DUKE PROFESSOR IS USING ‘STAR TREK’ TO TEACH ABOUT SCIENCE

Have you wondered how Captain America survived being in a state of suspended animation, if apes could grow as large as King Kong and why so many of the aliens in “Star Trek” look humanoid?

It’s those kinds of questions that Mohamed Noor, a biology professor at Duke University, is asking by using science fiction to motivate people to learn more about science. Noor has taken his message wider with his recently published book, “Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Evolution, Genetics“There are a lot of science-fiction fans out there,” Noor said in an interview. “A lot of these science-fiction fans are interested in science, but maybe they haven’t been engaged by their standard biology classes or even by nature shows and things like that.