In Logan™, our titular hero has lost a step or two. He's grizzled, he's hardened, and at 140 years old he now faces his most formidable challenge yet... Figuring out a smart phone Seriously! This guy fought in World War 1™ You KNOW that every selfie he's taken has his thumb in it and that he's sent Cyclops™ like 3000 notifications from Farmville™ *Dope X-Men™ intro theme* HELLO INTERNET™. welcome to FILM THEORY™ The show that mixes science with superheroes and only gets better with age. You know what else only gets better with age? Wolverine™, apparently. Because Logan™ is GREAT. It wasn't just a good superhero movie It was a good movie that features superheroes You should ABSOLUTELY go see it. Both for that reason, and because this episode is chock full of minor spoilers You've been warned. Enter at your own risk. ALRIGHT, so now let's talk about what really struck me about Logan™. He's older, he's weaker and his healing factor is both slower and less powerful than it's historically been. The explanation that Logan™ gives us in the movie is that his Adamantium™ skeleton is poisoning him. And though I really liked the movie, something about that explanation for his sudden old man-ification didn't just add up for me. I mean, why now? Why wouldn't the all powerful Wolverine™ have seen any side effects from his Adamantium™ skeleton for decades Only to just now find that it's so deadly So I rolled up my sleeves, did some research and, most importantly, asked my partner Stephanie™ who has a background in medical science to explain all the big science-y words to me. And I've come to a conclusion. Simply put, Logan is wrong I mean, yes he's getting older and his body is breaking down, but it's not because of the Adamantium™. And we can prove it Batman derp voice: WITH SCIENCE First it's important to set a few things straight for those of you who aren't rabid MCU afficionados or who just always liked Charles better thought that Logan was just a bit too mainstream I mean, seriously- every X-Men movie just shoehorns him in somehow even though it makes no sense. I'm looking at you X-Men: Apocalypse It's important to distinguish Logan's mutation from Logan's fancy adamantium implants mutants have a lot of superpowers that let morph parts of their body but Logan's genetic mutations only involve some of what you've seen on-screen Genetically, his actual X-Men powers are his feral senses, his ultra-healing ability, and six bone claws that are found in his hands The adamantium that he's so famous for and that's supposedly poisoning him in this movie is just an add-on that he received in a lab back in the 1970s a traumatic event that we see in his backstory in other films That's important to remember because with Logan we're dealing with both natural DNA mutations and man-made modifications that make a heart transplant look like a walk in the park and you can see why he'd think the adamantium is his problem, right? I mean- it would kill most people and he probably went onto WebMD and was like *mimicking Logan's voice* "Adamantium poisoning. Yeah, that's gotta be it, bub. By the way, have you ever been to WebMD and tried to diagnose your own stomach ache or something? No one comes out of there with some simple solution like "Hey, that corndog made me gassy" No, you come out of there diagnosing yourself with parasitic worms AND cancer AND irritable bowel syndrome No? Just me? Is that JUST ME? ...yeah? Fine. And since Logan is so sure he has adamantium poisoning in the movie, he won't even let a doctor diagnose him so let's go ahead and see if that's even plausible scientifically. the short answer is surprisingly 'yes' many studies have shown that in regular human anatomy metal implants can cause big problems for people especially over time as people start to get older Hip implants, cranial plates in peoples heads, even your dental implants become slowly corroded over time even though we don't think of this particular stuff in our bodies as being reactive at a molecular level, our own body's water and oxygen slowly oxidize thesurface of the metal and if you've ever looked at a bike left out in the rain or the statue of liberty you'll know that metal doesn't like water plus oxygen because it leads to stuff like rust now imagine that in your body where those oxidised metal molecules break off and do all sorts of weird stuff like keep your bones from absorbing calcium or mess up the electrical currents in your heart even though modern medicine makes implants as stable as possible, there's metal corrosion across every type of metal -stainless steel, cobalt, even titanium implants so it's definitely possible that adamantium could have the same effects especially in someone who's had implants as long as Logan and has an entire skeleton's worth of the stuff I mean, seriously- he is putting Grandpa's knee replacement to shame So, then it's adamantium poisoning, right? What are we even doing here? Because adamantium poisoning isn't even CLOSE to the whole story! First of all, we would have no explanation for the timing of Logan's decay. Why now after 100+ years? If adamantium had