Captain America is not a serious scientific film. Nearly every piece of technology is furious hand-waving. Vibranium? Vita-rays? Rocket-powered propellers? The cosmic cube? Awesome, yes, but not real. These, however, are narrative tools, not attempts at hard scientific prediction and therefore not something to be critiqued. What the comic-book-tech of Captain America allows for is an exploration of the ethics of enhancement. Here, more than perhaps any other fictional film I’ve seen, Captain America displays striking balance and nuance – it gets enhancement right.

Based on your knowledge of the film and/or comics, this post may contain *spoilers*, so consider yourself warned. And if you’re looking for review of why it’s a fun movie, A.O. Scott in the NYT captures my sentiments about the film perfectly: pulpy Nazi-punching goodness. Now, on to enhancement!

There are three major factors that make the enhancement of Steve Rogers and his crimson domed antithesis, the Red Skull, unique among comic book lore. The first is that Steve Rogers was deliberately enhanced by someone. There is no accident, no crisis-as-catalyst-and-crucible event, no mystic charm, and no superhuman heritage to explain or justify Rogers’ becoming superhuman. Rogers is superhuman because Dr. Abraham Erskine develops a superhuman serum for that express purpose. Here, the science of enhancement is itself portrayed in a positive light. In what seems like every other superhero origin story, powers are acquired through scientific hubris. Be it the unintended consequences of splitting the atom, tinkering with genetics, or trying to access some heretofore unknown dimension, comic book heroes invariably arise by accident. The super serum, the vita-rays, and the outcome of the experiment on Rogers are all a scientific success. They happen precisely the way every person in the room hopes they will. Dr. Erskine is not a madman but a humble, ethical, and brilliant scientist trying to make better people. As such, he looks for the best in the humans he hopes to enhance. In short, Steve Rogers might be the only major superhero who is the result of scientific experimentation going to plan.

Second, Steve Rogers deliberately chooses to become enhanced. I had expressed my doubts about Rogers’ consent being genuine, but the film makes his determination and clarity of thought evident. Unlike many heroes, who seem to acquire their powers out of recklessness around science (Banner, Parker, Richards, I’m looking at you), Rogers very consciously decides to go through with Dr. Erskine’s procedure. He, in fact, might be one of the only heroes who ever knew he was going to be come a hero before his transformative event. That foreknowledge is critical for demonstrating that enhancement isn’t something that is only desired by egomaniacs. Rogers seeks strength and speed to defend and protect others. His body did not match how he saw his true self. Again, we see an anti-science motif of comic books turned on its head. Normally, those who seek superpowers are unworthy because they believe they deserve to be better than others, thus, the experiments go wrong. This attitude is embodied in the Red Skull, whose evil quite literally boils to the surface when he injects the super serum. However, Rogers’ reasoning is that others deserve to be protected and defended. Altruism, not egoism, is the driving force behind Rogers’ desire to become enhanced.

Third, and most important, is that enhancement in the film is not merely “functional” enhancement. That is, Rogers is not just stronger and faster. In a private moment, Dr. Erskine explains to Rogers that the serum and vita-rays affect “everything that is inside. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse.” Erskine is not talking about physical traits here. Rogers’ “bad” traits (i.e. his laundry list of medical issues) are not aggravated by the serum, but cured. The good/bad that becomes great/worse are moral qualities and capacities of the person. Captain America is literally super-moral. His already above-average sense of moral clarity and determination to do what is right becomes amplified in the same way that the lust for power and pleasure from slaughter are magnified in the Red Skull.

Moral enhancement, a fairly recent talking point among thinkers in the bioethics community, is handled deftly in Captain America. Enhancements do not change who we are or from where we come, but serve to empower and improve traits which we already possess. For Steve Rogers, those traits are what we wish for most in our heroes: beneficence, altruism, and humility. Note, among his list of valued traits are not unwavering loyalty to national authority (despite his irritating flag fetish) or deference to some commanding power. Instead, Rogers’ own judgment causes him to defy orders at almost every turn. Why? Because Captain America’s sense of ethics is itself enhanced. He is a better human being because of Dr. Erskine’s process.

I haven’t seen a movie that was this pro-science and pro-human goodness in a long time. I may not have seen a movie that was this pro-enhancement ever. Did I mention it also involves Nazi-punching?

Follow Kyle on his personal blog, Pop Bioethics, and on facebook and twitter.

Promotional Image of Captain America via Marvel.com

For any medical research to be considered ethical it must adhere to basic standards. A global standard for medical ethics is the Declaration of Helsinki. Devised and published by the World Medical Association in 1964, the Declaration of Helsinki is a guiding framework for all medical research involving human beings. It has been revised over the years to meet modern needs, with the most recent and 6th revision being published in 2008. There are three points of the Declaration that appeal directly to the type of experimentation done to create Captain America. They are:

#6. In medical research involving human subjects, the well-being of the individual research subject must take precedence over all other interests.

#8. In medical practice and in medical research, most interventions involve risks and burdens.

#9. Medical research is subject to ethical standards that promote respect for all human subjects and protect their health and rights. Some research populations are particularly vulnerable and need special protection. These include those who cannot give or refuse consent for themselves and those who may be vulnerable to coercion or undue influence.

Can you really say with confidence that General Chester Phillips had Rogers’ best interests in mind, that Rogers’ wasn’t under any sort of coercion (coughpropagandacough), and that the good ‘ol US-of-A wasn’t bending some rules to build a better soldier?

Let’s take each of these points from the Declaration of Helsinki in turn.

#6. In medical research involving human subjects, the well-being of the individual research subject must take precedence over all other interests.

Steve Rogers before the experiment is scrawny, yes. But unwell? By no means. As with all heroes, Rogers’ induction into the army is a mixed story with multiple versions declaring different things. The general story, however, is that Rogers was healthy but unfit for military service. Too short, scrawny, and weak to serve. So in terms of general health, Rogers has everything to lose and nothing to gain from the experiment.

However, Rogers is, before the treatment, a poor specimen of a human being. He is clearly not confident, nor happy with his physical ability. Furthermore, he is unable to pursue his life as he sees fit. He wants to join the military and is disallowed because of his biology. Thus, we could argue a second way of defining well-being in a more holistic fashion.

By the holistic well-being criterion, Rogers would be benefiting from improved physical condition which would enable him to pursue more courses in his life as well as achieve his goal of supporting the US war effort against the Third Riech. Therefore, as General Phillips is giving Rogers an option he wouldn’t otherwise have, we could argue that he is providing Rogers with an opportunity to improve his well-being.

The catch is that the Declaration says Rogers well-being should take precedent over all other interests, not merely that it should be improved. It seems that Rogers’ interests are the interests of the US government and those conducting the super-soldier experiment. So everything should be dandy, right . . . Right? More on that in a moment.

#8. In medical practice and in medical research, most interventions involve risks and burdens.

Goes without saying. Everything has risks. The ethical issue here is that the patient understands, clearly, just what risks are involved. Given that Rogers was in the process of signing up to get shot at by Nazis, I think we can presume he was OK with the additional risks posed by the super-soldier experiment. From everything I’ve read, it seems that the General explained the research, its experimental nature, and the risks involved to Rogers before even offering it to the scrawny would-be soldier. If that’s the case, the super-solider experiment passes point #8.

