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Scientists Get Their Groove On On YouTube

Posted by kdawson on from the getting-down dept.

merg717 writes "Six weeks ago, the Gonzo Scientist challenged researchers around the world to interpret their Ph.D. research in dance form, film the dance, and share it with the world on YouTube (Science, 10 October, p. 186). By the 11 p.m. deadline this past Sunday, 36 dances — including solo ballet and circus spectacle — had been submitted online." The vitamin D dance is particularly strange.

77 comments

  1. Brings About a Smile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    Beautiful.

    Makes me want to go down to the capital with a sign saying:

    Less Invasions, More Equations

    1. Re:Brings About a Smile by impaledsunset · · Score: 1

      It's great someone actually did this. I've seen that idea at MENSA Entrance Test on Uncyclopedia, with the challange there juuuust a bit more difficult, and I loved it.

    2. Re:Brings About a Smile by EddyPearson · · Score: 1

      /.'d

      --
      You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
    3. Re:Brings About a Smile by TeXMaster · · Score: 1

      Only because you're not the one being invaded, nor the one actually doing it.

      --
      "I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
    4. Re:Brings About a Smile by monxrtr · · Score: 1

      Will you by definition settle for an equivocation?

      Ah, hah, hah, excuse me, numbers and words slaughtered upon the road, more bloody traveled by.

      Tick + 1, Tock +2.

      --
      "From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
  2. Experiment by pubjames · · Score: 1, Funny

    What the researchers didn't know was that this was an experiment in itself. The question the experiment aimed to answer was "Do researchers have too much free time, and do they waste time which is paid for using taxpayers money?"

    The full paper will be published in Scientific America once it has completed peer review.

    1. Re:Experiment by Zanth_ · · Score: 1

      Except they did it on their own personal free time, outside of work hours, thereby mooting your point. Had they been Federal government researchers, your point would stand!

    2. Re:Experiment by H0p313ss · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The full paper will be published in Scientific America once it has completed peer review.

      You've never actually read Scientific American have you?

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    3. Re:Experiment by popmaker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You know you don't automatically lose those qualities by becoming a PHD?

    4. Re:Experiment by pubjames · · Score: 1

      It was a joke.

    5. Re:Experiment by NotNormallyNormal · · Score: 3, Funny

      If it is going to be peer reviewed, I doubt they'd publish it in Scientific America... Though a quick review for spelling mistakes could get it published there...

    6. Re:Experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How modest of you to tell us how you were too smart to do a PhD. I was too smart not to do a PhD and now I spend all my time in endless self-promotion. Academia is show business for really really ugly people.

    7. Re:Experiment by chissg · · Score: 1

      What, pray, leads you to believe that this was done, "on the clock?" Having been a researcher myself (I "earned" my education while mooching off several governments, actually) I can tell you that far more work gets done off the clock than on. If everyone who researched using the hallowed taxpayer dollars only did 8x5, you'd soon learn how much real research those would buy without the dedication, love for the subject and general workaholism so necessary for academic research.</troll-feed>

    8. Re:Experiment by philspear · · Score: 1

      Do researchers have too much free time, and do they waste time which is paid for using taxpayers money?"

      Do the president and congress count as researchers? Oooh, burn!

    9. Re:Experiment by retchdog · · Score: 1

      Maybe, but at the very least you have to spend very long hours tolerating or even "collaborating with" arrogant jerks, many of whom are not more intelligent than you, but more attuned to the pandering and self-promotion game.

      Don't tell me that the "real world" is the same; I've been there too. Over all the atmosphere was much more tolerant; my co-workers were much more honest; and we nonetheless still got work done. I agree with William Buckley on one thing: "Academia is so cutthroat because the stakes are so small."

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    10. Re:Experiment by FireFlie · · Score: 1

      Maybe, but at the very least you have to spend very long hours tolerating or even "collaborating with" arrogant jerks, many of whom are not more intelligent than you, but more attuned to the pandering and self-promotion game."

      I would say you were probably at the wrong institution, or at the very least looking into working with the wrong people. I enjoy working with my advisor, and find that she is quite good at what she does.

