Science and Humour, how can they work together?

I recently published a post about scientific comedy where I introduced you to the comedian Brian Malow and his scientific jokes. Later that week I discovered that there is a scientific journal named The Journal of Irreproducible Results (click on the link if you would like to visit the web site), and as the name suggests it publishes funny scientific articles. Unfortunately one cannot read it without paying and I haven't had access to any issue yet, but I think one finds things like this one figure shows you, and so on..

Nonetheless, the purpose of my post today is to strengthen the idea that there are a lot of funny things about science and  it can be accessible to everyone. However don't go and do a PhD just because you like science and feel fascinated by it, or at least not just because of that :p Do not underestimate. There's obviously a lot of effort behind the discovers of all times so it is never a cup of tea although most of the greatest discoveries were rather by chance when the scientist was focused on something else... 

However and probably because research demands so much time, patience and dedication, there are every time more scientists that feel they cannot take their science too seriously and they engage in humoristic events and  publications. I think it also feels very rewarding that the general public is getting more involved in scientific matters and that brings enthusiasm to researchers and, in turn increases the need to bring more information to the public. Information that is delivered in a non-academic way. 

Another example of humour in science are the Ig Nobel Prizes given every year to brilliant scientists with outstanding discoveries in improbable science! This is organized by another science and humour magazine, the Improbable Research and their motivation is "Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK". Basically it can teach people a lot of serious concepts, making them laugh rather then bore them, and by doing so people are learning real science. It is another great way of bringing academic discoveries to the public. 

I realized 3 or 4 years ago a new subject was being strongly introduced into the fields of research, the so-called " research communication". It is becoming almost mandatory that students are taught about communication and how to deliver their lab discoveries and their academic topics to the general public. The era of the guinea pig scientist locked up in his lab in a basement far from the world and the society is over. Now people demand to know  what is going on, and the scientists have found their own ways of passing on the knowledge and captivating the public.

Personally I think that generally I am a good speaker yet I am very unsure about my skills of communicating my research to the public. I often think about it. I wrote a lot complaining about my PhD my I have never described what I'm doing.. I am putting some effort to that, and I hope I will soon post something on that matter, I promise!

Scientific comedy

Today I had a so so day. I took it a little easier. Experiments worked, so I felt cool throughout the day. Also I had a good night sleep and I guess that helped a lot. My mood was fine :) I did a little bit of procrastination and I found this comedian called Brian Malow, who is a stand up comedian that includes science related jokes in his performances.

After watching the video shown below I understood why I am doing a phd.. and I understood why I did this mistake too. Basically it all has to do with some confusion between loving science AND getting deep into a boring pointless scientific subject that has very little relevance to anything at all. I've always had a very strong interest in scientific matters and in the understanding of the universe, life and the human being, and that was always combined with being a good student and a confident person. I think these reasons together with (potentially bad) advice misguided me into this life, that has nothing to do with my passion and interest!! How frustrating...

Nonetheless I got the jokes and laughed and although I totally did not need to be doing any PhD to do so, I felt fairly happy about it.



This second video is a larger performance that includes some of the jokes told in the previous one and many others. Very interesting was that this was filmed during the WONDERFEST - The bay area festival of Science http://wonderfest.org/ , and this kind of thing, which I name as "science with public interest" motivates me and makes me sorry I cannot attend it this year. However, it gives me hope one day perhaps I will be doing something more human-world-relevant :)

How to enjoy your research?

Or how to enjoy your academic research?
Does anybody know the answer to this question?


Personally I googled it, and unlike the usual google wasn't able to give me an answer!!! This never happened before! However, I am not totally surprised that there are no answers to this question. There are certainly many tips on how to enjoy your job and work and those can be used for academic research but they are common sense tips and motivators that do not simply respond to the question!


I know my today's post topic goes back to the recurrent topic of my life.. my research and my PhD. I feel particularly sad today. After a lot of effort and time spent to get some results, there are things that simply don't work..This is, as one can imagine, very frustrating, when you plan everything, spend hours putting a lot of effort, work after hours and over the weekends and in the end there is no result meaning that all that effort was in vain.. No one cares about negative results, that cannot be published and cannot figure in a PhD thesis, so upon failure one feels that has to catch up with the time "lost" which was the time spent working a lot but resulting in nothing, and the story repeats over and over again. I cannot enjoy this! How to enjoy this?


