Biology in Science FIction Roundup: January 27 Edition

Here's my weekly roundup of biology in science fiction links:

io9 reports on a movie adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story Chrysalis:

Bradbury himself has been involved in every step of the movie, which takes place in an Earth left barren after a third world war. Scientists in a research facility are struggling to find ways to revive plant life. One of the scientists apparently dies, but then a plant chrysalis grows around him and saves him. He starts changing into something new and scary.

Production Charts has the scoop on a movie adaptation of the comic book Y:The Last Man, to star Shia LeBoeuf:

A mysterious plague has killed every man on earth except Yorick Brown, who was somehow spared. That is the provocative premise of the comics series whose first five issues make up this book.

The sole Y-chromosomed survivor is an amiable, headstrong young man, the son of a U.S. congresswoman and, as it happens, an amateur escape artist. He spends most of the story on the run from a tribe of self-styled Amazons bent on eliminating the last vestige of patriarchy. He is also trying, with a bioengineer who may be responsible for the worldwide "gendercide," to figure out why he survived; hoping to reach his girlfriend in Australia; and, of course, contemplating the repopulation of the planet.

io9 also has some footage from the bad bad movie Repli-Kate:

Here's a great scene where one of the gene geeks uses his amazing high-throughput sequencer to create a clone of a hot chick from some blood drops on a CD-ROM. Even the genechip whiz kid Michael Eisen, whom I know for a fact has watched this movie, agrees that this is the most thrilling representation of genetic engineering ever captured on film.

SciFi Weekly reviews the midseason premiere of Kyle XY

Slice of SciFi reports on a campaign to save The 4400 from cancellation. You can participate by visiting Save The 4400.net.

David Ng writes about some lost cartoon episodes about science - I'd love to see "That's Biotechnology, Charlie Brown" myself.

Tags:science fiction, biology