  3. Idle by Clay+Pigeon+-TPF-VS- · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is an idle story filed under science?

    --
    Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
    1. Re:Idle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because kdawson "edited" it.

    2. Re:Idle by Daimanta · · Score: 1

      Contamination. This way if Idle is a failure, they can still spam all the other sections with Idle crap. Everbody loses that way but /. doesn't care.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    3. Re:Idle by TheSpoom · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Eh.

      Fun does not necessarily mean "relegated to idle".

      I like my Slashdot to be varied.

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
    4. Re:Idle by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      More to the point, why can't I block kdawson stories from the front page since I agreed to test the new index2.pl? Or revert back to the original, where I could.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    5. Re:Idle by MrMista_B · · Score: 1

      Because most people block and ignore Idle, and not Science.

      Seriously, Idle is like a virus or something, and it's infecting the rest of /. somehow. If we're going to have such a spam section on here to begin with, let's use it and keep stuff like this where it belongs.

    6. Re:Idle by MrMista_B · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but when was Idle ever fun?

    7. Re:Idle by sveard · · Score: 1

      and when was fun ever objective?

    8. Re:Idle by danieltdp · · Score: 3, Funny

      I, for one, welcome our new dancing scientists overlords

      --
      -- dnl
  4. wtf. by apodyopsis · · Score: 1

    well, part of me thinks its a bit of fun (like the IgNobels), it raises the awareness of their research and - quite frankly - anything that makes Engineering and Science look like a more attractive offering is fine by me as we need to increase the headcount.

    but...

    the other part of me thinks. what. the. fuck? these people fought hard for their funding and are doing dance?

    1. Re:wtf. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About half of them are cute, smart asian girls who are dancing. And one cute, smart latina. Just stop complaining, maybe they'll do it more.

    2. Re:wtf. by proselyte_heretic · · Score: 1

      If you just finished a massive research paper, wouldn't you want to dance?

      I think that these are happy people eager to show their hard work to others.

    3. Re:wtf. by WamBam · · Score: 1

      Thesis work can be a long, grueling experience. I'm sure that rather then make science seem more attractive - who is really going to moved by a dance about cell processes? - these dances were intended to give these very hard workers a break from the routine and also think about their research in a different way. Scientists need to think outside the 'box' as much as they need to have fun. It's not as if they're actually going to submit their dances instead of publishing their work. Very well done, I say.

    4. Re:wtf. by popmaker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe they just wanted to have fun, and didn't think anything more of it. Just a little bit of "hey, let's behave like molecules, it'll be pretty funny".

      I doubt any one of them HAD to do it. And I doubt any one of them was trying to advance their career. Did I miss out on any detail in the article? I honestly think they don't care one way or the other. And I honestly think they got a kick out of it.

    5. Re:wtf. by monxrtr · · Score: 1

      Kirk: "Bones! Is that you? Say again! ... I'm going down."

      Bones: Repeat. Obviously, they're just not filtering enough diversity through the elements."

      --
      "From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
  5. what's that smell by XXL_Jones · · Score: 1

    Pilobolus Dance Company - must have been a steaming performance.

  6. Break down the stereotypes! by bossanovalithium · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I find it interesting that science based Phd students are able to be this creative - they are dealing with very intangible things, and correlating them to a form of communication that they are traditionally not known to be able to identify with. I am not sure sure how I would equate dance to my line of work, so more power to them!

    1. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by earlymon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I find it interesting that science based Phd students are able to be this creative - they are dealing with very intangible things, and correlating them to a form of communication that they are traditionally not known to be able to identify with.

      Not known by whom? You? The popular media?

      I'm a graybeard (literally) sick of this stereotype.

      FYI - Dweebs exist in EVERY discipline - and they are better suited as the outlyers, not the norm, for their disciplines. /. is rife with science and engineering types - but just look at the post counts for any topic dealing with: music, DRM, films and YRO. That is more than merely anecdotal, it speaks clearly to the developed mind being whole, ready to embrace all that life offers.