When I left the lab today I roamed through the corridors got to the lift then went back to the lab again to check on my cells (I am a bit worried with a cell line I bought yesterday, costed almost £600 and I am afraid to death they die before I freeze them). Then I left the lab again and again roamed towards the lifts and, as usual, stared a bit at the scientific posters on the walls.. Some of them aren't good or pretty or promising or interesting but regardless of that I always wonder how much time and effort (and money) was spent to do the research that's presented there..

The fact is I just can't see the light right now, or there's no shine in the dark for me now when it comes to research (or perhaps there should be). One day there is one thing that works just fine sooner followed by a set of frustrations... and that's the vicious cycle of research, I cannot see any amusement there!
Not to mention that (quite obviously actually) , there are people that, possibly under despair, fabricate data and publish fake results in order to move on, get funded and successful, and I don't know, but I guess sometimes it must be really complicated...


I guess I was just not born for this. I am a very hard worker and I usually enjoy working a lot, having results, achieving something, I like getting compliments for my effort and so on and so on.. With research I just feel that I am in a battle with myself everyday, testing how many hours I can work in a row without collapsing in order to compensate for the frustrations. I end up doing several additional less relevant experiments that I know they work fine mixed in between the tricky ones to cope with the disappointment  (its like giving myself a carrot, although I already know that..).. And if in the end I would at least offer something great to the world... but no, I know that my contribution to the universal knowledge is smaller than a sand grain. It is sad but it is just a purely academic dissertation about a very academic topic with inexistent applicability to the humanity..

However, if you know the answer for my question, please tell me, I can't hold it much longer...

Scientific Conferences

After a very long break in my blog writing I decided to come back at least I wanted to post something about conferences. Since I started my PhD (back in March 2008) I have attended now two conferences:
one in October 2009, in Lisbon
another one just two weeks ago in Vienna.

The second reason why I chose this topic was not really to report that but to highlight some aspects about the conferences in general..

Basically there are two aspects about them that intrigue me:
1. the people that go to the meetings!
2. the reason why people go to these meetings!

So obviously among quite a few thousand scientists all over the world, not everyone go to conferences, therefore there seems to be a criteria behind the people that choose to go, and indeed there is:

1. first type: the most common people you find at conferences are the ones that love to socialize and know that at work it does not happen that often therefore they feel the need to meet the other ones that also need to socialize. Then they attend the conferences to meet up people, to drink, gather friends and collaborations (then they have more and more excuses for further travelling). They bullshit a lot (meaning talk about everything with maximum confidence even when they are not saying anything really). I feel that I fit here! Usually in these group you also include people from industry and medical doctors. Not so often there are some supervisors and head of the lab here too.

2. second type: The super shy people that go to conferences because they have been sent by supervisors or bosses or the ones that fight the shyness of leaving the lab just because they are extremely interested in a certain topic that is being discussed at the conference. These people never hang out during the conference, they simply sit apart all the time, avoid talking, and when someone seems to be approaching they quickly manage to move or pretend to be very concentrated reading something. Usually they are not even that noticed and no one cares. They never ask questions, simply take notes, go to bed, come back next day, avoid the socials and in the end go back home, where half of them forget the conference entirely and some will remember the one talk that they thought was supposedly going to safe their life but in the end the speaker changed it or discussed it differently... These are the general frustrated ones, most of them look extremely geek.

3. third type: The super geek ones that stand out. These are usually the bosses/supervisors that think they understand everything that is being discussed, therefore they always ask questions out loud to the audience in the end of the talks. Their clothes and outfits are usually appalling, and the hair is usually forgotten to be cut or combed. However they are quite social among themselves. Do not interact very well with the first type (and obviously not with the second and no one does) but they usually criticize them because of their coolness. These are also the talkers themselves, they think they are the elite as they move the things forward having the best achievements and the best publications (which is many times true). They command and rule the conference. Eventually they show up at the socials but just to talk about science and gather with people just the same. Other type of conversation beyond science will be usually avoided unless it is extremely necessary to start a new collaboration or get some funding to the lab.

And there is no forth type, this is everyone you get at the conference, obviously there will be some mild phenotypes of each type, but you can easily spot these major ones then you go for the one that suits you best ;)

More personally I like going to conferences and I do really encourage everyone to go because it is a very good way to take the things forward (being in type 1 or 3 of course).
We cannot forget that beyond the journal papers and the editors there are people to be pleased and having good relationships with them as well as with other people, having collaborations and everything will make the life a lot easier when trying to get funded or go through the peer review process (as it is likely that the reviewers will be your friends than it is certain that your paper will go through).

