MAMMAS: Isabella Rossellini is awesome and yes...biology can be sexy!

'I am not a monster...' begins the dramatic plea of an exhausted and jailed hamster mother.

 

Why is the pitiful mother in jail?  

She has eaten one (or more) of her babies.  We learn that this behavior is somewhat commonplace among hamsters.

She goes on to explain her reasoning.  To raise more pups would have been impossible...  This is a case of limited resources being divided among competing processes (trade-offs).  If she had cared for all of the young perhaps she would have perished mid-way through lactation (prior to weaning her young) and all of the babies would have died.

Nature... red in tooth and claw- and overall a good (albeit cold-hearted) economist.

If you want to know more please watch the video below from the new Sundance Channel series 'MAMMAS'.

 

The story of a hamster mama is told by the lovely Isabella Rossellini.  Apparently when asked "if she drew inspiration from the relationship with her own mother (for the series), the Oscar-winning star of Casablanca, Rossellini is quick to respond. “No, it’s biology,” she firmly asserts. “I cannot write Mammas about a worm and think of Ingrid Bergman. It’s too far away.”

  

I love worms but I think I have to agree here... also- can you imagine having Ingrid Bergman as a mother!?  Crazy!

And no- despite a surely glamorous childhood and life as a model- Isabella is most certainly not just another pretty face...

Rossellini is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Animal Behavior!  

I guess that makes her a bio-nerd.... Kinda like Amy Farrah Fowler in The Big Bang Theory.  Amy Farrah Fowler is supposed to be a neurobiologist in the show.  I'll admit I love the show and I like Mayim Bialik as Amy.  Mayim by the way REALLY is a biologist... just like her character (she has a PhD I believe from UCLA in fact).  (*Just like Pauley Perrette has actually studied forensics)...

But lets be honest... her character in the BBT does not depict us lady biologists in quite the same light... 

 Do you see what I mean? 

    Dear Isabella, 

  Thanks for helping us biology ladies make a strong case that science can be smart AND sexy!  I   unfortunately am too busy with doing microscopy to actively pursue my modeling career but perhaps my career as a hand-model will be launched when someone... somewhere publishes an image of my hand changing magnifications and Rolex simply 'must know' who's hand that is (sigh)....

Surely one can dream- no?

Now back to the point:

Ah yes- check out MAMMAS - and while you are at it I also highly recommend the previous series 'Green Porno'.

Bats in Movies 1_ the Neverending Story bat

This evening as I sat down to watch a movie from my childhood: 'the Neverending Story' and noticed that in addition to a 'Rockbitter' and Troll called 'Nighthob' one of the first characters we meet is a bat.  This seemed like a fun topic to blog about.  I've been intending to start a list of movies with bats in them anyway together with comments on the overall accuracy of the depictions.  So lets start here with this 1984 classic!

Surprisingly, (in my opinion) the bat is depicted rather accurately.  Indeed, if I were pressed to identify it I would suggest a real species namely the Lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) .  This species would be consistent with the filming location (and hence bats the film-makers may have seen) in Germany. (See below to see if you agree with my ID of this bat!) 

In fact, I am inspired to see if I can contact the filmmaker (Wolfgang Peterson) to ask where he got this idea and who he may have consulted to make the mechanical model bat used in the film!  Perhaps the author (Micheal Ende) of the book upon which the movie is based should be credited with the accurate depiction.  I am not sure but in either case it seems the movie does a good job! 

So why is this an accurate depiction? 

Accuracies:
The bat's wings are made of it's hands and the thumbs are free.  This is something many makers of movies and toys often mess up.  Thumbs are free of the wing at least in microbats whereas in megabats two digits are not part of the wing (see here for a video).
Also in the movie, the wings appear to function in a manner very similar to how bats actually fly.  When it does fly, the bat is carrying something about 1/3rd it's weight (the troll).  While I can't be sure how much the troll might weigh (a 'not accurate' part of the description) female bats are known to carry their near-adult-sized offspring while flying.  Thus, this seems feasible.  I also like how the troll fastens himself under the bat which would likely help keep the center of mass of the bat in place.

Inaccuracies:
At one juncture the bat is seen to drift off to sleep while flying (i.e. it is narcoleptic).  This obviously would NOT be a good strategy.  Bats instead sleep while roosting in caves, rock crevices, trees or buildings.  Also, the bat seems to not mind the loud sounds around it and keeps sleeping while hanging (in the clip here).  This would not be  the case.  Bats have excellent hearing and would be disrupted by the loud sounds around them.  Of course... keep in mind the loud sounds are coming from the 'rockbitter' and other fanciful characters so we can leave some room for imagination!

Similarly, trolls using bats as modes of locomotion... well if trolls were to exist and a bat was 2 times their size they would surly be able to manage!  Joking aside I found this to be a very cute depiction of a bat that I had not recalled from when I saw the movie over 20 years ago.  If you haven't seen it check it out!