Thursday, January 2, 2014

The ten best science fiction movies....................

..........as chosen by scientists. I've seen, and liked, most of them.  Without trying to be picky, my list would probably include The Day The Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Woody Allen's Sleeper.   Full scientist-picked list is here.  Sample here













No. 5 Fantastic Voyage (1966)

A miniature spacecraft and crew are injected into a comatose scientist to remove a life-threatening blood clot, so that he can survive to share vital secrets. The movie's lavishly depicted workings of the human body garnered two Academy Awards and three additional nominations—and got James Giordano thinking about medicine at the tiniest scale. Now a professor of neuroscience at Georgetown University, Giordano examines the mechanics of the brain's response to pain. "The film has been a lifelong inspiration for me to work on developing neurotechnology," he says. David Carroll, director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest University, says that the movie's minuscule technology, although physically impossible, is echoed in his current work. "It's exactly what we are working on: Injecting nanobots that find a cancerous tumor, tell us when they have found it, and destroy it," he says. Now that's fantastic.

1 comment:

  1. The problem with lists is that they're always incomplete. How Forbidden Planet was left out I don't know. And if you're going to include Jurassic Park, then what about King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Rodan, Mothra, and Beast from 20,000 Fathoms? Then there's The Fly (original version with Vincent Price) and The Thing (original version with Marshal Dillon as the monster), Attack of the Crab Monsters, and I just might even add The Three Stooges Go To Mars.

    Okay - that last one might not make the top ten but it scared me out of the theatre... :)

    - J.

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