Honey I Shrunk The Kids
2018

The State Theatre Modesto, CA

with

Matthias Frank

Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

and

Megan Shelby

Biophysical chemist, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids— Biomolecular action movies: Flash imaging with x-ray lasers

Marvelous Machines: Proteins are nature’s machines, performing tasks throughout the body. Using ultra-bright, ultrafast X-ray pulses allows the measurement of proteins in action through the use of “molecular movies.”

The State Theatre Modesto, CA

Film Synopsis

An absent-minded inventor leaves his latest creation, a shrinking ray, unattended. After his children find it, the newly tiny youngsters are tossed out with the trash and must navigate the long journey across the lawn to make it home.

When kids sneak into inventor Wayne Szalinski's (Rick Moranis) upstairs lab to retrieve an errant baseball, his experimental shrink ray miniaturizes them. When Szalinski returns home, he destroys the device— which he thinks is a failure—and dumps it in the trash, throwing out the kids along with it. The four children, now 1/4-inch tall, must survive the journey back to the house through a yard where sprinklers bring treacherous storms and garden-variety ants stampede like elephants.

Image courtesy of PHOTOFEST