24 June 2013

Birthdays
Iain Glen b. 1961 (Resident Evil, Game of Thrones, Lara Croft)
Peter Weller b. 1947 (RoboCop, Star Trek Into Darkness, Odyssey 5, Buckaroo Banzai)

I screwed up last week and said Mr. Glen's birthday was the 14th instead of the 24th. That will be correctly noted next year. Since I gave him the Picture Slot, this time on his correct birthday I give the Picture Slot to his fellow thespian Peter Weller.

Many happy returns to both gentlemen.

Movies released

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen released, 2009

In the year 2000!

Prediction: By 2000, most human genes will be mapped.

Predictor: OMNI Future Almanac, published in 1982

Reality: This one is pretty good. The preliminary report for the Human Genome Project was in 2000 and the complete report was in 2003. According to Wikipedia, there is about 8% of the total genome remains unmapped, but the prediction just says "most", so this fact does not change the basic correctness of the prediction. One odd part of the prediction said that there are about 100,000 genes in the code for humans, but the HGP says the number is in the 20,000 to 25,000 range. I found this article online that has multiple estimates, where the HGP number is the low estimate and the highest now stands between 65,000 and 70,000. It agrees that the old estimate was 100,000, which is the number the Almanac used. Now I'm just a mathematician, but it seems to me that if you've mapped the genome, you should not still have estimates floating around that disagree by a factor of three.

Very odd.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Our usual weekly routine is broken up by a prediction from a movie. What's your favorite moment from the illustrious career of Jonathan E.?

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!