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"Dance Your Ph.D." Winner Announced

Posted by samzenpus on from the twinkle-toes dept.

sciencehabit writes "Science Magazine has crowned the winner of its annual 'Dance Your Ph.D.' contest. Scientists from around the globe are invited to submit videos of themselves interpreting their graduate theses in dance form. The results are often hilarious--and highly entertaining--and this year is no exception. This year's winner is Peter Liddicoat, a materials scientist at the University of Sydney in Australia, whose 'Evolution of nanostructural architecture in 7000 series aluminum alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation' is interpreted as a performance that employs juggling, clowning, and a big dance number—representing the crystal lattices that he studies with atomic microscopy."

31 comments

  1. Interpretive dance by Hatta · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Interpretive dance is never cool. Not even if you science it up.

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    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    1. Re:Interpretive dance by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 2

      I don't know, I thought the Sith had a good knack for it.

  2. No PhD here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "thesises" ??

    1. Re:No PhD here. by Antipater · · Score: 3, Informative

      In English, you don't have to pull out the fancy Latin grammar if you don't want to. How often do people talk about penises, not penes? Or their Facebook statuses, instead of their Facebook status (preferably with a long mark over the u)?

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    2. Re:No PhD here. by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The difference, as with all things in language, is that "theses" is commonly accepted, and "thesises" isn't. We are ostracising the submitter for getting a convention wrong, not violating a rule.

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    3. Re:No PhD here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Although it sure is fun sometimes! I especially like using the 4th dec. nom. plural. in English.

      It is interesting that a Latin geek like myself still would say penises. However, on Greek -is words, I do those correctly. Normally, I am far more pedantic about Latin than Greek. Weird. (However, regardless of usage, the plural of stadium is still stadia)

    4. Re:No PhD here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let's see... googleing "thesises"... first two results:

      Did you mean: theses
      Search Results

              Common English Errors in Master's Thesises
              people.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/english-mistakes.html
              Here are some common mistakes in the use of the English language by Student's writing Master's thesises.

              Urban Dictionary: thesises
              www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thesises
              the act of a person being a homo that sings the robin byrd song and trying to piss a guy off.

      The first one is kind of ironic, and appears to have been corrected on the page. But otherwise, yes, I think indeed he meant theses...

    5. Re:No PhD here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It is interesting that a Latin geek like myself still would say penises. However, on Greek -is words, I do those correctly. Normally, I am far more pedantic about Latin than Greek. Weird.

      I don't think it's that weird, dude. Usually when you are describing the concept of "Penis" in the plural, you use words like "Cocks" or "Dicks." I only use the word penis when I'm talking to my physician to ask him "why does my penis hurts when I pee?" and I only have one. How many times would you say "Damn, look at that bitch suck three Penes at once!!" No. The plural of penis is "Cocks."

  3. Ah, that was what those Zumba johns were up to by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    They were just dancing their Ph.D.s.

    Topic?

    Screwing the Country

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    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  4. White animals can't dance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dance your PH.D huh? Better than the "dog and pony" show I had to give.

  5. Monsters vs. Aliens by jd2112 · · Score: 1

    Am I the only person who immediately thought of the scene in Monsters vs. Aliens where Dr. Cockroach revealed that his Ph.D. WA in Dance? (Yes I have a child, that was her favorite movie for a while.)

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    1. Re:Monsters vs. Aliens by swanzilla · · Score: 2

      Am I the only person who immediately thought of the scene in Monsters vs. Aliens where Dr. Cockroach revealed that his Ph.D. WA in Dance?

      Yes.

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      0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
    2. Re:Monsters vs. Aliens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm glad I'm not alone in the thought.

  6. "thesises" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    FYI, the plural form for thesis is theses.

  7. Solaris Printer Installation by pr0nbot · · Score: 1

    I'm reminded of this classic from a bygone age of the internet:

    http://web.archive.org/web/19961222143340/http://www.europa.com/~dogman/install.html

  8. Plurals of Greek "*is" words by eric31415927 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The proper plural of thesis is theses, with a long e sound in the second syllable.
    Until reading the blurb for this Slashdot article, I have never seen anyone get this wrong.

    Some people mispronounce the plural of basis. It is bases, with a long e sound in the second syllable.

    What really bugs me are people who mispronounce "processes." Its singular form does not end in "is." It is not a Greek word at all. The proper pronunciation of the plural is with a short e sound in the last syllable. Too many people try to sound educated by making the long e sound in this word. Currently, it backfires and they sound less educated. As English evolves, maybe this incorrect pronunciation will win out; but it would still bug me.

  9. Let's recurse... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone majoring in psychology should make a PhD thesis on PhD candidates performing their theses in dance form, and then, perform his thesis in dance form.

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    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:Let's recurse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thou art über-meta.

    2. Re:Let's recurse... by ne0n · · Score: 1

      Somebody already did a meta-study of these theses; here's a video of Willowtalk reading the results at maximum speed to a crowd of planking Aussies covered in hot grits.

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      $ :(){ :|:& };:
  10. Re:horrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's ambiguously gay. Like Ace and Gary. Not flamboyant at all.

  11. Gynecology by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 1

    Gynecologists have it easy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8kDsM0M-vg

  12. Jesus fucking christ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I glad I got my PhD before this shit went down. And I thought myself lucky to escape the old-school requirement to be technically proficient in reading German technical articles.

  13. The only reason this was even submitted... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...Was because the winner was Australian. And it's the reason why it was accepted. Right, samzenpus?

  14. Amazing Performance by roland_mai · · Score: 1

    I thoroughly enjoyed it. Really cool performance.

  15. Re:Because ostracizing (note the spelling) ... by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 3

    Your horse is not nearly as high as you think it is.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  16. Atom Microscopes !?! by AkiraToy · · Score: 1

    Holy smokes! Anyone heard of this atom microscope they use? I see they're now planning to build one for biology - http://indiegogo.com/atom-microscope

  17. Schrodinger Dance by nsh · · Score: 1

    Schrodinger Dance is famous in Japan.
    That goes such as:
    Psi and Phi, Psi and phi

    1. Re:Schrodinger Dance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The animation will be started by clicking following 3 buttons. From left side, "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Expert". The last one is for closing the animation window.