Mad about Science: Dune

By Molly Madrid
Reader Staff

Everyone is familiar with the saying: “Fact is stranger than fiction.” Perhaps, instead, we should focus on how strange writers of fiction tend to be. 

Frank Herbert was an iconic science fiction author who still holds a huge place in the hearts of millions of readers. But did you know that his inspiration for the sacred spice in his masterpiece Dune was based on psychoactive mushrooms? 

Yep, he was tripping on real-life melange. 

Whether that can allow someone to transcend space and time is debatable. Was Herbert just a crazy old hippie, or did he incorporate real scientific knowledge into his universe? Let’s look into his world with the curiosity one might imagine seeing through the otherworldly blue-within-blue eyes of a Fremen.

We’ll begin by inspecting the great and powerful sandworms that hold such a central place in the Dune mythos. Despite these creatures being colossal, they share characteristics similar to those of minuscule organisms here on Earth called nematodes.

The sandworms in the Dune-verse are described to reach approximately 400 meters in length, or about the length of four football fields. Nematodes, however, typically range from being microscopic to nearly 10 meters in length. Both sandworms and some nematodes exude chemical compounds that can have potent effects on themselves, their environment and other organisms to which they’re exposed. The fascinating part is that these chemicals increase their lifespan and can offer health benefits to other nearby creatures.

Another iconic aspect of Dune is the strange outfits worn and manufactured by the desert people of Arrakis. These outfits are called stillsuits because they distill the body’s water. The Fremen could not survive the harsh climate of their planet without these suits, much like astronauts can’t survive the vacuum of space without their space suits. 

The comparison might sound silly, but you’d be surprised by the parallels between these two garments. As it turns out, some space suits have a filtration system that can recycle urine into drinking water. What’s more, space scientists were inspired to create those upgrades directly from Dune. 

Akin to his contemporaries, Herbert was way ahead of his time and even further ahead of the scientific research of 1965.

Astronauts also wear a cooling under-suit featuring inter-woven tubes that circulate water throughout the body, similar to a stillsuit. The nose piece attached to the fictional stillsuit is for absorbing any additional moisture from respiration, rather than acting as a form of respiratory filtration. Who knows, maybe that will be a new addition to space suits when we send crewed missions to other planets?

Now, let’s get into Holtzman shields. Holtzman shields are wearable force fields that protect warriors in battle from fast-moving projectiles. However, they aren’t immune to penetration by slow-moving and sharp objects, such as knives and swords. Herbert created a fictional scientific phenomenon called “The Holtzman Effect” to add a sense of realism to the invention of these shields. This effect is not fully explained, but is essentially described as the “negative repelling reaction of a shield generator.” 

Modern bulletproof vests operate on a similar principle to Holtzman shields, because they can also protect the individual wearer from fast-moving projectiles by dispersing energy across multiple ceramic fragments that splinter inside of the vest, effectively subdividing the impact force across multiple surfaces. 

Perhaps “The Holtzman Effect” is still waiting to be discovered.

And we can’t talk about the sci-fi epic Dune without addressing Herbert’s primary influence, which hits pretty close to home for us Pacific Northwesterners. Herbert witnessed “terraforming” taking place near Florence, Ore., after sand dunes from the Coast Mountains threatened to cover up a whole lot of civilization. Loose sediment was broken down by the erosive forces of wind and water over time and carried downhill into new biomes. To remedy this, ecologists conjured a plan to “terraform” the landscape. This was accomplished by planting trees, bushes and beachgrass directly into the sandy plains, and the latticed roots of these plants acted as a form of subterranean netting to halt the effects of erosion. 

Herbert had the opportunity to speak to the ecologists involved and drew on their expertise for his novel on a much grander scale.

The generational project of the Fremen to transform their world of sand into a lush green paradise closely mirrored the techniques used during the terraforming project in Oregon. Dr. Liet Kynes, the ecologist in Dune, states: “The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.”

Nature is an elaborate and interconnected system, and all systems operate through cause and effect. When humanity learns to steer nature, we can gain control of specific outcomes to a certain degree. We must understand the consequences of our actions as a whole in order to truly coexist with nature and thrive as a species.

One of the most influential science fiction series may never have seen the light of day without the input of real-life ecologists and their diligent work in preserving the natural world. 

Next time you read a book about distant planets such as Arrakis and strange creatures like the sandworms, allow your mind to open as if it has been altered by spice and choose to contemplate the truth beyond fiction.

Stay curious, 7B.