The organizers of the Volvox 2017 meeting put together a Volvox trivia quiz, and one of the questions had to do with a 1990 movie in which Volvox had had a cameo appearance. I was stumped. I knew Europa Report was much more recent. I probably didn’t know what Volvox was in 1990, and I don’t think I had seen the movie in question, which turned out to be The Two Jakes, a sequel to 1974’s Chinatown. 

Because that’s how dedicated I am, I rented and watched both videos and screen captured the clip in question. Sorry there’s no sound. [somewhat important spoiler below the fold]

This is the scene where Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) learns that Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel) has terminal syphilis. Volvox looks nothing like the syphilis bacterium, Triponema pallidum, so I think this was a case of ‘get me some cool looking microbes’ (sort of like Exxon’s ad team).

Electron micrograph of Triponema pallidum. Photo credit:Content providers(s): CDC / Dr. David Cox – This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #1977. Originally from en.wikipedia.org; description page is/was here., Public Domain, Link