Intro and "Invader"

Intro

Greetings reader! Welcome to my first ever blog... ever! I am a biology student with a taste for all things horror or science fiction related. This blog is my attempt to bridge ideas behind science fiction and real biological sciences.

This topic is not uncommon, there are a few blogs on the same topic, such as this one and I am far from a biology or biochemical expert. My focus for this blog will then be to investigate questions or make comments that I have as a novice biologist on the movie or book piece that I like.

Genetic Engineering gone wrong in Leviathan (1989)

"Invader"

To begin with, I've decided to write about an older movie that I saw on the Sci Fi channel when  I was little that I loved. The film I mention is "Invader" (1997) aka "Lifeform" as it was named on tv. This goofy movie tries too hard to be flashy with scientific sounding terms terms like "exo-biological," but is a decent film if you're patient enough to see it through to the end.You can view the full movie here on hulu.com.

To summarize, A mars lander is rebuilt and sent back to earth with a stowaway on-board. The martian creature is hatched from an incubation chamber that was added onto the vehicle and runs amok in the military base that it was brought in to, China Lake. Eventually it is killed and the scientists dissect it.

 They discover that 1) it is a silicon based lifeform that functions based off of simple chemical reactions, 2) that it has a perfect genetic race memory and 3) that it asexually reproduces, which causes more problems when its offspring hatches and it becomes even more violent towards the human characters to avenge its parent.

I picked this movie because I felt it delved deeper (somewhat) and attempted to explain the biology behind the creature more with scientific inquiry and provides more than just, "somehow its able to do this," plot that happens a lot in other sci-fi movies. 
This no explanation kind of plot device is common in a lot of science fiction(Tremors, Alien etc.) so the attempt at explanation that occurs in this movie makes it seem a little more approachable with a biologist mentality.

The dialogue about the creature raises a several questions about silicon based life that I'll try to answer in the next posts with a little research and possibly make a profile of how that creature could evolve.

1) According to the film, the silicon based molecules of the alien wouldn't deteriorate like if it were carbon based, ensuring a kind of immortality and resistance to the harsh martian environment. This is a remarkable achievement for any life form, provided it's a plausible possibility, which is my question. Is it possible for a living organism to evolve based on silicon molecules? What are the problems with a silicon based organism?

and 2) how can the intelligence of the creature be constructed using only basic chemical reactions (assuming that by basic, they mean physical chemistry and not organic reactions)?

In the next post I'll attempt to explore the possibilities with you about silicon life, and how it applies to this movie.

-'til next time!
Andrew