The Omics of Avatar
December 30, 2009 5:30 PM
Filed Under: Gerry Ward
The science in the science fiction movie Avatar is in my opinion – excellent! Let me tell you what I’m thinking. Science fiction can be so off the wall that many of the basic laws of science must be broken for the plot to work. This is not the case in Avatar. Avatar is one of those science fiction movies in which the science seems to be very probable because it is either currently real science, or certainly technologies which are predictable based on current science. I personally find it much easier to have suspended disbelief in science fiction movies if the science is believable.
After a few brief trailers, a sign came on the screen saying put your 3-D glasses on now.
Instantly, the flat screen gained a depth that made it look like you could reach your hand right into the back of the picture. The titles seemed to hang in the air above the patrons two rows in front of me. This was really cool! However, this was not my first experience with 3-D effects. In September, I was involved with the Genome Alberta-supported CAVEman exhibit at the World Skills Calgary 2009. In the old days of 3-D, glasses were made up of a red lens and a green lens, and colour differentiation allowed for the effects. The modern method uses two offset images projected at the screen, and glasses with differentially polarized lenses, so that each eye sees a slightly different image, thus allowing for the totally 3-D effect.
The suffix omics is now attached to studies in biology that consider the system as a whole. At various conventions and conferences I tell my audience how the word genomics came out of the Human Genome Project and that in turn led to use of –omics to describe the study of other molecular biology systems such as proteomics, metabalomics, and nutrigenomics. Not to be confused with bionics as detailed in the January 2010 edition of the National Geographic. Bionics plays a big role in the movie as well (more on that later).
Back to the movie: I was smiling when in the first few moments the movie got into genomics, cloning and genetic engineering. Without posting any spoilers, I think it is fair to say that the hero, Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington), was selected to take over the role of his murdered twin brother because he was an exact genetic match for the human-Na’vi hybrid genetically engineered by the science program headed up by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver). It was implied that since he shared the same genome with his brother, it would allow his neural patterns to more readily match the avatar. How farfetched is this idea? Well, right now scientists are working on neurally-controlled robots to help quadriplegics, and at this point the robot does not even have to be in the same room.
A technology called Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), which was featured in a December 30 CNN posting, can be of two basic types. “Non-invasive techniques use electrodes placed on the scalp to measure electrical activity. Invasive procedures implant electrodes directly into the brain. In both cases, the devices interact with a computer to produce a wide variety of applications, ranging from medical breakthroughs and military-tech advances to futuristic video games and toys.” In the movie Avatar, it seemed they used the non-invasive techniques in the form of suits and gloves for the human enhanced military devices, and then an entire casket-like chamber for the control of the avatar. Again, no spoiler intended, but watch to see how the BCI technology of the humans is paralleled by James Cameron through the use of neural pathways to create a flow of energy and ideas among all the biota of Pandora creating a Eywa-nomics. Is he suggesting this is not a box to be opened?
Additionally on the topic of the biota of Pandora, I was thrilled to see the many and varied life forms developed by Cameron. I’m convinced that he or at least a member of his team must be familiar with the hypotheses put forward by scientists such as Stephen J Gould in Wonderful Life and Simon Conway Morris in the The Crucible of Creation. On Pandora we have a world that seems to contain many of the niches we are aware of on Earth, and several others which result in a new situation and surrounding. Gould speculated that if the evolutionary tape were to be replayed, the outcome might be very different indeed, and there is a wide variety of biota to be found on Pandora. Yet, as Conway Morris infers, the life forms that result are similar in appearance and in adaptations so that the carnivores are wolf-like and there is a bi-pedal humanoid called the Na’vi. Of course the movie Avatar is fantasy. It doesn’t prove any of these scientists’ theories. But it is great fantasy and excellent science fiction.
Posted by Gerry Ward at December 30, 2009 5:30 PM