What happens when you manipulate the measles vaccine into a retrovirus, then apply it to cancer patients in a clinical trial? In Legend, you cure cancer. At first. Then, the patients begin to get sick. Most of them bleed out, but those who don't become hairless, transparent, vampire-like mutants who are allergic to sunlight and crave blood. They spread the disease by biting others. When the virus mutates and goes airborne, it spreads rapidly, killing everyone on Earth except for those who are immune -- and slowly, even they are picked off by the vampires, until only one man is left.

Though the film's press release claims "the possibility of a retrovirus spreading out of control is no longer just the fodder for science fiction stories," Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, one of the world's top virologists and director of the Laboratory for Immunopathogenesis and Infectious Diseases at Columbia University Medical Center, says the scenario presented in the movie doesn't seem plausible at all. "It sounds pretty far-fetched," he says. "Viruses don't mutate and become airborne. They typically fall into a couple of different categories -- respiratory, STDs and vector-borne like insects, ticks and mosquitoes. They don't change from tick-borne to pneumonic. They just don't do that."

Equally bizarre, Lipkin says, is Neville's immunity. "There are people who are resistant to retroviruses because they have mutations in receptors, but that's a mutation that people have from the get-go," he explains. "If someone had been exposed to a related virus and was immune to it, then they would carry that immunity, and that would be something that would occur over the course of their lifespan. But how this guy would have come into contact with such a virus is unclear, and certainly wouldn't be explained in that way."

The likelihood of Neville finding a cure from his own blood is slim, too, according to Lipkin. "The notion that by taking a little bit of his blood, he's going to somehow affect this mutation of the people, doesn't make any sense," he says. "There are some antibodies that might be protective, but they're not going to last forever. And he has to become infected with this in order to develop those antibodies."

And what about the Infected? "As far as this thing turning people into vampires, and making them look a specific way," Lipkin says, "that's quite bizarre. This is Hollywood. That's all I can say."

First published

on December 14, 2007

at the Popular Mechanics website.

Written by Erin McCarthy.

Posted by Vladimir Fri, 12/21/2007 - 19:45

 

Chapter 11

The music of Reginald Clarke's intonation captivated every ear. Voluptuously, in measured cadence, it rose and fell; now full and strong like the sound of an organ, now soft and clear like the tinkling of bells. His voice detracted by its very tunefulness from what he said. The powerful spell charmed even Ernest's accustomed ear.

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The End

The sky is so deep, so dark

The light of the stars is so damn stark

When I look into the heavens, I fill with fear

If all we have, is what lies hear

in this lonely world, this troubled place

With cold dead stars and empty space

I see no reason to persevere

No reason to laugh nor to weep

None to sleep or ever to wake

No promises to keep or none to make

And so at night, I still look upon the heavens

To study the clear, but mysterious skies

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Dracula

Countless killers during the 20th century have been inspired by the predatory and seductive manner of the most famous vampire in fiction and film, Count Dracula. Published in 1897 in England, the novel Dracula has never been out of print. According to vampire scholar Martin V. Riccardo, of the approximately 300 vampire movies made since Bela Lugosi played the bloodsucker on the silver screen in 1931, a third have been about the character of Dracula.

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Kristy Swanson beats up non-vampire

June 18, 2007 (dose.ca / Kat Angus) -- It's been 15 years since she starred in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Kristy Swanson is still kicking some ass. People reports that Swanson, 37, was arrested Saturday night (June 16) for allegedly assaulting Marcia O'Brien, the ex-wife of Swanson's boyfriend, figure skater Lloyd Eisler.

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The Kiss of Death

The nefarious activities of Bela Kiss started with his wife's infidelity. In Czinkota, Hungary, Bela Kiss married a pretty woman 15 years his junior. She took up with a neighbor, and in 1912 they both disappeared. Kiss said that she'd run away.

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