Basically do not stuck in your lab forever trying to make the things work out just because you work a lot. Get out there, be social and you will find half of the work done for you ;))

And most importantly you get to travel for free and if your are lucky enough you may find a conference in Hawai :)



Poster session (my poster is the red one), Vienna, Feb 2010

Mathematical Modelling of Transcription Factors in Living Cells

or
How the mathematicians and the engineers meet the biologists

The subject of today involves a bit of my PhD's ideas and the one bit I am trying to work in at the moment (Although not too focused because I am doing the other bits too). I think generally speaking the title of this post sounds already a bit complicated but we are talking about PhD topics and subjects so there is no way to overcome complexity, the simple things are out there for everyone, the complex things are ignored by the most of you and deeply interesting to some of us. That’s not entirely my case though! I mean, I am slightly interested on them, but sometimes I just want to move over this and get a more simple life (I think I read it somewhere some time ago.. by that time I didnt quite understand it but every day that passes it sounds more and more familiar, so I already feel it too... it is unavoidable..) It appears that unless one is mental depressed and compromised he cannot enjoy this sort of life forever at least without questioning it (and I guess that may be part of the geniality of all this).
Ok, but regardless of my feelings I came out with this topic because I think it is interesting the way we can apply maths to explain how life works and on top of that there is not much being done in the area, just 2, maximum 3 groups in the world do something similar to this. Thought this is not my whole PhD, I couldnt just do that, but I will present a nice model (hopefully) and I think it will look pretty nice in my thesis..

Well I said hopefully because (maybe obviously) I still didnt solve the model but just some parcels, which is ok, nevertheless I need to solve the model.

Thats where I regret that my mathematics and physics knowledge is not very extensive so therefore I regret once again I didnt undertake the engineering degree :(
Some are medical frustrated, I am an engineer frustrated I am afraid... lol
On the plus side my boyfriend is an engineer and he is giving me a hand with the model, so thats where the biologist meet the engineers.. and this meeting is more than a meeting I hope, and it is genial ;)

So now I think with this precious help I am on the way to finish it and before I forgot I take the change to already acknowledge Pedro for his help ;) and once I finish this I will, I think, also publish something about it in a very practical and straightforward manner very different than what is in the literature I have been reading where one has to go through very complicated equations and protocols in order to maybe use a few of them applied to this sort of cases, it is not very clear how to do that and so on, basically I think the disciplines used to be too apart and they need to converge into a point, people need to work together!

Just to finish with my topic of today I leave a song that apparently represents me in a way, could be my song, it is one of many.. :)

Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called

Fights and battles have begun
Revenge will surely come
Your hard times are ahead

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called

Fights and battles have begun
Revenge will surely come
Your hard times are ahead

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

Don’t let yourself down
And don’t let yourself go
Your last chance has arrived

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

One year of PhD life and a funny song

I did not have time to write this post yesterday but the 3rd of March deserves some attention and since my blog is somehow based on my PhD experience and life and could not forget this topic.

Indeed, yesterday I completed one year of PhD life. 365 days ago I moved from Portugal, most precisely from Almada to Nottingham to do a PhD in the University of Nottingham, School of Biomedical Sciences. Since then, a lot of things changed, I changed, but most of the things changed for better and I cannot deny I am very happy here and happy with my "job". Of course, as I am always complaining, this is not easy life but it has its rewards! I love science, I am passionate with discoveries and I like to work. Additionally, I have got a very nice life (dont get jealous ;)) ), now with my very nice new home, it is so comfortable and me and Pedro we are making it really nice and beautiful. I have holidays planned, I am going to skiing in two weeks, and I have got the perfect man, I am so happy :)))

Of course nothing is entirely perfect, I miss my parents and family and sometimes I feel really sad I cant hug them or my friends in Portugal, I miss our coffee times, our nights out, our funny moments or even the most serious ones..

But after all it seems that is being worth the effort!!


Not directly related to my sentimental-like post I leave this video below, just for fun and the sake of science showing that it can be funny too ;)



And thanks to Cati, that actually posted this video in the BCM communal blog: Sexy Hotte!

