Go Behind the Science of 'Transcendence'

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But perhaps the most disturbing passages in "Transcendence," from a strictly visceral point of view, are the images of Dr. Caster dying slowly and painfully after getting shot by the RIFT terrorists. In the film, the deadly bullet has been treated with radioactive polonium, as a kind of grisly insurance policy in case the initial shooting didn't do the job.

The incident is clearly meant to reference the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security officer who was poisoned in 2006 with the highly radioactive element polonium-210. No charges were ever brought in the murder, but it's widely believed that Litvinenko was assassinated by Russian spies who dosed Litvinenko's tea with polonium.

Radioactive bullets are indeed a reality, but not quite as depicted in the film. Depleted uranium bullets are used by several military forces worldwide as armor piercing ammunition, due to the material's extreme density. Uranium rounds don't pose the same radiological danger as polonium, but they're still a hazard. Specifics can be found at The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons.

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Go Behind the Science of 'Transcendence'

The Dull Dogma of Transcendence

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Wally Pfister pits good against technology in a directorial debut full of meaningless symbolism.

Warner Bros.

The Singularity is a wonderful menace for science fiction. It's the suggestion of a point, sometime in the future, when a greater-than-human intelligence irrevocably changes the arc of humanity's future. The theory predicts an artificially intelligent machine that's so smart, a person literally cannot comprehend its abilities. What would happen if it existed? Would it heal our bodies? Would it revitalize our planet? Would it end war and solve world hunger?

If such a machine existed, would it be any different from a god?

The Underrated, Universal Appeal of Science Fiction

Transcendence, a dull movie directed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister that tries very hard to be smart, is about this question as much as it's about the relationship between nature and technology. It's also very much about Johnny Depp's blank stares into nothingness, nano-enhanced superhumans, and the cockamamie idea that a person must either support the ever-advancing march of innovation or reject it in its entirety. It's like watching a philosophy lecture in a clown college.

Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, an artificial-intelligence researcher who hopes to build sentient machines. A technophobic extremist group named Revolutionary Independence From Technologyyes, R.I.F.T.attacks Caster after a speech to potential investors, shooting him with an irradiated bullet. He survives the assassination attempt, but the radiation poisoning is his death sentence. (The so-called "radical neo-Luddites" don't always mind using modern technology, it seems.) As Casters body fails, his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) urges his partner Max (Paul Bettany) to help her upload his mind into a supercomputer. They do, and within minutes, Caster wants more. He wants to access the Internet. He wants to go everywhere.

From there, Transcendence reaches its most intriguing momentsbecause it almost becomes a different movie. Evelyn refuses to believe the digital Caster is any different from the mortal one. ("His mind is a pattern of electrical signals," she says.) Together, they build a futuristic oasis in a rural desert town, where Caster develops the ability to perform miracles through groundbreaking medical technology: He heals the blind, teaches cripples to walk, and revives the dead. He also programs himself into the people he heals, weaving a collective mind through an army of bodies.

While the movie quickly devolves into a technophobic tirade, the compelling questions it has raised linger: How has Evelyn's relationship with her husband changed? Can she still love him? What does love look like between a person and an omnipotent machine? If Transcendence were a smaller movie about that relationshipa movie that gave Hall more room to express ambiguity about itperhaps Pfister would have found the difficult answers he's grasping toward.

Perhaps that's why Pfister returns, again and again, to a garden in Will and Evelyn's backyard. When Will Caster was still a man, he turned the garden into a sanctuary where no wireless signals could be sent or received. A "dead zone," he called it. It was their personal Eden. In the garden, Pfisters camera repeatedly follows a droplet of water as it falls from a sunflower. It's a jarring motif, if only because it suggests depth of meaning where none exists. This Eden is lost. Its Tree of Knowledge is bare. Transcendence is an unholy sort of perversion of faith, as imagined through the frame of the Singularity. Caster is indistinguishable from a god. He's a deity built of ones and zeroes.

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The Dull Dogma of Transcendence

Personal Testimonial: Dr Dave Arneson, Naturopathic Medical Doctor – Video

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Personal Testimonial: Dr Dave Arneson, Naturopathic Medical Doctor
Dr. David Arneson, Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD) Tells his remarkable success story of how he went back to collages at 38 years old. At 42 years old he h...

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Personal Testimonial: Dr Dave Arneson, Naturopathic Medical Doctor - Video

Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 2014 Scholarship Gala for Alumni and Friends – Video

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Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 2014 Scholarship Gala for Alumni and Friends
The Fourth Annual Scholarship Gala for Alumni Friends, hosted by Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University Foundation proved to be ...