      I've worked in science and engineering most of my life. Creativity is not the exception - it is the norm. Introspection is a strict requirement for the creative mind - it is denigrated as introversion. Excitement and a need to express excitement over complex work is denigrated as yet another computer-wearing-tennis-shoes running his mouth without social skills. I say that the non-receptive audience is the grown-up from not-paying-attention-in-school crowd. My wife is a well-known and accomplished artist - as are her friends. Her friends and mine never have trouble getting along, relating, or enjoying fun things - be it art, dance, music - or high tech toys and scientific concepts. The creative mind seeks its own kind, not its own narrow expression of specialization.

      The mind of a scientific researcher lives in a fine balance - on one side, beyond the fringe thinking, the only true way NEW ideas are born - on the other side, strict conservatism, the only way crackpotism is avoided.

      Mathematics is the language of science. Everyone here with a hard science degree knows that each semester there were fewer and fewer students in the theoretical math classes - the language is not accessible to everyone. JS Bach was quite a mathist - and purposely expressed his music as such. From what I know, Miles Davis was not so - but his music contains math anyway. The point of that? Math is the language of science - and science is the outcome of the mind of humankind trying to understand the universe.

      The stars dance. Molecules dance. Quarks dance. Dogs dance. DNA dances. Why shouldn't the very people who work the hardest to understand those dances not dance themselves?

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    2. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by waveformwafflehouse · · Score: 1

      and Physical activity is an excellent way to stimulate persons creativity, not to mention the benefits of increased blood flow to the brain, burning off stress, et cetera.

      Our brains are tied to our bodies; science needs creativity.

    3. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I find it interesting that science based Phd students are able to be this creative

      Oh, I don't know.

      The graduate students I've known over the years have had a large representation of musicians, athletes, and generally some pretty interesting and wacky people.

      By the time you've toughed it out to be working on a PhD you probably have several outside interests you're involved in and are generally a pretty motivated, hard working sort of person.

      Stereotypes aside, at that level if you didn't have some grounding in things outside of your field of study, you'd be a stressed out person with very little to keep you sane.

      I'd be more surprised to hear there wasn't as much creativity at this level. It's not all Monty Python and labwork. :-P

      Cheers

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by s66iw · · Score: 1

      Wish I had mod points - I'd give them all to you, sir.

    5. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by earlymon · · Score: 1

      namaste

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    6. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by philspear · · Score: 1

      find it interesting that science based Phd students are able to be this creative - they are dealing with very intangible things, and correlating them to a form of communication that they are traditionally not known to be able to identify with.

      Creativity is an essential part of being a scientist (in most cases). There are at least 3 places it's essential. You often have to be creative with your methods, coming up with new ways to test your hypotheses, and you usually have to be creative when coming up with hypotheses in the first place. The third need, and probably most related here, is that we do have to talk to people who have very little background in our fields. When describing these highly abstract phenomena to people, it can be helpful to describe it in other ways. You often want to put an image of what's going on in people's heads of what you're dealing with, and most of those times you don't have an animation handy.

    7. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by jc42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I find it interesting that science based Phd students are able to be this creative - they are dealing with very intangible things, and correlating them to a form of communication that they are traditionally not known to be able to identify with.

      In my experience, the association of the "hard" sciences and math with music and dance is well known, and qualifies as a stereotype. Since my college years as a math and CS student, I've been involved in music and dance, both classical and various "folk" varieties. In all of the groups, there has been a very obvious preponderance of techies. I've been involved in many discussions of this phenomenon, where people try to explain it.

      But the explanation is illusive. I think it's because the discussions tend to break down into "The hell with this; let's dance!"

      This association is hardly anything modern. It goes back centuries. Many of the best-known composers have been math geeks. Groups of mathematicians, scientists, and engineers routinely spin off music and dance groups.