One day in my (scientific) life

Because I havent got much time to write a post today but essentially because I dont have time to think about what to write, like a nice thing, I am passing you a little bit of my day today. Today my day was pretty much spent in meetings (remember my previous post?!).. its just continuing..
Ok my first meeting today was about kinetic modelling, so basically there were me and three other scientists, or three scientists and me since I am the only one who is not (yet?!) a doctor, and we were looking (like donkeys) at a new software we have got. Apparently it does really nice stuff such as solves differential equations and models hypothesised biological systems coupled with mathematical models.. you see, very nice indeed. Its just another software like Madonna, Matlab and octave that I used at the uni but unfortunately found it pretty boring and now I regret I didnt pay enough attention. In the end of the meeting we decide to have another meeting tomorrow... (LOL)
Following this meeting I had another meeting with my student about his project, which is also a tiny bit of my PhD- not too long.
Finally I met with my supervisor about my report, which is now finally finished. WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW :))))))
Since whatever I could write about my project sounds boring I thought that I could leave you with examples of figures we acquire here. My PhD project deeply relies on several microscopy techniques including a lot of cell live imaging and confocal microscopy that accounts on using fluorochromes to label specific molecules within the cell. I found these images beautiful and artistic despite we dont really intervene to create such picture, we just label the molecules what is even more amazing! DEspite they being meaningful for me I think that for a common person they are still worth to see, just like a painting or a poster. There you go.









Ok, and now I am sitting in my office doing the final corrections to my essay and still have a lot to do, to plan and to think of. Remember than to do a PhD is all about how you use the brain..
I dont know what time I am levaing here, but my day will then continue, I might have some shitty food for dinner in a local pub, I cant be bother to cook during the week and then a little bit of leisure, watching something to empty the brain. You know that when you are asked to used your brain every day in a very complex way, and do everything very complex, all this complex research with complex ideas and, seek complex answers... the things you enjoy the most are then the simple ones.. like simple moments, simple games, simple films, simple etc..

AHHHH I love you Google!

AHHHH I think I found the solution for my problems, yeahh Google's the best tool ever who didn't know that?? Doing FRAP experiments? Got lost and stuck, not sure what to do with your data?

Go here http://www.embl.org/cmci/downloads/FRAPmanual.htm

and the here http://www.wavemetrics.com/support/demos.htm

and at last here http://www.embl.org/cmci/downloads/frap_analysis.html

get this K_FRAPcalcV9e.ipf

and go on.. I assume you are smart enough to solve the puzzle from now on ;)
yeahhh

Biochemists versus Geneticists

"In general, assemblies of proteins have been analyzed using two complementary approaches: the biochemical and the genetic. In the well-known analogy to understanding how car runs, biochemists disassemble the engine, transmission and body, characterize all the pieces and attempt to rebuild a working vehicle. Geneticists, by contrast, break single components, turn the key and try to determine what effect the single missing part has on the car’s operation. This implies that genetic methods often require a specific phenotype before they can be carried out." (in Biol Proced Online. 1999 Oct 4;2:1-38).


Found this definition on my readings, quite nice one, I am both of them.

Geek but cool !

Ok, this is not time to write a post in the blog and I tell you I am doing this; its 6.20am, wednesday the 5th, I am still in the office waiting for a bit of a bright dawn to get off here, I am bloody tired, did not yet sleep and have been working the whole night with no stops until right now. In the meantime I chatted with Boavida (a friend of mine with a funny name.. translating "Boavida" means "Good life") whether good or not today his life was better than mine but was nice to have his company for half the night whereas he was following the American elections (Obama is getting there), reporting me the results I was hardly working on my report, before he left he shout me "geeeeeeeeeeeeek", "PhD geeeeeeeeeek" that was at 3.30am, and additionally he added to his nick on MSN "Pips is the most geeeeekest PhD ever" !! Well, I am actually not even a proper geek, therefore not the most ever and whether eventually you want to consider me geek just because I do science, I work on my PhD until morning (see that I have the deadline coming) and I enjoy computer games (but I am now forbidden to play any thing, discipline imposed for the sake of my PhD), I am not and I am cool. Dont believe my friend, although nowadays to be geek is a way to be cool still dont get to be stereotyped with a remotely negative connotation. Ok, my brain is breaking down, I cant go much further with this post, I may just say Good Morning!

