Comments on: Fringe — Episode 9 (Season 2): “Snakehead”

By: Skippy

Skippy — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:53:08 +0000

The hell with the rest of the science, any of you dorks cared to notice that there would never be a ship to sail from hong kong to Boston.

By: EL

EL — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:22:23 +0000

@ Karl — yes, I know that you made this point on your website, but I’m answering it here. It IS quite dangerous to have to inoculate or take fluids from a twisting, moving animal. Nonetheless, veterinarians still have to do this quite often. In the two years that I was in small animal practice (not more than 2 years ago), I was expected by the practice owners and the techs who were supposed to help me, to walk into a room by myself, hold a dog or cat’s head by myself and take blood (no problem?!!). The owners could try to help, but generally made things worse. If you are treating cows or sheep, it is worse. And it is lots of fun to get blood from snakes, fish or birds without hurting them. They certainly do not stop moving because you ask nicely!

Regarding the end of the worm: Despite swimming so that the many tentacled end was last, the worm fed off of Walter via the many tentacled end. That makes the many tentacled end by definition, the head. The worm is obviously swimming backwards.

By: Marotti

Marotti — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:52:01 +0000

@Maria:
I was going to say the same thing. It swam in the tank so that the many tentacled area was at the end…

I’d also like to ask that if you were going to buy worms from shops possibly owned by the triad, wouldn’t it of been smarter to send FBI agents to do this instead of the researcher? Field agents should… you know… do field work!

By: The non-science of Fringe: Snakehead « weak interactions

The non-science of Fringe: Snakehead « weak interactions — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:07:05 +0000

[...] episode is debunked at Popular Mechanics and Polite Dissent, and you can read more about it at Fox, IMDb and the A.V. [...]

By: Karl Withakay

Karl Withakay — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:33:24 +0000

@snell
I thought of that. My plot coonvenience theater explanation is that the worms must have a very short lived larval form of only a couple days, and they would die before reaching the US if not implanted in hosts.

By: snell

snell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:26:32 +0000

Wasn’t the plot to smuggle the worms in a little over-complicated? You’re already working with the Triad, who can smuggle drugs in–why not just smuggle the “pills” with the larvae in, and grow them here (most of the Chinese smuggled in would be virtual slaves of the Triad once they got here anyway)? Why infect people on a ship that might be late, or sink, resulting in the creatures emergences before they reached their destination? That was the only reason these guys got caught!!

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:15:53 +0000

Regarding the many-tentacled end of the worm:
If you watch the worm swim in Walter’s tank, it makes it look like the many-tentacled end is the tail end.

By: Karl Withakay

Karl Withakay — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:25:46 +0000

@Sean,
I’m sure that is exactly why they selected hook worms; from a complete misunderstanding of Helminthic therapy. I covered it a little more in my blog entry that Scott linked to at the end of the article. -(Karl has much more to say.)

It’s a case of bad circular logic. (Is there really any other kind of circular logic)

They used hook worms because the worms are used to treat certain immune related disorders, but the worms have essentially the reverse effect from the immune boosting functionality they are looking for, so there’s no reason to use genetically modified hook worms engineered with lymphatic systems since the worms have no inherently relevant or useful starting features or functions.

By: Sean Duggan

Sean Duggan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:25:54 +0000

Huh… I wonder if the reason they picked hookworms was also because of their supposed role in preventing allergies and asthma attacks. Which, ironically, seems to be due to them actually damping down certain immune system reactions.

By: Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 9, Season 2, Snakehead « Cordial Deconstruction

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:30:20 +0000

[...] comments Polite Dissent … on Deconstruction Review of Fring…Scientific Support f… on Zicam Increases Risk of [...]