Science!

Shout that post title using your best stentorian Thomas Dolby-era bark, won't you? Then cast your eyes on New Scientist's post-Iron Man celebration of cinema that gets science right. [via]

As you might imagine, some of the usual suspects are listed. [Why, yes, we are looking at you, Gattaca.] But the cinetrix particularly liked the rationale behind the inclusion of Alien:

... It makes the list, though, for the vicious creature the crew encounters, in particular for the finer details of its life cycle.

The alien goes through three stages over the course of the film. It begins as an egg, which produces a kind of head-sized spider, equipped with a strong tail and a vaguely reptilian appearance. This attaches itself to the nearest living body and, while clamped over the face, implants an embryo into its victim's stomach. It then falls off and dies. The embryo survives by feeding on the victim's digested food. Eventually it breaks out (in the least pleasant way possible) and runs amok on the ship.

Every element of the life cycle can be found in nature, variously in parasites, robber wasps and social insects.

Well, when you put it like that....