Can a man really shrink to the size of an ant? Would his lungs still be able to ingest air molecules? Would he remain as smart? The premiere episode of season two of SCIENCE GOES TO THE MOVIES discussed the 2015 Marvel Studios film ANT-MAN, which stars Paul Rudd. The series is co-hosted by neuroscientist Heather Berlin and journalist Faith Salie. In this episode they were joined by Nadrian C. Seeman who invented the field of DNA nanotechnology in the 1980s and is currently a chemistry professor at NYU, and Ruojie Sha, a post-doctorate senior research scientist at NYU. Nanotechnology starts with small structures and builds from the ground up, versus the fictional shrink-ray technology, which starts with big structures.

The full episode, which discusses the viability of shrink-ray technology, is available to stream below:

SCIENCE GOES TO THE MOVIES is a monthly broadcast on CUNY TV, which covers science in movies and television shows. Recent episodes have included one on zombies in film, also covered on Science & Film. SCIENCE GOES TO THE MOVIES is made possible by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.