      My favorite example is an explanation of why the music recording industry has had so much grief from the advent of the Internet. The explanation suggests that you go find the people who built the original ARPAnet, and then find the much larger gang who expanded it into the Internet in the 1980s. Ask them what instrument(s) they play; they invariably tell you. They are all amateur musicians. And if you ask them why they became network programmers rather than musicians, they'll tell you that they realized at an early age that (for nearly a century now), it has been nearly impossible to make a living as a musician. It used to be possible, but the recording industry took control and claims almost all the money. But there was an alternative: These guys were also talented at math, and realized that computers would be a much better career choice. Then they went into network programming, and from at least the 1980s, they all realized that this was a way of killing the recording industry and returning control of music to its makers.

      So there's a good chance that, if the recording industry had found a way of paying a good income to these geeks, they would have mostly become professional musicians, and there might never have been any Internet. But a musical career wasn't feasible, a computer career was and paid pretty well, so now all those would-be musicians are getting their revenge on a music industry that locked them out of their first career choice.

      It's an interesting explanation, and it depends on the music/dance-math/science connection to be credible. If it's true, I wonder how we might discourage geeks in future decades from becoming musicians and/or dancers. Or will we find that our pool of talented math/science/computer geeks has dried up? (But we'll have a lot more talented musicians and dancers. ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    8. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Miles Davis certainly knew his music theory.
      From thousands and thousands of hours of scales, arpeggios, classical theory study etc.

      I would compare him to Picasso. Many people look at Picasso's later work and forget his earlier studies. He was a master draftsman, and capable of almost photo-realistic painting.

      With Miles Davis, people listen to the end result, where he is breaking the rules and playing with the conventions, and forget that he could play a totally straight be-bop sticking to the modes. Or indeed most any other style.

    9. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by davolfman · · Score: 1

      Who says they aren't just bullshitting the entire thing.

    10. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by earlymon · · Score: 1

      Roger that, Houston!

      I haven't taken music theory and therefore don't know that much higher math is explicitly taught (my point in using him as an example). But as you point out, the accomplished mind doesn't always reveal itself in obvious ways.

      I am reminded of a lecture by Dick Heyser where in the middle of explaining, he pointed at the equations on his blackboard, and agitatedly said that that wasn't math - it was just squiggles representing the math in his head. (Those unfamiliar with him may be interested in http://www.gold-line.com/heyser07.htm - in addition to work at the JPL and NASA, the audio industry owes much to him, a music lover.)

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    11. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by hobbit · · Score: 1

      /. is rife with science and engineering types - but just look at the post counts for any topic dealing with: music, DRM, films and YRO.

      I do look at them. Most of them boil down to "information wants to be free", and most of them consider this patently obvious and are incredulous that not everyone "gets it". As a PhD student myself, I very much recognise the completely-out-of-touch-with-the-common-man stereotype.

      --
      "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
    12. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by earlymon · · Score: 1

      As a PhD student myself, I very much recognise the completely-out-of-touch-with-the-common-man stereotype.

      Three observations:
      1. Just like you found more birds of a feather going from high school to college (sampling outside a narrow geography), you may find more birds of a feather - meaning "in touch" - where you're out from under your studies (same reason).

      2. Who is this "common man" of which you speak, really?

      3. The "common man" I've seen is buttoned down, inhibited, doesn't dance, doesn't like gays (as if its business who other people sleep with), dresses the way the advertisers tell him to... &c, &c, &c. I know a lot of PhDs that fit that description - but having worked with (way) more than a thousand PhDs in my lifetime, I assure you that over time - meaning, out from under the grind of getting one - they're generally very better rounded than popularly thought. The ones that aren't - that is, never become - well-rounded... I say to you it wasn't their PhD-like mind that made them so - it is that they ARE the common man.

      And to that I say, vive la différence!

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    13. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (...) and correlating them to a form of communication that they are traditionally not known to be able to identify with.(...)

      You know, I'm a dancer - competitional latin dance, pretty advanced. And I'm a theoretical condensed matter physicist (doing my PhD thesis - I hope that counts as pretty advanced too).
      From my purely anecdotal experience there are significantly more "scientific" persons in dancing than other characters. It is probably the largest group followed by the marketing types.

