This week has seen a few interesting science fiction items in the news.

In the first instance, the astronomer for the Pope went on record stating that if alien life exists he would gladly baptize it “no matter how many tentacles it has.” See an example of this brief news item here.

In the second science fiction item in the news, alarm was expressed concerning a genetically engineered form of Atlantic salmon that grows twice as fast as those not tinkered with by geneticists. The Food and Drug Administration will weigh in on whether to approve this type of fish for human consumption.

The interesting facet of this news item is the label applied to the animal by many news stories which referred to it as “Frankenfish.” In her book Frankenstein: A Cultural History (W. W. Norton, 2007), Susan Tyler Hitchcock discusses how the Frankenstein myth has pervaded our culture, so much so that the idea of “Frankenfoods” is now a common label in discussions over genetically engineered foods. In a previous interview with Hitchcock at TheoFantastique:

TheoFantastique: In chapter 10 you discuss scientific developments in genetics and how the novel has been attached to debates on this topic so much so that people have expressed fears about “Frankenfoods.” You write that, “Scientists live and operate within a larger world of culture, and the myths that shape that world exert an influence on their beliefs, fears, and aspirations.” How does the Frankenstein myth serve as positively as a mythic foil in contemporary debates like those over genetics and cloning?

Susan Tyler Hitchcock: By the time we were seriously discussing the issues of genetic engineering and cloning in the public forum, Frankenstein had lost its ambiguities and was received by most as having a unified message: Don’t mess with Mother Nature; don’t play God; don’t dare to overstep the limits of knowledge established by the status quo. My belief is that that is not what Mary Shelley originally had in mind when she wrote the novel, but it is what we have made of her story. So Frankenstein has become a code word for the idea that any effort to create life is going to make a monster that will haunt and ultimately destroy us. It’s an easy way to express the conservative argument against scientific experimentation in realms that are new and unknown, particularly those having to do with the manipulation or creation of life-forms.