Science in the real world vs. on TV....

[ddeclue]

Shows like NCIS, CSI, and Bones drive me nuts with their fictitious technology... They can look up everything while you watch on the internet from a ridiculously wide variety of databases, they can pull DNA matches while you watch... um not so much.. this stuff takes time and money...

In the real world, they've finally got a machine that will run DNA in a day and cost $1,000:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_GENOME_DECODER_?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[gkhouston]

1. I used to watch "The New Detectives", a true-crime show that was forensics-based,

so I can't stand the more infotainment-type shows where somebody's a forensic scientist in multiple areas and regularly interviews suspects, etc., not to mention all the time/cost blunders.

[ddeclue]

2. My problem is being an engineer and computer programmer and knowing better...

House isn't too bad on the science.

[Ohio Joe]

3. Everyone sees the errors in how their field is portrayed on TV

I have a buddy that is an airplane mechanic and a huge aviation history buff and he is always pointing out things that are wrong in movies and on TV. It drives him nuts. I just kind of go along with the whole 'it's entertainment' thing.

[ddeclue]

5. I happen to be a pilot and my degree is aerospace engineering so I'm right there on that one.

I really hated the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor. A million aviation things wrong. The biggest one was when the Doolittle Raider plane which was out of bombs, bullets and gas crashes in China and yes.. you guessed it... it exploded... what was left to explode? the aluminum?

[bongbong]

8. coupla possibilities...

These are really just "outs" for the scriptwriters, but they are slightly possible.

*) fumes or residual fuel in the tanks - gas vapor is very explosive
*) thermite reaction - the aluminum combining explosively with some steel parts on impact
*) electrical explosions
*) did they carry extra fuzes for the bombs?

[ddeclue]

9. nope just dumb writers. It could be a horse and buggy tumbling off a cliff and they would have

exploded it.

You can't have a polite conversation in front of a DC3 with both engines turning either and you don't wait until your B26 bomber is actually at the end of the aircraft carrier deck and going out over the water to decide to add "full power now" - (Alec Baldwin as Colonel Doolittle yet another screw up since Doolittle was short and bald and Baldwin is straight out of leading man central casting...)

[rt-sails]

4. Science, real world vs. TV

Gosh, some of us remember the "warp drive" from Startrek. It enabled faster-than-light travel. Where is it now that our planet is becoming uninhabitable?

'Course Startrek also featured "personal communicators" about the size of cell-phones and devices responding to voice commands. Now, there's something impossible. <G>

The main problem with the DNA sequencer is what to do with the information. The DNA molecule has the largest information-storage capacity of any device known. Unfortunately, we don't know what most of it means. We see the genetic equivalent of computer bits (zeros and ones), but how they fit together into something we can understand is a giant mystery. A few sequences -- a very few -- have been interpreted for meaning; most not.

I'd guess too that "$1,000 a pop" is attainable only if the machine runs at full capacity and doesn't require too much recalibration and maintenace. {Why do those CSI computers never need virus scans at just the wrong time?}

[ddeclue]

6. Yes but if it is clearly science fiction you get a total pass on reality...when it claims to be

contemporary activities of a law enforcement agency (albeit fictional) I get annoyed.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Glad you mentioned this

I don't watch cop shows, and I suppose that people who do really taint a jury pool.