with autism and how it’s colored her view of the world and influenced the science she studies. ScriptPhD.com is extraordinarily honored to extend a warm welcome to friend and fellow blogger Susan Etlinger, author of the autism spectrum blog The Family Room, to review the biopic and interview the project’s executive producer. For full content, please click “continue reading.”
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Forever Young: Living in an Age of Agelessness

The chemical compound resveratrol, a component of red wine that has been linked to anti-aging properties in laboratory experiments.

During a recent trip to New York City, I had the pleasure of befriending exciting new author Ernesto Robles, whose debut novel The Malthusian Catastrophe is a ScriptPhD.com recommended pick. Smart, topical, fast-paced and decidedly engrossing, this biomedical thriller drives at the roots of our cultural obsession with the “fountain of youth” and the perilous socioeconomic repercussions of actually finding and disseminating it. In a year when the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology went to a team of researchers for their discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase, essential biological components of the human aging machinery, and a cultural era that has anointed juvenescence as sacrosanct, Malthusian’s overarching themes are especially germane. ScriptPhD.com’s discussion includes a review of the book, the biology and ethics of current aging research, and a one-on-one interview with Mr. Robles. For full content, please click “continue reading.”

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On ‘Creation’, Charles Darwin, and Survival of the Fittest

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin’s postscript to perhaps the greatest work of biology ever recorded, The Origin of Species, ignited an acrimonious debate about science, religion, the mutual exclusivity thereof, and where we come from. 150 years later, as we celebrate the anniversary of Darwin’s monumental scientific achievement, it is a debate that has yet to abate. Regardless

of what stance one takes on evolution and natural selection, fascination with the life and times of this inimitable figure is undeniable. A new biopic, Creation, delves into the dichotomy of Darwin the naturalist and family man, the disapproval he faced from a devotedly Christian wife, and the inner anguish he faced in whether to publish his findings. ScriptPhD.com’s Stephen Compson was recently treated to a private screening of the film and had the extraordinary opportunity to sit down with Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes, whose Charles Darwin biography the movie was based on. For our exclusive content, please click “continue reading.”

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