#9. Medical research is subject to ethical standards that promote respect for all human subjects and protect their health and rights. Some research populations are particularly vulnerable and need special protection. These include those who cannot give or refuse consent for themselves and those who may be vulnerable to coercion or undue influence.

Ah, we come to the point. So Rogers has the same interests as the US government – convenient, that. I’m honestly torn on this one.

Here you have a young man whose country in the midst of a World War, churning out hyper-patriotic propaganda and defining masculinity through a helmet and a gun. Though the coercion isn’t direct, the overwhelming influence of the war effort could be construed as undue. It’s hard to not see the nationwide war effort as anything but an inappropriately and dangerously coercive influence on Rogers’ decision to go through with the super-soldier experiment. Are his interests in line with the US government’s because he’s been mesmerized by all the flag waving?

Not so fast. One could also argue that Steve Rogers is a consenting adult who was 1) not drafted, 2) attempted to enlist multiple times, and 3) desired to defeat the Third Reich based on factual information (i.e. they were horrible). Furthermore, the General didn’t conscript him, but instead sent Rogers through a series of tests after which Rogers was allowed to volunteer for the test if he so desired. Every step Rogers took toward the experiment was his own. Sure, signing up for the military could be the result of patriotic coercion, but it’s unlikely to cause a man to do everything and anything in the face of repeated refusals to enlist.

Steve Rogers’ best interests and well-being were in mind when he signed up for the experiment, he was aware of the risks, and his consent was as uncoerced as one could realistically hope. Is this a grey area? Certainly. The experiment was rushed, generally untested, and had no precedent in previous medicine. Was it necessary to win the war? Probably not. But, by and large, I’m a consequentialist and a utilitarian. Rogers knew what he was getting into and how massive the risks were. Things worked out. He got what he wanted. Lots and lots of people benefited, perhaps Rogers most of all.

By the yardstick of consequentialism and the Declaration of Helsinki, the super-soldier experiment and Steve Rogers’ enlistment in the military were ethical. But just barely.

Promotional Image of Captain America via Marvel.com

Do you ever worry that Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) wasn’t really giving informed consent when he agreed to become enhanced? Or are curious as to why someone might choose a bionic hand over a real one? The awesome Maggie Koerth-Baker of boingboing.net and I had some of the same questions. We chat about the ethics of superheroes and our perception of science in this week’s Science Saturday on bloggingheads.tv. Enjoy!

The reason? Branagh leans heavily on the magi-tech rule of Arthur C. Clarke, which Natalie Portman’s character quotes in the film, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So what is the difference between really-really advanced technology and actual magic? Sean Carroll, who did some science advising for the film, clears the idea up a bit:

Kevin Feige, president of production at Marvel Studios, is a huge proponent of having the world of these films ultimately “make sense.” It’s not ourworld, obviously, but there needs to be a set of “natural laws” that keeps things in order — not just for Iron Man and Thor, but all the way up to Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme who will get his own movie before too long.

In short, the Marvel universe is internally consistent, which makes me all the more excited for the Avengers film. Clarke’s rule of magical tech helps create some of that consistency. I both love and loathe Clarke for that statement. Love because it strikes at the heart of what technology is: a way for humans to do things previously believed not just implausible, but impossible. Loathe because it creates an infinite caveat for lazy authors and screenwriters. It seems like anytime some preposterous technology is injected into a narrative either as a McGuffin or a deus ex machina, that damn quotation from Clarke gets trotted out as the defense. So does Thor live up to Carroll’s hopes or abuse Clarke’s rule?

To answer the question, we need to investigate Clarke’s rule a bit further. There is a corollary to Clarke’s rule: “Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.” By that measure, just how advanced are Asgardians? More than sufficiently. I knew Branagh wanted to explicitly avoid making Thor an actual magical god of thunder. And, because of that, I had so many damn questions about pretty much everything in the film. Why is Thor the only one who can lift Mjölnir? What is Odinsleep? Are Frost Giants aliens? How is Odin able to “take” Thor’s powers?

Needless to say, I was frustrated. And then I remembered the spirit of the rule. If I’m able to tell the difference, then it isn’t advanced enough technology. But that doesn’t mean we’ll always perceive the Asgardian’s abilities as magical.

The best example of a good use of the tech-as-magic scenario is the Stargate series. In the Stargate Universe, the Gou’ald are an advanced alien species that use their highly advanced technology to overwhelm and subject less-advanced alien races. To the late 20th century humans who discover the stargate and utilize it, the equipment of the Gou’ald is advanced, but not magical. Yet to the Egyptians who were originally exposed to the Gou’ald, the tech was magical. As a result, the Gou’ald were worshiped as gods by the Egyptians and merely treated as advanced aliens by late 20th century Americans. That difference is critical to understanding why Thor isn’t just using Clarke’s law as a caveat. The parallel with Stargate (super-advanced race mistaken for gods leading to a mythologizing of their existence) allows us to understand just where the Asgardians sit in the Marvel universe.

In essence, the technological gap between early 21st century human technology and the Asgardians is at least as large as the gap between the Egyptians and the Gou’ald. We’ve got a long way to go.

Thor, thankfully, does not as a film attempt to justify the science behind Asgard. Only two remotely scientific elements are relevant to the plot. The first is that Bifrost, the rainbow bridge (pictured), is a controlled “Einstein-Rosen Bridge” aka wormhole. A huge piece of machinery enables the cosmic transportation device to work. Asgardians get into the transporter, it spools up and then beams them to another realm. Second, Thor’s hammer Mjölnir (which Kat Denning’s mispronunciation thereof is comedy gold) was “forged in the heart of a dying sun.” How that happened and why it makes the hammer so magical is never explained. Those are the only two references in the film that, from what I could tell, even pretended to acknowledge science. No effort is made to disguise the rest of the overtly magical and mythical elements of the Asgard. And that’s a good thing.

Thor does not pull a George Lucas and attempt to over-science the magical elements. Thor is not superhuman because he has some Norse equivalent of midichlorians. He is superhuman because he is magical. Sure, that magic is allegedly based in technology, but technology so incredibly advanced, we can’t distinguish it from magic. That lack of distinguishability is the indicator of just how advanced the Asgardians actually are. It’s also what let’s us enjoy the movie for what it is. Don’t try to understand how the Bifrost’s gate works or why a wormhole needs a sword to activate it – just enjoy watching a hunky bearded man heroically smashes things with his magical hammer and while wooing a gorgeous theoretical physicist. It’s magical!

Follow Kyle on his personal blog and on facebook and twitter.

Promotional Images for Thor via Paramount

Transhumanism is a big, complicated, sprawling idea. The central concept – that humans can be made better with technology – touches on a lot of hopes and fears about the future of humanity. Though I’m always going on about how great human enhancement could be, I’ve got my fair share of fears myself. But my fears are probably way different than many of your fears. But how in the world can we represent those concerns? As it turns out, I’ve found a pretty good set of archetypes that represent our hopes and fears: Marvel Comic’s Avengers.

How we frame scientific progress changes how we see individual technologies. When we think about science changing people, our minds naturally go to that group of individuals constantly being bombarded by gamma radiation, genetic mutagens, cybernetic interventions, and biological acceleration. I’m talking, of course, about superheroes. Superheroes are modern mythology. And because of that, they make great metaphors for understanding big issues. With The Avengers movie officially announced, I can’t help but notice that the four main members* of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes – Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man – are great examples of the different ways different people understand (or misunderstand) enhancement. Respectively, they are The God, The Monster, The Soldier, and The Robot.

