After the relative paucity of science news the previous month, I’ve been hit by an absolute deluge of important announcements in June.
The most important of these concern the realization that the history of intelligent life on Earth may need to be completely rewritten. Homo naledi was a species of hominids who were much shorter than modern humans but had human-like hands and feet and more ape-like hips and shoulders similar to Australopithecus. They were first discovered in 2013 and due to the small size of their skulls and therefore their brains were not thought to be intelligent in the way humans are. Now researchers have found not only evidence of ceremonial burial but abstract geometrical patterns carved into cave walls that may be a form of primitive art. This has forced researchers to revise their opinions that such small brains could not be intelligent and to reevaluate the evidence of stone tools, cave art and remains of fires as hominids other than Homo sapiens and Neanderthals may have been responsible for them.
Another important announcement is that a team has succeeded in creating synthetic models of human embryos by reprogramming stem cells without the need for human eggs or sperm at all. These model embryos are useful to study the earliest stages of human development and it is not clear that they ever have the potential to grow into living creatures. It is currently illegal to implant them into human wombs and animal versions of these models have failed to develop properly in animal wombs beyond a few days. Nevertheless it’s easy to see what a significant development this is and why there are so many ethical concerns over this announcement.
The line ‘life finds a way’ is such a meme by now but it’s the best way to describe the case of a female American crocodile that laid a clutch of eggs by itself despite having being kept in complete isolation from other crocodiles throughout its life. This makes it a clear case of parthenogenesis in which female gametes develop without being fertilized. Of the 14 eggs laid, 7 appeared to be fertile and were artificially incubated. Unfortunately none hatched and only seemed to have a fully formed fetus inside. DNA analysis proved that the fetus was essentially a clone of the mother with no paternal alleles at all. In this instance, the clutch of eggs all failed and suggests that such eggs are inherently less healthy that properly fertilized ones. Nonetheless it makes for a fortuitous, unplanned experiment that demonstrates that the phenomenon is real.
Then we have a paper that talks about using targeted neurostimulation to treat major depressive disorder (MDD). As the paper notes, patients with MDD are resistant to other forms of treatment and the condition itself is widely thought to be the result of disordered communication across the entire brain network. It shows that targeted neurostimulation can restore typical propagation patterns of signals within the brain and this could the mechanism by which the treatment works.
Finally here is an article about the so-called study drugs that are popular in some circles. These include such brands as Adderall and Ritalin, taken because they are thought to boost brainpower. A double-blind study however found that those on these drugs spent more effort on completing cognitively demanding tasks yet performed worse on average. In fact, even those who did well after taking the placebo performed poorly under the effects of one of these drugs.
We had a great time with Baahubali so it was always likely that we would this grander and better known epic in the same vein. It really is a bombastic film as we can see from the title itself which are the initials of the director S. S. Rajamoulin and the two male leads. Since it’s set in the modern era instead of far in the mythological past, the nationalism is more off-putting. I’d say it’s not too bad as throwing off British rule is a worthy cause and the action scenes are worth it. It’s ridiculously over the top in the characteristic style that India has forged for itself and the focus is on the brotherhood between the two heroes with the female leads having only a secondary role. I think I still like Baahubali more but this is a decent action epic too.
The creative team from In Bruge reunites to create this startlingly beautiful and at first very humorous film. The fictional setting of Inisherin here is an absolutely gorgeous place and of course must have been deliberately chosen to contrast against the nowhere small of Bruges. But of course just because the island is beautiful, it doesn’t mean that life there is pleasant. The plot takes what seems like a minor feud between two friends to absurd extremes and no one can deny how engaging it is. Still I don’t believe that it’s as deep as it purports to be and fails to truly dissect its characters in any insightful way.
I’ve never played a game by legendary game designer Hideo Kojima so this game being free on Epic and being itself so fascinatingly eccentric, it seemed like the best opportunity to remedy this failing. I’ve still heard enough about Kojima to be skeptical that I’d actually like it and the concepts in it are so ridiculous that surely it couldn’t be coherent. Yet despite myself, I found myself drawn into Kojima’s imagination and impressed by the richness of its game mechanics. There’s still a lot here that I don’t like, such as the excessively long cutscenes, but I have to admit that the guy really is a genius.
Everyone knows about the successful and highly influential spate of Japanese horror films from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, This isn’t as well known as Ring or Ju-On: The Grudge but it’s still considered the progenitor of that wave. Unfortunately while the grainy film esthetic and general tone of the cinematography are similar, I found this one to be a not very scary and not very impressive example of the genre. After being subjected to truly horrific supernatural entities, a hypnotist no matter how implausibly skilled, just doesn’t rate that highly as a threat and worse still, the film is utterly uninterested in exploring the backstory of the villain.
Everyone knows the song ‘White Christmas’ but how many know that it comes from this musical? Between that song and the appearance of stars like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, I thought this might make for an entertaining watch. Unfortunately ‘White Christmas’ is the only good song in here and the film itself is just mediocre. Having two male leads and no real female lead is an odd choice but what really kills it is the blackface performance later on and the inclusion of a stock ‘Mamie’ character. Between the two, it gives some bad vibes to the familiar ‘White Christmas’ song and the plot is just nonsense. Avoid.
Tony Hawk is inarguably the world’s most famous skateboarder and has a strong claim to be the world’s best ever. As a videogamer, it’s impossible to miss the innumerable games bearing his name and he’s emblematic of that whole counterculture. This film serves as a fairly comprehensive and I believe fair biography of him. There are no huge twists and it’s essentially the same kind of story we’ve seen in other top tier athletes. Still the scenes of him skating are jaw-dropping to watch and the forthrightness of Hawk’s responses to the interviewer’s questions marks this as one of the better films of the genre.