      The reason is that you need some things to be a very successful dancer that highly correlate with science. The ability and desire to absolutely perfect something. A certain disregard for endless, boring, repetitive work in exchange for small moments of greatness. A high pain and stress threshold.

      Of course, as a dance you also need the ability to sell what you are doing (which is where the marketing guys come in). But that can be learned...

    14. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was...beautiful. +6 my friend.

    15. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by dogmatixpsych · · Score: 1

      Bravo. A truly beautiful post on /. Seriously, it was very nice. :)

    16. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      If you think you're an artist, then I know some REAL artists who would laugh at you. I bet you don't know even a single person who lives in a loft. But you just keep telling yourself you're special, OK?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    17. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by earlymon · · Score: 1

      If you think you're an artist, then I know some REAL artists who would laugh at you.

      I think I'm an engineer and that my wife is a rather famous artist.

      I bet you don't know even a single person who lives in a loft.

      Please show this to your REAL artist friends and explain to them why you believe that the structure a person lives in does or does not make them an artist.

      But you just keep telling yourself you're special, OK?

      How about you just keep telling yourself that you're a flaming asshole, with no reading comprehension skills, and a sad and pathetic inferiority complex and leave it at that - OK?

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    18. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Haha, burns, doesn't it? "Famous artist" does not mean scrapbooking, or collecting bottlecaps, or any of that other crap that you people do. How many parties have you been to recently? And I mean real parties, not a hot dog BBQ or hog's feet cookout. It's not the structure that people live in, it's the culture. Artists (real ones) cluster together in order to enjoy each other's company...let's just say that you might feel uncomfortable in such a space. There's nothing wrong with that, either...the world needs quilters too!

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    19. Re:Break down the stereotypes! by hobbit · · Score: 1

      The common man I'm speaking of does indeed fit most of those stereotypes. (Of course I would only ever recognize stereotypes; never perpetuate them ;] I would expect more intelligence of PhD students, so I wouldn't expect them to be as homophobic.) I have met many (hundreds of) PhD students too, and no two are ever exactly alike. Yet insofar as that stereotypes are meaningful, the (even out-from-under-the-grind) antisocial bookworm stereotype is somewhat better fitted by the PhD student than the common man. I do, however, agree that PhD students are generally more creative, and that given a proper audience, they can be as wildly exuberant as anyone. It's just that high school often teaches people with high intelligence to fear audiences :)

      (By the bye, I went into industry for five years before going back to university, and found the sampling to be geographically wider at the latter, though socially narrower).

      --
      "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
  7. Prior Art! by __aagctu1952 · · Score: 2, Informative

    This reminds me of the old Protein Synthesis Dance.

    "All mimsy was mRNA, and Protein chain outgrabe..."

  8. Shouldn't this be in the "idle" section? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't science.slashdot.org this is more idle.slashdot.org

  9. My Dance by DynaSoar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It would have been simply an inter-tribal pow wow dance, but I would have been laughing and yelling "We told you so! For 500 years we told you it was medicinal! Are you going to listen now?"

    Unfortunately I didn't make the deadline. On the other hand, none of those on YouTube had their work on the Big Screen: "Why, they just found that smoking can offset Parkinson's disease." -- 'Thank You For Smoking'

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
  10. The winner is obvious... by HerculesMO · · Score: 1

    He has the hottest girl.

    --
    The price is always right if someone else is paying.
  11. There was only one casualty by popmaker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Luckily for eveyone they didn't mention the poor mathematician who tried to reproduce the Banach-Tarski paradox on stage and disintegrated, while "Just the two of us" was playing in the background.

  12. I'm glad this wasn't around in 2000 by Bemopolis · · Score: 1

    The dance after my PhD odyssey would have been a drunken stumble to the tune of "The Road Goes On Forever". And I would have had to use a walker.

    --
    "I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
  13. ARG! by db32 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Look at what those Liberal Arts bastards are doing to Science! Shoo Shoo! Out of the lab, all of you, stop sniffing those chemicals, put that down! If one more of you even suggests that gravity is just the man keeping us down I will kill each and every one of you!