Now, in the case of the Avengers, I don’t mean that they each represent a kind of enhancement, like cognitive enhancing pharmaceuticals or genetic engineering for athleticism. I am talking about the mindset people have around enhancement. Will transhumanism make people into monsters or Gods? Is science on the right track or out of control? The Avengers represent how you think enhancement works. Not only that, each Avenger symbolizes the hopes, fears, and problems enhancement may have. Whatever your dreams or nightmares about enhancement are, at least one member of Marvel’s wonder team has got you covered. So which Avenger represents you?

The Hulk

The Hulk represents The Monster. The Hulk is a man, Bruce Banner, who becomes enhanced by a massive blast of gamma radiation. But his enhancement is beyond his control. Rage, a state we associate with a loss of control, brings out the monstrous Hyde to Banner’s human Jekyll. The Hulk is what we think about when we worry that human enhancement will result in unpredictable and overwhelming changes in a person.

The Fears: The Hulk (as generally portrayed) is far less intelligent than Banner. He is pure, furious id smashing his way through any obstacle. One fear the Hulk embodies is the idea that enhancement could change our basic biological limits such that our humanity falls by the wayside, leaving only a creature of incredible but inhumane power. Unlike the other Avengers, the Hulk becomes inhuman when enhanced.

Views Science as Out of Control: Banner’s transformation into the Hulk is the result of an accident. Instead of enhancement occurring because of a deliberate plan, the Hulk is a result of super-science playing with fire. The Monster sees science as just too many accidents waiting to happen. Enhancement will have a lot of unintended consequences, one of which may be the loss of humanity itself.

The Hopes: The Hulk is still Bruce Banner. The good and kindness in Banner manifest in the Hulk’s fight against evil and enemies of those he loves. Banner is also constantly searching for a cure, at least a way to control, his Hulk side. Even if science reaches too far, good scientists will fix their errors.

Bottom Line: The Hulk, The Monster, represents science out of control. The fear is that our pursuit of enhancement will make monsters of us whether we like it or not. The hope is that if we start down that path, human nature and science will help us return to our better angels. The Monster is torn between caution and arrogance.

Thor

Thor represents The God. Thor is godlike. He possesses superhuman powers like near immortality, incredible strength, and endurance, but is not omniscient or infallible. Moreover, he is not human. Thor is an Asguardian, a humanlike race distinct from human beings in terms of biological superiority and magical ability. The God is what we think of when we think of enhancement making a superhuman race. The God is the opposite of the Monster.

The Fears: Thor is an Aryan wet dream. Blue eyes, blond hair, perfect physical attributes, cunning intelligence, and a member of a superior race. In this aspect, he represents the fear of eugenics being used to create racial purity or under the auspices of “improving the species” by eliminating “undesirable” racial attributes. Also, he’s cast down to Earth due to his arrogance. Time among the pleebs will straighten him out. Not the best perspective of normal humans.

Views Science as Techno-Magic: Thor represents the misconception that enhancement is closer to a magical cure-all than a scientific pursuit. Science fantasy like a pill that will let you live forever (i.e. the golden apples of Idunn) comes to mind. Forget actual genetics and biology, for those who view transhumanism through the lens of The God, science may as well be magic.

The Hopes: Thor sees himself as protector. The difference in race is not a reason to subjugate humans but instead creates a duty to defend them. Asguard and its ruler, Odin, hold Asguardians to higher standards of ethics and morality because of their superior abilities. In this aspect, The God represents the hopes surrounding moral enhancement.

Bottom Line: Thor, The God, represents the view that enhancement will lead to an ideal. The fear is that the ideal is based on physicality and race, the hope is that the ideal is based on morality and ethics. The God is torn between seeing biological superiority as a license for cruelty and as a duty to protect those unable to protect themselves.

Iron Man

Iron Man represents The Robot. Tony Stark is an alcoholic genius playboy who saves his own life by installing a reactor into his chest that also happens to power a mechanized exoskeletal war-suit. He represents external enhancement through prosthetic and computer augmentation. Without the suit, Stark is just a very flawed human being.

The Fears: Tony Stark is the most frighteningly human of all the Avengers. He is a drunk, a jerk, a slut, and astoundingly arrogant. Though he invents the suit, he is also utterly dependent upon the arc-reactor that powers it to keep himself alive. Alternatively, when he is in the Iron Man suit, he’s trying to be clean and be a good guy. And that’s when Stark seems the least like himself. The suit that makes him a hero also flattens his personality.

The other fear is related to how the Robot reflects science as a pursuit of the wealthy individual. Tony Stark doesn’t build a fleet of suits for the elderly or disabled. Nope, just one really amazing suit for himself – a sovereign entity by virtue of his riches and knowledge.

Views Science as Gizmos and Gadgets: Stark is a tycoon. The Robot represents science as a product of the individualist. Transhumanism will be a capitalist pursuit in which we mechanically upgrade ourselves like computers and cars.

The Hopes: Stark, the living embodiment of the military-industrial complex, rejects warmongering for peacemaking. Furthermore, his invention saves his life and enables him to move beyond his personal demons. In the films, the Iron Man suit is the result of a near-death experience and an exposure to the emptiness of his vice-riddled life. His personality isn’t flattened, it’s elevated. Thus, the Robot represents the hope that only the negative aspects of our personalities will be brought under control.

Bottom Line: Iron Man, the Robot, represents the view that transhumanism will trade biology for engineering. The fear is that our human qualities will be repressed for the sake of the “good” of society, resulting in bland automatons. The hope is that enhancement will not quell the human spirit but create a sense of duty to a higher calling. The Robot is torn between personal desires and societal needs.

Captain America

Captain America represents The Soldier. Captain America, taken purely as an example of enhancement, represents the ideal. He is slightly better than the best human in any category: strength, smarts, endurance, and health. The result of a one-off experiment (as is his shield), Captain America takes his sworn duty to protect the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic seriously.

The Fears: Captain America is a hyper-nationalist soldier. His name is Captain America for chrissake. Forget the latent fears of racism you associate with Thor; Captain America only loves you if you love America. Furthermore, he’s a product of a military experiment. By nature and design, he’s a warrior and sees violence as a solution.

Views Science as a branch of the Military: Captain America is government property. The Soldier represents the view that scientific progress is something that happens behind closed doors and in secret. Or at least at the whim of our elected officials. The benefits are used to keep citizens “safe,” but not to better the citizens themselves.

The Hope: Captain America is a perfect human. Not superhuman, but a Homo sapiens sapiens with all his stats maxed out. He isn’t tortured by a sordid past, he doesn’t really have vices, and is a good guy through and through. He represents what enhancement could really be and what it might look like, instead of the caricature of enhancement portrayed by the other Avenger archetypes. He isn’t American only, so much as he is a defender of our dearest values: liberty, truth, and justice.

Bottom Line: Captain America, The Soldier, represents what transhumanism might really look like. Stronger, healthier, and slower-aging, he is a human with almost no biological flaws. The fear is that enhancement will be used generate jingoistic military zealots at the bidding of the State. The hope is that enhancement will improve human health and quality of life. The Soldier is torn between America and the ideals for which America stands.

There you have it: The Monster, The God, The Robot, and The Soldier each represent the fears, hopes, and views of science associated with transhumanism and human enhancement. One archetype alone may not capture your thoughts. Just as the Avengers are a team that “fights enemies no one hero can face,” these different ideas can be mixed and matched. You may fear the God and hope for the Soldier but worry The Monster is reflective of how science might actually be.