The Science of TODAY is NOT the Science of before

I think everyone who is involved with science nowadays and I don’t even say as involved as I am, but anyone who actual likes science or read scientific news on a magazine, someone who is generally interested on what is going on about new discoveries in physics, mathematics, genetics.... new technologies or whatsoever brings up a breakthrough on what is known so far may have thought the same thing:

The Science of TODAY is very different from what it used to be 10 years ago!

(In the past, but past in science is a very short time due to the speed of how things evolve and change and grow and.. ufff is exhausting!)

The reasons:

The most striking one is obvious: There was a lot more done in the past ten years than possibly in the 50 years before! It is just crazy the amount of findings that came out during the last decade! And of course, every time a step goes forward a new question arises or a new need arises taking the topic a lot further and further and then it’s just like a snow ball that goes faster down the mountain as soon as it gets bigger and bigger!

Also obvious is that the topics researched 20 years ago were different than what is going on now and that's always changing very quickly according to what comes out and what becomes needed and required and on the fields of medical research, pharmaceutics and IT it goes particularly more more fast!

Another big reason to explain this entire boost is INVESTMENT! Despite of the big economic crisis that is now spreading all over the world and the small ones that affected the USA and Europe, the principal scientific investors, there was a lot of money invested in science in the past decade. I am not going to tell you numbers but the results talk by themselves and since a lot more has been done it means there was money for that and that also generated more money! For instance, I noticed the amount of charity funded research provided by institutions fighting against cancer and other malignancies.

The chart below explains how science, technology and society talk among each others and the arrows connecting them, thanks to the big development in the IT fields are getting shorter and shorter and everything just happening very very fast.

The issue:
My personal reason why I am writing about this topic is because of my concerns on how do people are actually actively involved in this very fast circuit and how do they feel about it!

With everything moving and evolving very fast it is hard to stay on the front line and for a scientist that is absolutely essential! There makes no sense to research something that has already been unveil and published by someone else! That takes one to read and read and keep himself very up-to-date but that is a lot of time and then where is the time to perform the experiments? That is also a lot of time either! Shall we scientists become human robots and be design to perform science at the same speed it goes and forget about what behind it makes us human beings and not heartless machines?

How can a scientist succeed in THIS kind of life, professionally, having at the same time a family, a kid and a spouse? Most of them will definitely suffer. I just think that to be fairly recognized in this world one needs to work at least 16 hours a day, half of them reading and the other half performing experiments and the remaining 8 hours will be to eat/sleep and of course there will not be days off or holidays!
Personally I don’t feel programmed for that and I can’t cope with this fast, exhausting, pointless style of life, can you?

But then, since I have chosen that science is what I want to do, as my profession not as my whole live, I might not be taking it serious or enough serious and that means I might not get a job and then I might not work at all and then I cant have my private life because I wont be able to support it.. bla bla bla bla.. That is over then!

So, what way to choose? How far is this gonna be? How people are going to face this and cope with it?

Freaky weather, shity food and facebook

What makes England such an attractive place for students all over the world?
That question comes to my mind from time to time, because actually there are loads of students coming to England every year to stay for their degrees either undergraduate or post graduate degrees, also for Erasmus or other sort of exchange programs not yet to mention all those other people who emigrate here to work!

England or shall I say the United Kingdom although Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales seem not to be as attractive as England nonetheless they also get a fairly good amount of foreigners looking forward for a good education and a better work.. for such a phenomena that must be a good explanation of course!
From my experience and since I came to England anyway, my reasons rely on the very high standard research with state-of-art facilities open to everyone permitting top world research specially in my field where a lot of equipment is required to do a proper project with no restrictions, therefore there is a lot of investment in the universities and there is, indeed, a lot of Money!
Secondly, what makes England more attractive than other countries in Europe with as good research conditions as England? The language of course! Doing a PhD is already a lot of work; I personally could not be bother learning another language in the meantime, which would be crucial for my thesis and project. These are my personal reasons and I am pretty sure that whether I would come out with a survey about this everyone would pretty much go for the same reasons as the top ones.
There might be other good reasons to move here but honestly I can’t see any other strong reasons to bring me here for living, not that I wouldn’t come for visiting because the country is nice at some points, but that’s it! Please feel free to express yourself whether you feel you had other reasons to come here ;)

And now let’s face the culture... tcharan: Freaky weather, shity food and facebook are the key words when you are a foreigner. (I could make a song, a poem about this! maybe later)

