The Exchange

Back to the Future Part II crashed into our lives almost 23 years ago, complete with hoverboards, facial recognition software, and a baseball team based in Miami.       

With 2015 not far off on the proverbial horizon, we thought we’d take a look at what Back to the Future Part II got right, and what has not quite made its way into our cultural lexicon.

What would your favorite science-fiction movie be without the costumes? Most likely it would not be your favorite movie.

Fashion and costume choices set the stage for some of cinema’s most memorable moments. But what are movie sets made out of? Where was the cotton used to make the leading lady’s pants harvested? These questions can be explained by delving into the science of biodiversity.

Chase Mendenhall is a doctoral candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Stanford University. He explores the trade-offs between the conservation of biodiversity and farming by closely monitoring bird and bat populations that inhabit farmland in Costa Rica.

He is also one of two speakers who will be attending the Science Café at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 17, 2012, at the Koshland Science Museum in Washington, DC.

At the 2012 San Diego Comic Con we’re putting the Sci in SciFi with the return of the popular panel:

The Science of Science Fiction: Canon Fodder

Packed with the names behind some of the biggest science fiction hits in Hollywood and TV, the panel will explore the science behind movies and series including Thor, Eureka, Prometheus, and SyFy’s upcoming blockbuster series Defiance. Keeping the science straight in an ongoing series can be a nightmare for writers, so we’ve tapped some of the best to talk about how it’s done, and how to remain faithful to both reality and story mythology. We’ll be talking prequels, sequels, and creating good stories with good science from the ground up.

The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine are collaborating with the USA Science and Engineering Festival to present Decisiontown, a hands-on exhibit designed to show how citizens can use science, engineering, and medicine to make informed decisions in their daily lives. Decisiontown will be one of more than 3,000 exhibits at the festival, a free public event which takes place in Washington, D.C., on April 28 and 29.