ARIBIDOPSIS

James Cameron's sci-fi classic Avatar was a long-waited one for movie fans and for me. The first time I watched it was a sophomore of Biochemistry major. On a personal note, this is one of the few movies I watched several times with my dad on TV. Not exactly from the beginning to end  every time, but from a various starting point to the end. Fast forwarded a decade or slightly more than that, I became a plant biologist in the meantime and re-watching the movie brings completely different perspective.  Pandorian Botany The plot starts with the human race to obtain the mineral Unobtanium , which is available in the Pandora . Humans are inclined to have this mineral to solve the energy crisis of earth. But, the native Navi is the obstacle on their way. To conquer the Pandora and their mineral, humans made a base camp to observe them and even created a hybrid combining human and Navi's DNA.  Jake and Neytiri in the Pandorian forest. Movie: Avatar That's the plot. But, watching

This weekend I went to the theater with friends to watch "Black Panther". Most of the times, I fall in sleep in the halfway of the movie. Fortunately, I didn't at this time. Apart from that, this movie implanted few questions in the viewer's mind. One issue is definitely about the "heart-shaped herb".  Mythology and Technology of Wakanda The story of the movie went way back to the history of Wakanda and the futuristic technological advancement of the tribe. There is a subtle link between their past and future. Their groundbreaking future technologies are based on Vibranium. In the past, the place was crashed by a huge meteorite containing Vibranium. It caused massive radiation, stayed in their environment till today and undoubtedly changed the ecology of Wakanda. It shaped the plant life in that region. The radiation-caused mutation gave rise to a diverse plant kingdom, which is rare in the other part of the world. The heart-shaped herb was o