The key is that enhancement isn’t itself scary, but the way we think science and society work color our views of progress. Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives as a good start. My comics knowledge is limited, so feel free to suggest some others. So the next time you think about genetic engineering or augmented reality goggles and feel a twinge of concern, ask yourself which of the Avengers is framing your thoughts.

*Comic geeks: I apologize for treating the films as canon here. For folks like me still newer to comics, the films have provided a great gateway to enjoying comics. Feel free to correct/clarify my summaries of the heroes in the comments.

Follow Kyle on his personal blog and on twitter.

Images via Wikipedia

Halloween is a-comin’ and this Sunday brings us AMC’s The Walking Dead. In honor of that, we’re discussing The Ethics of the Undead here at Science, Not Fiction. This is part II of IV. (Check out parts I, & III)

Before we can start investigating whether or not something that craves brains has a mind or should be pitied, we need to define just what, exactly, we’re talking about when we talk about zombies.

I’m going to start by ruling out the 28 Days Later zombies and the voodoo/demonic zombies of Evil Dead. First, the name of this blog is Science, not Fiction, which means any religious hokum is right out the door. Demon possession, souls back from Hell, and voodoo are not going to be considered in this investigation. On the other end of the spectrum, in 28 Days Later anything infected with “Rage” becomes a “fast” zombie. In essence, Rage is rabies only way, way scarier. Thus we aren’t dealing with the “undead” so much as the violently insane. So non-fatal pathogens don’t count either. If the pathogen doesn’t first kill you, then re-animate you, then you aren’t a zombie.

Which leads us to the next question: how does the pathogen work? I am not denying here the multitude of variations and nuances among zombie plague viruses, so we have to come up with a generic, realistic version to have our discussion. Zombies generally meet three important criteria. They are 1) stimulus-response creatures that seek flesh 2) continually decomposing and 3) contagious via bodily fluids. If we can explain, reasonably, how and for what reason a pathogen might cause/allow these conditions, we can describe a realistic zombie pathogen.

Condition 1, that zombies are stimulus-response creatures that seek flesh, implies that the pathogen must act to re-animate the existing neural pathways and motor functions in some fashion. Let us presume human-only infection and that the virus, being species specific, results in a cannibalism preference. Thus the sensory systems which are re-activated are capable of distinguishing four key things: flesh-vs-not-flesh; species; infected-vs-uninfected; self. Furthermore, for the sake of simplicity, the virus does not create any new systems, it merely hijacks existing ones.

Next, we have to remember that contracting the zombie pathogen is terminal. Whatever the hijacking process involves, we must presume that an intermediate stage of infection between contamination and zombification is fatal. If I had to guess, the infection of the medulla oblogata – where most automatic processes are regulated – is what results in cardio-pulmonary death, followed shortly by brain-death. Sometime after brain-death the medulla is fully hijacked by the zombie pathogen, jump-started (I won’t attempt an explanation) and re-animation is underway.

Whether it is musculature, perceptive organs, or circulatory and digestive systems, the virus must work with what it has. The metabolic process continues, arguably for both the body and the pathogen, which in large part informs the indiscriminate hunger for flesh. It is critical here to note that a zombie body is not uniquely strong (in fact, the opposite), nor can the body function properly without oxygen, waste disposal, and nutrients. We can, however, presume that a zombie body can, in its own way, marginally function when some of these requirements are missing. However, when an eyeball is gone or the intestines finally rupture, that zombie has lost whatever sense or function was associated with the now deteriorated organ: no healing happens.

Which leads us to Condition 2, that zombies are continually decomposing. No one thinks of a zombie as a healthy, mindless body; you think of a corpse that moves. The re-animation process is, we assume, imperfect or it would be revivification. One of the imperfections is that autolysis – the process wherein a cell’s own enzymes begin to consume it – is not stopped or reversed. As autolysis is the first step in postmortem decay, even a brief period between death and re-animation would cause it to start. Other aspects of decomposition, such as purification and insect infestation, though significantly slowed would likely continue as well.

Based on the average zombie, we can presume a few things about the virus’ relationship to decomposition. First, is that the zombie virus slows decomposition by providing cells with some nutrients. Second, is that the immune system, at least a crippled version, still functions to slow human bacterial flora from consuming their host. Third, it could be presumed that while some cell division continues, repairs and restoration are lost. Fourth, the virus would likely only preserve essential functions, allowing irrelevant parts of the body, such as skin, secondary musculature, and some organs to decay. Finally, we can presume the virus itself must consume flesh to some degree, rendering the zombie’s metabolic processes incredibly inefficient and explaining the insatiability of a zombie. Thus, a zombie frozen in the arctic would likely re-animate upon thaw (pathogen in stasis; corpse preserved) while a zombie at the bottom of the ocean would first suffocate (albeit more slowly) and then be crushed.

Condition 3, that the pathogen is contagious via bodily fluids only, is a critical detail in terms of both staying true to the mythology of zombies and for presenting a scenario in which not everyone would instantly be zombified. An airborne pathogen, particularly one with any sort of incubation period, would be total, unstoppable pandemic. But, more importantly, we are dealing with a creature of fiction. And, just as with other members of the undead (e.g. vampires, werewolves) the bite gets in the blood and turns you

Remember, we almost never see someone getting bitten by a zombie and then not dying and “coming back.” The reason is that a bite both by-passes traditional levels of the immune system and delivers a huge dose of the pathogen directly into the circulatory system. Furthermore, it immediately contaminates the flesh directly exposed. As the zombie pathogen, whatever it is, seems able to interact with most cell types, not just specific ones (as with HIV), it would make sense that direct exposure would allow the virus both permeate the whole system (body) while beginning total infection at the site of contamination as well. It only takes one bite!

There you have it. A zombie pathogen must 1) be transmitted via bodily-fluids to 2) ensure sufficient and total infection which 3) is always fatal due to the fact that pathogen must 4) either consume the host or host-acquired flesh 5) hijack all the necessary functions for movement and sensation 6) provide at least some nutrients to itself and the body 7) allow continued movement and 8.) slow the decomposition of the host body.

Promotional Image via AMCtv.com by Scott Garfield

Halloween is a-comin’ and this Sunday brings us AMC’s The Walking Dead. In honor of that, we’re discussing The Ethics of the Undead here at Science, Not Fiction. This is part I of IV. (Check out parts II, & III)

Zombies are everywhere! Zombieland, Shawn of the Dead, and 28 Days Later in the movies; World War Z and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on the bookshelf; Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising and Resident Evil in your video games - not to mention the George A. Romero and Sam Rami classics in your DVD collection. And this Sunday Robert Kirkman’s epic The Walking Dead lurches from the pages of comic books onto your television thanks to AMC.

Where ever you turn, zombies are there. We can’t seem to get enough of the re-animated recently departed. But why do we love these ambling carnivorous cadavers so?

Zombies are horrifying. An outbreak would almost certainly lead to global apocalypse. Unrelenting, unthinking, uncaring, undead, they are a nightmare incarnate. They remind us of mortality, of decay, of our own fragility. Perhaps worst, they remind us of how inhuman a human being can become.

