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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.

7 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. 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 TheSpoom · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Eh.

      Fun does not necessarily mean "relegated to idle".

      I like my Slashdot to be varied.

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      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
  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. 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?

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      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
  4. Re:Experiment by popmaker · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

  5. 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.