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Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 2014 Scholarship Gala for Alumni and Friends - Video

PNWU president welcomes possible medical school at WSU Spokane

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Keith Watson

Earlier this month, Washington State University President Elson Floyd announced plans to explore a medical school on WSUs Spokane campus, which would be the states second publicly funded medical school.

And for local Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences president, Dr. Keith Watson, WSUs effort is welcome.

We need all hands on deck to meet this coming health care shortage, Watson said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

The University of Washington, however, does not support a second state-funded medical school because officials say they doubt the states financial ability to support two institutions. In an Associated Press story this week, UW officials said it would be more cost-effective to expand the UWs enrollment.

But Watson said he is concerned that UWs capacity is inadequate to meet current and growing needs for more doctors.

We take issues with the model that (the University of Washington) has used; its great, but its not sufficient, he said.

The UW had been the only medical school in the state until PNWU was founded as a private, nonprofit institution in 2005. Theres also a naturopathic medical school in Kirkland, Bastyr University, thats been around since 1978. In Washington state, naturopaths are approved to be primary care physicians; thats not always true elsewhere.

The UW is an allopathic school and PNWU is osteopathic; osteopathic medicine has a different philosophy, with a greater emphasis on prevention and on looking at the patient as a whole person. Historically, the two were much more distinct, but now the training is almost identical and osteopaths and allopaths practice alongside one another.

Floyd said his reasoning is largely based on the upcoming doctor shortage in the country, which is projected to be severe: With the nations baby boomer docs close to retirement, along with an increased demand for health care, particularly among a growing aging population, the U.S. will face a shortage of about 91,500 doctors by 2020, according to estimates from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

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PNWU president welcomes possible medical school at WSU Spokane

Kennedy: Lafayette ideal location for medical school

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Louisiana needs another medical school. Lafayette would be an ideal location.

Our state has a doctor shortage. One-third of our people live in a federally-designated primary care shortage area. More than 2 million Louisianians lack the access to specialist physicians enjoyed by people who live in wealthier states.

Louisianas physician shortage is probably going to get worse. More of our doctors (28 percent) are 60 or older than are under 40 (19 percent). Our three medical schools LSU New Orleans, LSU Shreveport and Tulane graduate about 450 doctors a year, but not all of them stay in Louisiana. In 2012, 108 out of 171 graduates of LSU Medical School in New Orleans remained in Louisiana; for Tulanes Class of 2012, it was 35 out of 177.

Like the rest of America, our population is aging. By 2030, 20 percent of all Louisianians will be 65 or older, and most of them will need a doctor. The federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which will insure many previously uninsured Americans, will push demand even higher. No wonder the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts our country will need 63,000 more physicians by 2015 (140,000 by 2025) than we are likely to have to serve Americas medical needs.

Other states are addressing their physician shortages. Twenty-nine new medical schools have opened in the last 20 years, including a major expansion in 2013 of the University of Mississippi College of Medicine. Louisiana still has time to catch up, but only if we act immediately by establishing a fourth medical school in our state.

Our politicians can fight over the turf later, but an appropriate location for that new medical school is Lafayette. Metropolitan Lafayette is one of the fastest-growing regions of our state, with a thriving, diversified economy, superb quality of life and an accomplished community of health care providers.

Lafayette General Medical Center, which is now a teaching hospital after taking over the states Charity Hospital in Lafayette (the University Medical Center. now known as the University Hospital and Clinics), is the largest full-service, acute care medical center in Acadiana. Lafayette General could easily and efficiently support the new medical school, perhaps in conjunction with the new Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, the Regional Medical Center of Acadiana and Womens and Children Hospital.

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There will, of course, be hurdles. For one thing, money is tight. The new medical school at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, which opened in 2013, cost $100 million. I believe Louisiana could do it cheaper. Louisiana could save money on its new medical schools physical plant needs by using some of the existing infrastructure in our Charity Hospital system. Besides, once our new medical school is operational, a class of 100 students would generate $8.4 million a year in tuition for all classes in the four-year program.

A second hurdle will be obtaining new medical residencies. A medical school graduate cannot practice medicine in the U.S. until he or she has received on-the-job training as a resident under the supervision of a senior, fully licensed physician for three to five years, depending on the branch of medicine the resident chooses. There is a looming shortage of medical residencies. By 2020 the number of U.S. medical school graduates will exceed the number of residencies.

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Kennedy: Lafayette ideal location for medical school