Zombies are familiar. Refrains of “Brains!”, guttural groans, and mindless shambling instantly trigger the idea of a zombie in our mind. We all know, somehow, that decapitation – that is, destruction of the zombie brain – is our only salvation. I bet you’ve dressed as one for Halloween. Every time “Thriller” comes on you probably dance like a zombie. Some mornings I feel like a zombie. Even philosophers talk about zombies. We know zombies. They are hilarious, they are frightening, they are part of us. And that is why we love them.

But have you ever asked yourself: is a zombie still a human? is a zombie dead, really? can it feel pain? does a zombie have dignity? Has the question ever popped up in your quite-live brain: is it ok to kill a zombie? Could a zombie be cured? If you could cure it, would you still want to? In honor of Halloween and our culture’s current love affair with brain-eating corpses, I present The Ethics of the Undead, your universal guide for answering all of your most pressing zombie questions. Stay tuned for posts throughout Halloween weekend!

Images via ThatZombiePhoto.com and lolzombie.com

A strange additional element of the social dimension of science operating in this comment is a certain fixation with credit among scientists, nicely expressed by Kissinger in his “There is no politics quite as vicious as academic politics, because there is so little at stake.” In doing science, few things cause more grief than arguments over who contributed what to a scientific study, and what order the authors names should have on some publication. The suggestion that Feynman got his idea from elsewhere will immediately incite a credit fight among supporters and detractors; the fact that the source was literature just adds another dimension to this fight.

Colin Milburn also talks about barriers in the humanities to properly understanding the interactions between narrative fiction and bench work in the laboratory. One of these is the idea of narrative fiction having organic unity that doesn’t take well to decomposition into the most adaptable and usable parts from a scientific perspective.

Despite these barriers from both sides, it’s clear that there’s lots of ideas flowing from science fiction into science itself. Milburn suggests we think of science fiction as being repurposed and remixed into lab bench practice through three different kinds of “mods“. The first is the blueprint mod where some discrete part of science fiction is used as a blue print for something in real life. He gives the example of Second Life, which was a blue print mod from the Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash.” The second is the supplementary mod, where the originating sci-fi has elements of technical impossibility to it, so it can’t be taken into the lab without some substantial modifications. Teleportation is an example of this: the quantum entanglement underlying recent examples can only occur with zero-mass states of atoms, which is to say pure information, a bit of a problem for applying it to people a la Star Trek even with the most strenuous of diets.  The third is the speculative mod. Here science projects its future possibilities using the language of sci-fi. Milburn gives Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near” as an example of one of these mods.

As Milburn’s categorization of the ways in which fictional narratives about science and technology get put into practice percolates in my mind, I see a rich stream of case studies in my own work and those of my colleagues. It would be good if the result of looking at scientific practice through the lens of these ideas would be to nudge these two creative enterprises — work at the bench, and the crafting of stories — a bit closer together. Perhaps in the future scientists will have workshops (modshops?) with story creators in a similar way in which business execs collaborate with creatives to get people thinking outside of their usual constraints.

Other links: The science-humanities gap is often discussed with reference to C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures. Interdisciplinary programs that combine art and science studies attempt to heal the divide: here’s a discussion of some work on that.

The Bradbury panel featured Bradbury talking to his biographer, Sam Weller. I’m just going to share select quotes from his remarks. These are in order, but incomplete.

“The Internet to me is a great big goddamn stupid bore.”

“I got a call from a man who wanted to publish my books on the Internet. I told him, prick up your ears and go to hell.”

[Bradbury has met most, if not all, of the Apollo and Gemini astronauts.]

“All those astronauts had read the Martian Chronicles. When they were young men, they read my books and decided they wanted to become astronauts.”

“[Twilight Zone creator] Rod Serling came to my house many years ago, he didn’t know anything about writing science fiction and fantasy. So I took him down to my basement and gave him copies of books by Richard Matheson, copies of books by Henry Kuttner, copies of books written by Roald Dahl and by John Collier, and a couple of books by myself. And Rod Serling forgot he read all those books, and when he wrote the program, he copied some of the ideas without telling me. So we got into a big argument, so finally I walked away from the Rod Serling show. He had a great show, but he forgot the basis of the show were all the books I gave him by all my friends.”

[* Thanks to commenter John Joseph Adams for figuring this one out.]

“I read comic strips all my life I have all of Prince Valiant put away. I have all of Buck Rogers put away, too. I put away those starting when I was 19 years old. So my background in becoming a writer was falling in love with comic strips.”

“I read the comic strips, I learned how to write.”

“My favorite that’s in the paper every day is called Mutts.”

[Bradbury is a tireless advocate for free public libraries.]

“When I left high school, I had all my grades to go to college, but I had no money. I decided I will not worry about getting money to go to college, I will educate myself. I walked down the street, I walked into the library, for three days a week, for 10 years, and educate myself. It’s all free, that’s the great thing about libraries. When I was 28 years old, I graduated from library.”

“We have to reinvest in space travel. We should never have left the moon. We have to go back to the moon and build a firm base there, so we can take off from there to the planet Mars. We have to become the Martians. I tell you to become the Martians. We have to civilize Mars, build a whole civilization on Mars, and then move out 300 years from now, into the universe, and when we do that, we have the chance of living forever. Our future is investing right now in space travel. Money should be given to NASA to build the rockets to go back to the moon.”

“It’s been 90 god-damned incredible years.”

“Every day I’ve loved it. Because I’ve remained a boy. The man you see here is a 12-year-old boy, and the boy is still having fun.”

“You remain invested in your inner child by exploding every day. You don’t worry about the future, you don’t worry about the past, you just explode. If you are dynamic, you don’t have to worry about what it is you are. I’ve remained a boy, because boys run everywhere, they never look back, they run everywhere, they keep running running running. That’s me, the running boy.”

[Weller asked: Do you have any regrets?]

“I regret that I didn’t have more time with Bo Derek.”

“She came up to me in a train station in Paris 30 years ago and said ‘Mr. Bradbury?’, I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘I love you,’ I said ‘Who are you?’ She said. ‘My name is Bo Derrick Derek.” She said, “Mr. Bradbury will you travel on the train with me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I will.’”

“Mel Gibson owns the [movie] rights to Fahrenheit 451. Did you see him on TV last week? Right now he’s not doing a thing with Fahrenheit 451.”

“I’ve got a new book of short stories, I’m working on, that will be published next Christmas. The title of it is Juggernaut, a book of 20 new short stories, which will be published next Christmas.”

Launch Pad 2010 Attendees

Launch Pad is a free, NASA-funded workshop for established writers held in beautiful high-altitude Laramie, Wyoming. Launch Pad aims to provide a “crash course” for the attendees in modern astronomy science through guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming’s professional telescopes.

The workshop’s mission is to:

…teach writers of all types about modern science, primarily astronomy, and in turn reach their audiences. We hope to both educate the public and reach the next generation of scientists.

The person who runs Launch Pad, Mike Brotherton, is a wizard at using sci-fi as a vehicle to teach actual science (or, in his own words, he’s a wizard at funding his own science-fiction habit).  A few years ago he received NSF funding to compile ”Diamonds in the Sky” — an anthology of hard science-fiction stories that also can be used by physics and astronomy teachers as a vehicle to teach real science. Some of the stories are quite good and worth the read. Perhaps we’ll see “Diamonds in the Sky II”  in the not-too-distant future, populated with stories from former Launch Pad attendees!

Launch Pad 2011 and 2012 are funded, and there’s still time to apply for next year!

