Tag: The Atlantic

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Spiders can fly hundreds of miles using electricity

This is an intriguing piece of science, from Ed Yong in The Atlantic, that started the what-ifs in my head going.

The Atlantic

I don’t think it’s enough to be a film, unless it’s some kind of superhero movie. It makes me think Magneto-Spider-Man. What if Magneto was female and has an affair with Spider-Man, and they had a child. It could be the child’s genesis story.

If expanded out I can imagine a world populated by warring clans of superheroes, the magnetics and the spiders. A spider finds love in the arms of a magnetic, Capulet versus Montague style.

Alternatively it would make a great piece on a science programme or one of those Be Amazed style videos.

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What can people do to get better at learning?

The Atlantic

What we need to work on is getting comfortable with struggle in learning, with the discomfort that comes from not knowing something.

Amanda Ripley
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When gut bacteria change brain function

Interesting story by David Kohn in The Atlantic has me thinking, idea for a film?

The Atlantic

It could be a “House MD” style medical detective story. A patient’s behaviour suddenly changes, presenting with what looks like autism, but they’re fifty. Test after test leave the team stumped, until they discover a recent trip abroad introduced an unfamiliar bacteria to the patients gut.

The happy ending version of this story has the team introducing healthy bacteria, restoring the patient to full health.

There’s also a “Lorenzo’s Oil” type story in there. Parents struggle to raise their child with severe behavioural problems. Setting out on a mission to help their child, they take on experts, challenge orthodoxy, and discover an imbalance of bacteria in their child is causing the problem.

I could also see this premise being more sinister. A pandemic story. Our germaphobic heroine starts to see the people around her change, congregating like bees in a hive, as the bacteria spreads. Our heroine hooks up with a small group trying to evade this new “normal”, and find a way to fight back. I envision something more akin to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” than “28 Days Later”. It has the potential to explore issues of power and control and normalisation.