This week, Steven is away, leaving Ben and Devon to hold down the fort. That means plenty of movie reviews, travel plans, museum science, unexpected tsunami discoveries, and, naturally, a healthy dose of Star Trek discussion.
Real Life
Devon is getting ready for a family vacation to Long Beach, Mississippi, where a whole group of friends will be joining in on the fun. Their last trip didn’t exactly provide ideal beach weather, so everyone is hoping for sunnier skies this time around. Ben, however, refuses to acknowledge any alternative naming conventions—it will always be the Gulf of Mexico.
The movie marathon continues this week. Ben checked out Young Washington and came away feeling… lukewarm. While it wasn’t terrible, he felt it leaned far too heavily into its religious themes for his tastes.
Devon’s household has been busy catching up on family movies. Minions and Monsters earned mixed marks, mostly because the title promises far more monsters than it actually delivers. Devon joked that it should have been called “Minions Do Hollywood” instead. With kids currently obsessed with both Super Mario and the Minions, though, it was still a hit at home, and the Rabbids look like they’ll be another favorite before long.
Ben also saw Masters of the Universe and had a much stronger recommendation. Fans who grew up with the franchise will apparently find plenty to appreciate, echoing comments from Red Letter Media that longtime viewers will get the most out of it.
Devon rounded out the week with Toy Story 5. Surprisingly, he couldn’t remember much about the third or fourth films, but still found himself enjoying the newest installment. As always, Pixar somehow manages to package deeply unsettling existential questions—like the horror of being a sentient toy—into a heartfelt family film.
Future or Now
Ben brought one of the stranger scientific discoveries of the week: museums may soon have a new employee… superworms.
Researchers have found that the larvae commonly sold as pet food may actually outperform the flesh-eating beetles traditionally used to clean skeletons for museums and forensic research. Superworms efficiently strip away soft tissue without damaging delicate bones, while also being much easier to contain than dermestid beetles, which have a nasty habit of escaping and infesting museum collections. With the proper number of larvae, scientists can produce clean, display-ready skeletons while avoiding many of the downsides of chemical treatments or boiling.
Read more here:
Ars Technica – Museums could use ravenous superworms to clean skeletons
Devon followed up with an incredible story about tsunamis and satellites. After a massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the Kamchatka Peninsula, a NASA satellite captured one of the most detailed observations ever made of a giant tsunami crossing the Pacific Ocean.
The data revealed something scientists didn’t expect. Large tsunamis have traditionally been considered “non-dispersive,” meaning they should largely maintain their shape as they travel across the ocean. Instead, researchers observed dispersion, where different portions of the wave traveled at slightly different speeds, causing the tsunami to spread into a leading wave followed by several trailing waves. Even more impressively, these observations suggest the original earthquake rupture was larger than early models indicated.
Learn more here:
ScienceDaily – A NASA satellite caught a giant tsunami doing something no one expected
Of course, no Ben and Devon episode would be complete without a Star Trek update. Strange New Worlds Season 4 is on the horizon, and Ben has been enjoying The Last Starship, calling it well worth the read for Trek fans looking for more spacefaring adventures.
That conversation naturally led to Prelude to Axanar and Axanar: The Gathering, two impressive fan productions that continue to spark discussion among Star Trek enthusiasts.
Watch them here:
Finally, Devon has also been watching Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. While he’s enjoying it overall, he admitted it hasn’t quite lived up to his expectations. It’s a tense, stressful watch that keeps him engaged, even if it hasn’t completely won him over yet.
Leave a Reply