Surrogates—which opens September 25—features a world where people jack into robotic avatars and send the bots out into the world in their stead (trailer here). Not only was this Venditti’s freshman graphic novel, but it’s publisher Top Shelf’s first credit as a film producer.

“Bruce Willis is one of the few actors who can do the action sequences and personal moments,” Venditti told me during a break signing his novel at Comic-Con. “A big theme in the book is the relationship the main character has with his wife. He’s a police detective who can do his job without worrying about the hazards of his job. He’ll go home to his wife and she’ll only react with him through her surrogate, because she’s uncomfortable with aging. So it’s a strain on their marriage.”

The story (illustrated by Brett Weldele) mines the psychology of wanting to be something than who we are. Venditti got the idea from books on Internet addiction and TV shows like Extreme Makeover and Dr. 90210. But its theme was eerily prophetic.

“What would society be like if there was a technology that enabled us to stay in our homes and send these idealized versions of ourselves to the real world?” said Venditti. “Since I wrote the book in 2002, fans have sent me articles about some of this technology starting to take place,” such as long-distance surgery through robotic arms and electrodes that enable individuals to move items by thought. “Some sociology professors told me the used the book in their classrooms.”

His next project—The Homeland Directive, a political medical thriller out next summer, also from Top Shelf—examines another technology-oriented theme. “Do we live in a time when personal privacy and national security can coexist?” he said. “But that’s as much as I can tell you right now…”

One hopes he’s including a role for Willis—wouldn’t want to freeze out his big Hollywood connection.

—Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

Dr. E. Paul Zehr, a professor of neuroscience and kinesiology at the University of Victoria, presented his analysis of the possibility of developing Batman skills at Comic-Con, and he concluded that most of what Batman does can be achieved through long years of training, a fair amount of cash, and the right genetic traits promoting excellent coordination and strength. But getting there will take a long time:

• 3–5 years of physical training (meaning, weight lifting, increasing bone density by punching heavy things, acrobatics)
• 6–12 years of skill training and refining. This is Batman’s wide and deep mastery of numerous martial arts. Zehr showed comic panels depicting batman performing moves from judo, kung fu, and what he called “basic fisticuffs.” He also showed scenes of Batman taking out whole groups of ne’er-do-wells and engaging in long fights with single foes, demonstrating the breadth of his ass-kicking knowledge.
• 6–8 years of poise, experience, seasoning. If you ask me this period could overlap with the start of Batman’s crime-fighting career, but Zehr argues that this still counts as training, and he’s an expert in the field.

So, to sum, that’s a minimum of 15 years, and a maximum of 25 years, before Batman ever hits the street.

And once there, Zehr basically gives him a maximum of a three-year career. Zehr argues that Batman’s life of crime-fighting would just put so much on abuse on his body that he would eventually be unable to defend himself fast enough—too much repetitive stress (like bloggers, but with your whole body instead of a couple fingers), too many concussions, not enough time to heal. Batman goes out most nights, so his body wouldn’t have time to heal. And Batman’s suit wouldn’t be enough to protect him. Even if the suit prevented penetration by knives and bullets, it can’t protect him from the sheer blunt force of the punches he receives and delivers. (“Delivers”? Yes: Zehr had some excellent video showing the stress on the arm and fingers of a punch.)

But what will really limit Batman’s career, Zehr said, is that he can’t lose. A martial artist can lose a bout in the ring and live to fight another day. If Batman loses, he’s dead. Just another reason the citizens of Gotham should be damn glad to have the guy.

The trio paraded out a series of cases: Maximillian “Maxie” Zeus, who thought he was Zeus and above the law; Victor Zsasz, who killed people to spare them from the misery of life; Joker groupie Dr. Harleen Quinzel (aka “Harley Quinn”); and the Joker himself. The charges were your standard supervillain fare: kidnapping, conspiracy, murder, a raft of unpaid parking tickets, etc. The docs broke down the scientific criteria needed to gauge whether each had the competency to stand trial and the nuances between personality disorder and severe mental illness.

Turns out, Gotham and New York forensic psychiatry don’t exactly see eye to eye.

Zeus was deemed delusional because, well, he thought he was Zeus; what’s more, he couldn’t tell right from wrong. Verdict? Insane. Back to Arkham, would-be lord of Olympus.

Zsasz, on the other hand, was deemed delusional but still cognizant of right and wrong. Verdict? Sane. To prison with you, Vic.

(“Did they start them in solitary confinement or therapy sessions?” a man dressed as Nightwing wanted to know.)

Quinzel was trickier. At first, she seemed a clear case for a diagnosis of folie à deux, or “madness shared by two”—when someone hangs with a nutter and becomes one herself. (An animated projection of the curvaceous Quinzel brought whistles from the audience, which prompted a bodacious blonde dressed as Quinzel to stand up and squeal, “Thank you!)

But the expert panel diagnosed Quinzel with dependent personality disorder, not a mental illness. Verdict? Sane; prison.

The big surprise was the Joker. The audience unanimously determined him to be criminally insane—the prototypical Arkham resident—but Kambam asked, “Does the Joker have a legally defined mental illness?”

“He’s got, like, six or seven!” a girl yelled.

Not so fast. Despite the Joker’s extreme antisocial personality disorder, his highly planned scheming and concealed identity to thwart arrest suggested an awareness of right and wrong. “The Joker would not be put in a forensic facility,” Kambam announced, to much surprise.

No, in real life, he’d have gotten his own reality show.

—Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

This morning, io9 demonstrated that in addition to putting out an awe-inspiring blog every day, they could also put on a mind-expanding Comic Con panel.  With no Hollywood celebrities and just a couple of special guests, our favorite sci-fi bloggers ran through the TV shows, movies, comics and books of the past year that “blew our minds without blowing up any giant robots.”

Here are a few of their recommendations:

Moon -Duncan Jones’s new movie topped the list for both Annalee Newitz and Meredith Woerner.  Like a lot of the works recommended by the panel, Moon explores what it means to be human in a rapidly approaching era where humanity can be technologically upgraded or artificially created (note: this is not a spoiler, the lead character realizes very early in the film that he is a clone).

Julian Comstock – In this novel, Robert Charles Wilson depicts a 22nd century American that has sunk into barbarism and theocracy.  In response, the hero undermines the regime in part through trying to popularize ideas about Darwin in a world that has forgotten about science.

Rest -  What if someone invented a pill that meant no one would ever have to sleep, with no adverse side effects?  Panel guest Bonnie Burton from StarWars.com picked the Devil’s Due comic Rest, which explores this idea and its implications on society, the environment and mental health.

Wonton Soup – James Stokoe’s comic, recommended by Graeme McMillan, investigates what humans would do if they had to be out in space for a really long time.  Apparently the answers are get high and cook alien recipes.

Infoquake – io9 editor Charlie Jane Anders picked a series of novels by David Louis Edelman.   In Edelman’s future, people can hack and upgrade their own bodies and brains, impacting human relations in both the literal and business senses of the phrase.

How, you may ask? Pretty much just like Daredevil (or bats, or dolphins) do, by bouncing sounds off the environment and listening for the echoes. Blind people have been doing something similar to this instinctively, usually describing how they can “feel” a nearby obstruction like a wall or door. What they’re actually doing is hearing the changing sound of their footsteps as they approach the obstacle. A recent study led by Spanish researcher Juan Antonio Martínez at the University of Alcalá de Henares tested a series of different sounds and techniques designed to teach people how to use echolocation for their own ends. The most effective sound we can make, they discovered, is clicking sound of the tongue pulling away from the roof of the mouth.