    --
    The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  14. Um... by drunkennewfiemidget · · Score: 1

    You and I, mr headline writer, obviously have a very different definition of 'groove'.

  15. Must not Look by tsalmark · · Score: 1

    This is one of the few times that not clicking though to the article is probably the best course of action.

  16. Oh... by Deadstick · · Score: 1

    ...the humanity.

    rj

  17. Ritual dance by digitalhermit · · Score: 1

    Having had a couple years of getting my ass kicked in karate and kung fu classes, I've always wondered how some of the more ritualized exercises came to be. There are katas that seem completely bizarre and that would leave oneself open to injury both from the opponent and from the physical contortions required to perform them. But maybe some ancient master realized that the easiest way to remember certain moves was to attach it to a mnemonic.

    It is quite effective to use physical and mental cues to recall a memory. Maybe dance could change the way we approach education. Instead of rote memorization, we could supplement it with physical movements. Imagine learning calculus this way... I could work with a classical ballerina and lie tangent to her curves. Or maybe demonstrate a saddle point with a rodeo-like demonstration. The possibilities are endless...

    1. Re:Ritual dance by popmaker · · Score: 1

      I highly doubt that actually learning dance moves with the subject would improve it, but on the other hand I think people automatically do this when demonstrating something with the use of their hands. Just the other day I was demonstrating a convergent sequence to some of my class mates, and they all started laughing when I got carried away and started "dragging" the sequence along with my hands and pointing at the air. :-p

      I think there even have been some experiments showing that people have better mental ability with their hands unrestrained. I wouldn't go so far as to call it dancing, but it's no doubt related.

    2. Re:Ritual dance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could work with a classical ballerina and lie tangent to her curves.

      There's a mathematician's bad pickup line in there somewhere.

    3. Re:Ritual dance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having had a couple years of getting my ass kicked in karate and kung fu classes, I've always wondered how some of the more ritualized exercises came to be. There are katas that seem completely bizarre and that would leave oneself open to injury both from the opponent and from the physical contortions required to perform them. But maybe some ancient master realized that the easiest way to remember certain moves was to attach it to a mnemonic.

      And with the advent of the MMA, we see just how full of shit the old "masters" were and are.

    4. Re:Ritual dance by S3D · · Score: 1

      But maybe some ancient master realized that the easiest way to remember certain moves was to attach it to a mnemonic.

      Really old Chinese kung-fu forms have songs associated with them. So they probably were mnemonic devices.

  18. I'm Living in a Box, Living in a carboard box by garlicbready · · Score: 1

    Of course the quantum theorists argued they're dancing would have been much better if no-one had been looking at the time

  19. Secret Prize Inside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is prime stuff for an Ignobel Prize.

  20. Science and Dance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Personally, I think that combining science and dance is a bit of a joke.

    Dance is an art that down-to-earth people enjoy, as an expressive form of communication, entertainment, and joy. Dance celebrates life and all that is natural. Everything about dance is positive - there is not a single ill effect that comes from dance.

    Science is a sector mostly devoted to the study of all things unnatural. Scientists want nothing more than to understand and control everything around them. Science exists to put human beings on a pedestal as high as possible above every other living creature on the planet. Science does far more damage than good -- to people, other animals, the entire planet.

    As far as I'm concerned, this could be looked at as nothing more than a marketing ploy to make science appear less damaging and sinister. Dance is good. Science is evil.

  21. A Protein Primer by blivit42 · · Score: 1

    While the vitamin D biosynthesis dance was quite interesting, nothing beats the classic 1971 interpretive dance for protein biosynthesis, "A Protein Primer", narrated by a poem inspired by Jabberwocky and performed to live beatnick music. Truly a classic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dhO0iCLww

  22. The dancing cryptographer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This guy is a famous cryptographer, caught dancing at the 2007 RSA conference:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK5nSFZwA0Y

  23. Nice thing @ being a hermit w/internet access... by WannaBeRSC · · Score: 1

    Vit D dance made my day. LiCata's efforts were commendable as well.