The Way of the Editor:

Fiction to Fact: Scientific Discoveries Mimic Pop Culture

Scientists find “Kryptonite” and make plans for “deflector shields.”

 

In case you haven’t heard, there was an amusing scientific find of a new type of mineral in Serbia which matched the chemical makeup of Kryptonite as presented in Superman Returns. In an article adapted from The Natural History Museum of London, Dr Chris Stanley comments, “Towards the end of my research, I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula—sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide—and was amazed to discover that same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns. The new mineral does not contain fluorine and is white rather than green, but in all other respects the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite. We will have to be careful with it—we wouldn’t want to deprive Earth of its most famous superhero!”

Alright, so maybe it’s not really,r eally Kryptonie—the mineral was actually missing the element of flourine and distinctively not radioactive green—I still think pitching a new find as the new Kryptonite was a great way of selling an article on minerals.

In a similar vein of taking ficiton and making it real, scientists in Britain are talking about setting up magnetic shields for space shuttles à la the Starship Enterprise. The Royal Astronomical Society made an announcement earlier this month that, “scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire plan to mimic nature. They will build a miniature magnetosphere in a laboratory to see if a deflector shield can be used to protect humans living on space craft and in bases on the Moon or Mars.”

Take that, science fiction. End communicae.