“The almost ideal sound is the ‘palate click, a click made by placing the tip of the tongue on the palate, just behind the teeth, and moving it quickly backwards, although it is often done downwards, which is wrong,” Martínez said in a press release.

Normals, bereft of super senses as we are, must resort to gumption and stick-to-itiveness to actually learn how to echolocate effectively. Martinez said students needed two hours a day for two weeks to learn to tell when an object is in front of them, and a few more weeks to be able to identify trees and pavement. A 2000 study found that listeners in motion are able to take advantage of the Doppler effect to locate objects more effectively.

Then again, when there’s a powerful need to learn how to echolocate well, it can be done with astonishing virtuosity. Ben Underwood, who died just last month, became blind at the age of two from cancer. He learned to rollerblade and play Foosball just through sounds and echolocation (the video is pretty amazing). He walked down the street making just the sort of clicks Martinez recommended, and he could tell parked cars from fire hydrants from plastic garbage cans.

So for those of us who didn’t manage to get bitten by a radioactive puppy or hail from a distant asteroid orbiting a purple sun, there’s hope yet! Seeing with your eyes closed is a pretty nifty superpower we can all have… with a lot of practice.

We’ve just heard that we’re going back to Comic Con this summer, with a panel topic and line-up even bigger and better than last year’s event.

We are teaming up with Jennifer Ouellette and the crew at the Science and Entertainment Exchange to produce a panel on “MAD SCIENCE,” i.e. Science as a double-edged sword, ethically and morally neutral in and of itself, but dependent upon who wields it, and how.

Beloved Internet Personality Phil Plait is lined up to moderate (after he gets his tattoo) and we’re expecting guests from Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, Fringe, Stargate: Universe and more.  Watch this space for additional details.

Meta-conspiracy: Does the government want you to believe in UFO’s? [via Futurismic]

Real-life Terminator robots here, here and here.  [via Technovelgy]

Video of low-altitude flight over the lunar surface by the Japanese KAGUYA explorer [via Pink Tentacle]

Recently released scenes of the upcoming remake of V combine two of our favorite things: creepy aliens and Party of Five! [via thrfeed]

We’ll leave the debates over the acting, direction, and overall adaptation to others (except to say that Jackie Earle Haley stole the show). But one aspect worthy of analysis is the story’s main conflict—the constant “looming” nuclear holocaust. Granted, we never actually see any evidence that the aforementioned holocaust is looming, save a few shots of Nixon upping Defcon levels—but we’ll address that later. When Alan Moore first published the book in 1986, the apocalypse on everyone’s mind was Cold War atomic bombs—which, as we’ve noted, no longer pack quite the same anxiety punch as, say, biological weapons. Today, gas masks and duct tape have replaced air raids and backyard shelters in the popular conscious, to the point where seeing mushroom clouds onscreen feels like you’re watching an ’80s homage.

Of course, none of this means that the nuclear threat is any smaller now than it was three decades ago: The danger of nuclear war is still present, and fear of missile attack still drives plenty of policy and military tech decisions worldwide. But, like Bird Flu, nukes seem to have a PR problem: Despite the fact that they could wipe us all out, the thought of them isn’t all that scary.

Which is really the main problem for Snyder and his estimated $125 million budget: No matter how faithful your script and powerful your characters, it’s tough to keep a story suspenseful when you’re working towards a climax that doesn’t pack a serious punch. Not helping is the fact that the film completely ignores the other side—the Russians. We get a few choice shots of Tricky Dick mumbling about war, but never once do we see Gorbachev ordering missile launches or troop mobilization.

Granted, world annihilation isn’t dull—it’s still enough to keep an audience engaged for 2 hours and 43 minutes. Plus Snyder never misses a chance to smack us with stakes-raising reminders of devastation (we counted at least 8 shots with the Twin Towers in the background). And when the destruction does come to the Big Apple (why do TV shows and movies always love to decimate New York?) Snyder saves us the book’s graphic images of strewn corpses and bombed-out buildings, instead focusing on the internal struggle among the Watchmen ranks. Nine million people sacrificed for the greater good, meh—but we’ll watch one lovable sociopath in a ski mask.

So should Snyder have updated his apocalypse with biotech? He’d have faced the wrath of fans had he done so. Plus who would think nuclear war could ever get boring? It’s enough to make you wonder what the next big all-consuming fear will be. Oh, wait, we know that already: thinking robots.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Because they are interested in taking their quarry alive, Carter is equipped with something he has taken to calling a “bubble gun.” The gun immobilizes its target by shooting out a temporary force-field that forms a bubble. In the real world, bubbles—or more accurately, foam—actually are the basis of a gun designed to immobilize enemies.

The real-life bubble gun belongs to a class of weapons known as non-lethal weapons. These are weapons that should, in theory at least, incapacitate a target without doing the kind of damage that a bullet produces. (There is controversy about these weapons, with some arguing that they are still pretty dangerous, but, because a police officer or soldier is told they can’t cause serious harm, that officer or soldier is more likely to use such a weapon in situations where they otherwise would have shown restraint.) Tasers fall into this category, as are the kind of sonic weapons that have been used to repel pirates off the coast of Somalia. Somalia was also the location of the first active tests of the bubble gun in 1995, during the withdrawal of U.S. forces. The real-life gun doesn’t rely on force fields, but instead shoots a sticky foam, which its creators describe as “an extremely tacky, tenacious material used to block, entangle, and impair individuals.” Apparantly, the test went well, but the technology hasn’t become widespread since because of concerns that the foam might accidentally or deliberately get sprayed on a target’s nose and mouth, suffocating them. Still, foam-based technologies are very much under research, especially with regard to targeting the smallest enemies of all: pathogenic organisms and toxic molecules. Foams have been developed to neutralize bioweapons and nerve gas.

Bioweapons are also emerging as a component of the current Eureka mystery, so we’ll stay tuned for that. As for when we’ll see Eureka return to our television screens, the current rumor has it returning in June or July.

But before we get to the post-human, there will be the short reign of the transhuman, where we begin to move beyond our biological heritage, but still remain bound to it — and some contend we may have already have begun to enter this stage, with the advent of technologies such as always-on-and-everywhere access to the Internet enabling us to leverage our native intelligence. If transhumanism really gets under steam though, it will be difficult to predict what will happen — except for one thing: it will be messy. In last week’s release of the trade comic paperback of Transhuman, writer Jonathon Hickman and artist JM Ringuet explore just how messy things might get, as venture-capital-funded start ups battle it out in the marketplace regardless of the human cost. (Warning: this is a book for adults and some may find the graphic violence offensive.) It’s not the first work to plumb the messiness of transhumanism (Ian McDonald’s tales of India in the late 21st century come to mind), and the plot sometimes veers into the fantastic (I doubt any amount of genetic engineering will ever really enable telepathy!), but it’s a clever tale filled with all-too-believable characters and a mordant sense of humor.