There is not ever best subject for a conversation that British weather! Portuguese whether is boring, any other weathers... BORING, BUT, British weather is so crapy that there is always a wish to complain about it and because it varies a lot you can have twice or trice many conversations about the weather than in any other country like:
In the morning waiting for the bus: "Oh, its sunny today but its freezing!" and after one or two hours in the morning break for a shity coffee (that’s another issue by the way) "its becoming warmer isn’t it but the sun is gone, its completely overcastted and it seems that will be raining soon" and later on when going for lunch with the colleagues "its so humid, because has been raining for two or three hours and there's no chance we eat outside" in the end of the day when heading for the lift a lab neighbour "the weather today is pretty rubbish it has been changing all over the day", etc, etc.. At least, it is always possible to break the silence and just in a Monthy Python's style "always Look on the Bright Side of Life"!!

Second reason one cannot avoid coming to England is the food (and it also includes the Coffee!). The food it’s just horrible! Sometimes I have to starve because nothing seems eatable! Mostly everything they have is chips (former French fries) and crisps (former chips) and other rubbish like a lot of grease everywhere, a lot of processed food, the cheese is bad, the bread is very bad, the ham is ok but very stupidly expensive, then they are a island but they don’t eat fish (can you get this???), and the fish they eat its fried on batter so again a lot of grease, them they mush peas and eat it with a big half boiled half roasted potato that they call jacket potato, and usually its accompanied by they lovely beans.. baked beans which are, seriously, really bad! And because their food its always bad anyway they end up putting a lot of sauces (and what they call gravy) in everything to hide the real flavour and give it an even more artificial flavour.. then their sandwiches with its inexplicable awful mayos and mustard.. thats just too bad. So traditionally a good lunch here is composed of a packet of crisps with a coke and a triangular sandwich, that in Portugal you only find in the gas stations and that even though are better then these here... The coffee.. its another issue, I cant count how many time I ordered a coffee and had to trough it away immediately because I couldn’t drink it even with 3 or 4 packs of sugar on it.. where are they getting the coffee from???

And now the really tcharan thingy which completes the story here and represents up to 1/3 of the time spent by a normal worker on its normal working day: The Facebook! this is a real phenomena.. moving to England? First question would be: Did you set up your facebook account? Not that you have got accommodation and a job, you might not get a job if you are not on face book! This is a serious issue! What is meant to be a leisure thing becomes more and more an important part of people’s life and its own part of the society by how do they interact on facebook. FAcebook is the tool to know more people therefore to enlarge your network, to be invited to the events to be noticed and to be known! there is no other place in the world where a gadget like facebook has been gone so far, and here its just a fundamental tool!




And now the overview of what I have got in England (from the country):

- Nice university that being part of my CV can give me a very nice job in the future wherever I go.
- All the conditions for my research as far as I am concerned there’s nothing missing!
- The opportunity to improve the English language and to become almost a native speaker, a skill recognized all over the world and that makes me able to communicate with a lot of people.
- Shity depressing weather
- awful food
- a strange society, actually I forgot to mention the alcohol which is a big part of the issues in this country but I will talk about that in another post later.

Any questions why?

Plagiarism or how the proteins are synthesized, shown by a bunch of freaks!

Last time I visited my university ex class blog, that you can access here http://sexyhote.blogspot.com/ (written in Portuguese by the way), and where I took part in the past but never really wrote anything, I found the following video which I found so awesome that I couldn’t resist publishing it in my own blog.

It has so much to do with what I do although at the first sight it just looks like a bunch of freaks swinging and dancing around while an idiot freaky song plays. NO offence but really gets me an idea of a Hippie camping in the 70s where a group of hippies decided to do a colourful choreography!

BUT NO... that’s nothing like that!

It’s impressive but this video is SCIENCE and it is so good that I really believe that mostly everyone understands the protein synthesis after watching this! The video is long but worths the time to watch. Has a 3 minutes introduction where Paul Berg, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1980 explains what’s going on and then, ENJOY!
This amazing educational film was used in schools to teach biochemistry to the kids!





Description of the film:Directed in 1971 by Robert Alan Weiss for the Department of Chemistry of Stanford University and imprinted with the "free love" aura of the period, this short film continues to be shown in biology class today. It has since spawn a series of similar funny attempts at vulgarizing protein synthesis. Narrated by Paul Berg, 1980 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.