been poisoning him slowly over time, you;d think that you'd have seen something about it somewhere in the movies before this even if there is a gap in the timeline between this one and the last one But I already hear you making a very plausible arguement "No, we wouldn't have seen adamantium poisoning before this because of Logan's healing factor." Logan's healing factor would have covered it up and we would've never known- and you know what? You're totally right. Up to this movie, Logan's healing factor would've been powering full blast to make sure and negative effects of metal poisoning would heal immediately. That's the reason why Logan is the only character to have an adamantium skeleton other test subjects died, but the healing factor kept Logan alive but in this movie, that's no longer happening We see everything hurting Logan, from gunshots, to broken glass, to even the adamantium in his own body But that means it's not the adamantium poisoning that's killing him it's the loss of his healing factor His genetically given superpower is going away and just uncovering all the other problems he's had this whole time and this is where Logan is wrong about what's killing him so Logan's healing power is GONE, but how does a member of the X-Men lose their abilities? It's genetic. It is literally in every single cell of their body Most of them can't even choose to turn it off if they want to, like Rouge and Cyclops Well, if we want to understand why Logan's healing factor is no longer functional, we first need to understand how your own genes can change over time It's easy to think that you have the same genes from the day you were born to the day that you die but that's just a clever ruse our biology teachers have been telling us to get more snack time in teacher's lounge Remove the wool from your eyes, internet! You'll find that as you age, your genes are actually changing all the time Mutations in your genes happen randomly About 1x10^-10 per base pair in real terms, that means your whole genome (all the genes in one cell) has about 0.32 mutations every time your cell divides or About one change for the genome per every three divisions And if that doesn't seem like a lot, consider this- in adults about 50 million cells die each day and all of them need to be replaced and you can imagine for Logan that number is gonna be a whole lot more every time he catches a machine gun's worth of bullets with his face and for how big your genome is, honestly, that number of mistakes ain't too shabby the good news is that most of these mutations are silent They don't seem to have an effect on anything. At least not by themselves. occasionally you get a mutation that does something really cool If your in a marvel movie that gives ya ice breath, Or lazes that shoot out your eyes hence the reason the whole X-MEN universe exists at all, But those kinds of genetic changes even in the X-MEN universe, are really rare the genetic changes that are more common and what's actually happening in logan includes something that's called "cell senescence" ya know when they say that someones going senile it means that there going a little bit crazy when they get old Well senescence is like that for your genies it's the same root word so you can tell HA this is a secret grammar episode to nerdy booyah When you get older your genies start to get a little wacky. And develop a kinda short fuse *BOOM* See every time your cells divide your chromosomes get all bundled up and pulled to their new little cell homes by things called "TELOMERS" The telomers look like little DNA lasso's or strings but they're actually just more DNA attached to the end of the chromosomes if your chromosomes are like bumper cars the telomers are like the bumpers they're big extra chunks of extraneous DNA at ether end of the chromosome that buffer it in case anything bad happens. What if your cell accidentally doesn't copy the whole strand of DNA it's okay it just chopped of a chunk of the telomer and that DNA sequence didn't really matter anyway these buffers also keep two chromosomes from sticking together so that your body doesn't do really weird stuff and ya don't grow that awkward third nipple halfway through puberty you will not live that one down in gym class my friends The only problem though is that telomers is that telomers get shorter and shorter as you get older and older... remember those telomers are taking all the hits for you in there so over time those buffers get used up after a certain number of replications called the 'HAYFLICK LIMIT' And once those babies are gone you start to have real problems now that the bumper car doesn't have anymore bumpers to it, it starts to take damage, Every hit causes a dent, and eventually the chromosomes can no longer replicate at all, That's when you start to see stuff like replication errors bigger genetic mutations that actually start to mess up the way your body functions on a bigger scale this is why even super marathon runners can't live forever Because no one's telomers can stay long an strong for hundreds of years and it turns out the same is true for logan