Eureka is one of our favorite shows here at Science Not Fiction, and the comic faithfully reunites us with characters we have come to love over the last two-and-a-half seasons on air. The adaptation to the printed page is helmed by Eureka co-creator Andrew Cosby, written by Brendan Hay (a relative newcomer to comics, but with television writing experience that probably explains his excellent ear for dialogue that is true to Eureka‘s characters) and drawn by Diego Barreto. The story is set sometime near or after the end of Season One, giving Cosby and Hay the ability to use some fan-favorite characters that have since left the show, and the chance to fill in some of the backstories of other characters that couldn’t be handled in the limited screentime available on the show itself. The first issue immediately dives into Deputy Jo Lupo’s previously obscure military history. Lupo is a former U.S. Army Ranger, but little has been made of that on screen beyond justifying her zealous appreciation for guns, so seeing her experiences fleshed out is a promising start. We’re looking forward to issue #2 (and, Sci-Fi Powers-That-Be, an announcement from you on an air date would be nice too!)

Vijaykumar Meli, who laid out a plan for a bacterium that would improve the nitrogen fixation of rice plants, thereby decreasing pollution from fertilizer run-off and improving yield, which could save plenty of lives in the developing world. Meli says the technique could be accomplished using current technology, including parts from the BioBricks collection of standard biological parts.

Elliott Gresswell, who stumbled upon the fictitious lab notebooks of researchers who inadvertently create walking, nanotech-caused-gray-goo-living carnivorous trees, illustrated here by comic book artist Kevin O’Neill. (These fantastic monsters wouldn’t be too out of place with the space-faring fungus hats that Jaron Lanier has imagined in synthetic biology’s future.)

Hats off to the winners. (In Gresswell’s case, perhaps that would be, “Heads off”…)

We also went out for dinner with the Eureka writing crew, including Jaime Paglia and Eric Wallace. For the record, any time you want to go out for a few bottles of Sangiovese and a couple hours of talking about Doctor Who, Torchwood, Veronica Mars, the OC and Friday Night Lights, you can count me in. For the complete inside dope from Eric (including their potentially disastrous Comic Con A/V snafu), go to Eureka Unscripted.

More personal Comic Con highlights after the jump.

Next year’s Quantum Quest movie – the Cassini probe gets deeply weird.

Elsewhere in weird NASA news, an Apollo astronaut claims there has been a massive alien cover-up conspiracy and gets the smackdown from the Bad Astronomer.

Standout t-shirt trend from attractive female Con attendees: “Joss Whedon is my master.”

I may have said this before, but John Barrowman is the proverbial (immortal, polysexual) man. And he also sings.

And onto the Torchwood panel:

John Barrowman is totally over the top. If anything, I now see Captain Jack as a toned down version of his actual persona. Sample exchange: “There is a lot of John Barrowman in Captain Jack. And a lot of Captain Jack in John Barrowman… And a lot of Ianto in Captain Jack.”

Another interesting Barrowman quote, “I would love to play Captain America.” Turn loose the rumor mill.

Season 3 of Torchwood is going to be five episodes covering one “very intense” story arc. According to Julie Gardner, “the Torchwood team has never been in this much jeopardy. Bad things happen.”

Filming on Season 3 starts in a few weeks and BBC America inked the deal this morning to carry the episodes.

I could only get my hands on the first issue, which the creators specially printed as a limited edition to coincide with Comic-con: they are currently negotiating with a publisher about whether or not to distribute The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft as serial or as a single bound novel.

Whatever the outcome of these negotiations, I hope they get it into stores soon, as from what I’ve seen, it’s a terrific voyage into the twisted worlds of Lovecraftian fiction. I’m a big fan of Lovecraft, and even though his work may superficially seem dated, being mostly set in the 1920′s, the themes still resonate strongly today — how do we cope with a universe that is bigger and more mysterious than we can ever truly comprehend?

The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft is historical fiction, taking H.P. Lovecraft himself as its central figure, deliberately crossing the line between Lovecraft the author and his fantastic creations. This avoids the all-too-common pitfall of making yet another derivative work set in the universe he created. Blurring the line between reality and fiction is far more evocative of the true spirit of Lovecraft’s stories than simply name-dropping a few of his demi-Gods or cherry picking other elements of his mythos to work into a story.

And by making Lovecraft a character, The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft brings back into view an underrated American author who deserves to be much more widely known—the influence of his blending of the modern and scientific with the atavistic and supernatural can be be felt not just throughout literary science fiction and horror, but even in something like Ghostbusters (it’s no coincidence that when J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, was writing for the animated Ghostbuster series, which was somewhat darker than the movies, he wrote an episode centered on Cthulu, the monstrous demi-god that is Lovecraft’s most famous invention, along with the dreaded book The Necronomicon.) Fingers crossed for chapter two!

I will also take the opportunity here for a gratuitous swipe at a panel occurring at the same time as ours: Dexter. While I loved Michael C. Hall on Six Feet Under, why is this show at Comic Con? Is Dexter a comic book? Is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no. And haven’t we had enough of serial killers, anti-heroes or not?

Boycott this panel (and come to ours instead). I will be the guy standing at the door handing out coupons for free magazines.

Some other events I’m checking out on Thursday:

The Dr. Who and Torchwood panels – 12:00 pm – Ballroom 20 – pure fanboy love

The io9 panel – 2:00 pm – Room 2 – trawling for freelance bloggers

Quantum Quest – 3:30 pm – Ballroom 20 – this is apparently an animated physics movie featuring the voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar and John Travolta. I swear I didn’t make this up.

HBO’s True Blood – 4:30 pm – Room 6CDEF – Alan Ball is back (see Six Feet Under above), this time with vampires.

We’re still pursuing a couple of additional special guests that we’re very excited about so watch this space for updates.

It’s a clever, well-intentioned argument. I just don’t buy it for a minute. The line between smart scifi and dumb superhero scifi is not as clear as Erik tries to make it. Where would you put RoboCop and Total Recall, for instance? Lord of the Rings nurtured many a science nerd, even though there’s not a speck of realism in it; on the other side, Star Trek (original and all other flavors) has plenty of mumbo jumbo moments in it to rival Iron Man’s suit or Bruce Banner’s irradiated cells.

To my mind, the most effective scifi stories depend on two key factors: dealing with imaginary science & technology in a logically consistent manner, and being sensitive to its human implications. That’s what made Blade Runner and Terminator so great. At their best, the Iron Man and Spider-Man comics worked because they weren’t about the science at all; they were, like Batman, about life-transforming events that caused their heroes to deal with issues we all deal with, but on a wildly magnified scale. In short, they were almost all about the human side. Sure, their attention to realism was abysmal, but they were quite appealingly attentive to the idea of having to rely on your wits to succeed.

Is it so bad to tell kids to look up to a brilliant but socially awkward kid who used his smarts to fight crime and social injustice? And does Erik Sofge really want to argue that Outland and Saturn 3 were a big help in furthering the cause of science education in this country? If so…well, good luck with that, Erik.

Now it turns out that there are 11 species of frog with a very similar ability: When the little amphibians are threatened, they flex a muscle that actually extends a barbed piece of bone out through the skin on their fingers and attack with their newly exposed weapons.

Harvard biologist David Blackburn unwittingly discovered the strange trait when he picked up one of the frogs and it lashed out with its hind leg, drawing blood. Blackburn, who is continuing research on the live frogs, says “It’s surprising enough to find a frog with claws…. The fact that those claws work by cutting through the skin of the frogs’ feet is even more astonishing…. Most vertebrates do a much better job of keeping their skeletons inside.” Most, indeed.

No word yet if the frogs have Wolverine’s superfast healing ability so that those claw-holes heal up nice and fast.

Image:Biology Letters/David Blackburn]