Biology in Science Fiction Roundup: January 12 Edition

Biology in Science Fiction bits from around the web:

• ListVerse lists the Top 10 Errors in Science Fiction Movies, from oversimplistic planets, to humanoid aliens and alien-human breeding (via SF Signal).
• In celebration of their own birth, SyFyPortal lists the Ten Strangest Pregnancies on Science-Fiction Television.
• Bioethics Bytes writes about the bioethics themes in Michael Crichton's 2002 novel Prey.
• At Slice of SciFi Emilio D'alise editorializes about the objectionable "violation of science" in Sci-fi movies (via SF Signal):

  Watching The Thing revert to human, and back again, also sets me to ponder on the transmutation of flesh to rock, back to flesh, and back to rock. Again, extra mass, lots of energy, and cells changing their chemical composition in milliseconds. Watching The Flame burn “hotter than the sun” makes me wonder if we could tap him to create wormholes . . . before I remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. Where’s all that fuel coming from?

  My wonder and awe is considerably reduced when, after showing hook-like hairs sprouting from his skin, thus allowing Spiderman to cling to any surface, he covers them by putting on gloves; gloves that also cover the area of his wrists oozing “spider-web”. I could go on, but some may call me “picky”. Others may call me “kill-joy”. Those with a good vocabulary might accuse me of being pedantic. Others will then have to go look that up.

• Indian news site Tehelka has an article about Indian science fiction (via BoingBoing and Beam Me Up)
  

  DNA-ALTERING experiments, moody robots, strange mutations from failed cloning projects, wonder machines and nano-gadgetry, and, of course, aliens playing peek-a-boo with humans — science fiction writing in Indian languages has this all and more.

• Science and Supermodels looks at the Science of Bionic Woman.
  
• At Science Fiction and Fantasy Novelists Mike Brotherton lists his top ten science-based sci-fi movies. Most have a physical science bent, but Predator made the list for "an alien that sees in a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and having that actually play a role in the plot."
• io9 looks at mutant and monsterous Queens of England in science fiction and great zombies of science fiction (no the lists don't overlap). They also take a poke at the bad science in the movie Sunshine when one of the characters is expose to vacuum.
• Geekstir presents the Zombie Food Pyramid. It looks like Atkins taken to the extreme. (via Slashfood)
• Dvice lists 10 technologies that can give you superpowers, including gecko-inspired Spidey-suits and injected spider genes to produce silk in mammals.
• In an interview with SF Crowsnest, Lois McMaster Bujold explains how a "six-week biology study tour of East Africa" influenced her first novel, Shards of Honor.
• Last, but not least:Elizabeth Bear has a message for science fiction writers who are fans of evolutionary psychology:
  

  . . . hunter-gatherer societies are in general far more egalitarian and less hierarchal than agrarian ones. This whole romanticized view of tribal life to justify completely bogus evolutionary psychology designed to reinforce whatever the romanticizer's preconceptions of the idealized primeval human state are thing gets up my nose so fucking bad I can't stand it.

  There's an interesting discussion in the comments about eating insects, foraging and "primitive" diet.
  

Tags:science fiction, biology