while logan is clearly able to do some astounding stuff like replicate his cell's super fast to heal wound's pop bullets out of his own heart, And literally defy gravity with his hair His healing factor, he's a DNA mutation his X-Men mutation witch means it can only last as long as his DNA stays in tact but what happens when his divide to many times and his telomers get to short to protect that DNA over time those telomers are taking a lot of hits, They brake or they get copied wrong and eventually they're not gonna be able to protect the real DNA that matters, Now every time divides witch lets face it is happening in logan A LOT because of all the healing he has to do any mistakes that get made are getting made to real DNA the DNA that's keeping him alive the very DNA sequence that gives him his healing powers For most people when telomers shorten we start to see things like graying hair and arthrodesis, But for logan DNA damage to the sequence giving him his mutant healing means that he literally can't stop bullets anymore Damage to his X-Men genie is giving him a death sentence all of the sudden fewer and fewer of his cell's have the healing factor he needs to maintain his ability's it doesn't happen all at once witch is why we see his power slowly ramped down instead of stopping all together in the movie, His old functional cell's are being replaced by new one's, new cells with a new mutation a slightly altered DNA sequence that knocks out his super healing abilities it also makes him susceptible to stuff like disease or other things that might be flouting around in his body like for instance 50 years of corroded adamantium that his healing factor is been covering up this whole time So in the end here what's most important is that it's not actually the adamantium that's killing logan He's been dealing with adamantium in his skeleton for literally decades and it never bothered him before He's really dying because his own genies are braking down and his X-Men mutation is being damaged one or two base pairs in that X-Men DNA sequence have been changed mutated so that it's no longer able to save him In short a DNA mutation gave logan his powers, And now a mutation due to old age is taking them away, That means in the end the real thing that's killing logan is irony But hey. that's just a theory A FILM THEORY And... cut but ya know what super powers logan had that didn't go away with age, incredible facial hair i mean old man logan is looking a bit scruffy through out the movie first because he didn't have a razer in that abandon water tower where he kept charles *SPOILER* and then there's the scene at the end were all the kids are cutting his beard using scissors WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Super hero sideburns need the best treatment they need the DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB treatment First you order dollar shave club online and Boom its delivered right to your door even if that door is a abandoned water tower in the desert IT IS SO fast and easy witch is especially impotent when your on the run wolvey and the quality of these razers is top notch They are awesome, seriously it is like the nicest razor i have ever owned, heavy duty and for a fraction of what i pay for the flimsy cheap ones in the store So no more pairs of rusty old scissors there logan its just the smarter choice Fast and with great quality at a great price honestly its why i made the switch, to give my super hero smoothness the treatment that it deserves and you to can give yourself the super hero treatment by following the special link given to only us theorists ya see it on screen RIGHT now its dollarshaveclub.com/filmtheory there's also a link in the description that you can click, For just $1 one dollar an you get your first month and that's any razor ANY RAZOR in their entire line up So pro tip order the executive, like i said it is the single nicest razor i have ever bought myself And its only $1 plus it comes with 4 refiles i use to think that shaving was just one of those daily choirs that you have to do But dollar shave club really makes the difference, it makes it fun to shave and with a heavy duty razor like the executive i truly do feel like a super hero An ya know what you deserve to feel that way to dam it so click the link in the description or go to our special URL dollarshaveclub.com/filmtheory and get your first month for $1 there's no special fee's your not committed to anything, you can cancel anytime you want just try it you'll be glad that you did An hey if you do happen to shave your face wolverine style send me that pic on twitter i would love to use it in a future episode SO ANYWAY that's all i gotta say for today so now if you'll exuise me there's a tale as old as time with my name on it i'll see ya next week *whisper yells* click the link click itttt
Yes, that is correct, adamantium is a ferrous alloy, and so is indeed quite iron-y. That's why Magneto could screw with him.
he fought in earlier wars then WWI, pretty sure he fought the Zulus and in the Chimera.
Wonder what Mary Seacole would have made of him.