WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.07
YouTube Does Science, From Fruit-Fly Fight Clubs to Stem Cell Extractions
06.26.07 Years behind the lab bench taught Moshe Pritsker that the trickiest part of any science experiment isn't the hypothesis, it's the method. The former Harvard researcher learned this lesson back in his student days, after carefully following the instructions on a specialized kit for isolating DNA. "Surprise," Pritsker says, "no DNA!" A colleague finally showed him how to make the kit work. And that gave Pritsker an idea: methodology porn. The Web site he cofounded, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, launched last October. Now its videos of experimental procedures and techniques — from stem-cell culture prep to hippocampal dye injection — get 300 pageviews a day. The journal's still a work in progress (nothing's gone viral yet), but just wait. "No one has published results in video before," Pritsker says. "Scientists don't know how to do it." Here are a few of the journal's faves.
Must-See Experiments
Culture of Mouse Neural Stem Cell Precursors
D. Spencer Currle, Jia Sheng Hu, Aaron Kolski-Andreaco, Edwin S. Monuki, UC Irvine.
Video Extracting a mouse uterus, removing embryos, and harvesting stem cells from the cerebral cortex.
Goal Improving stem-cell handling skills for eventual use on human cells.
Highlight Close shot demonstrating how to use bent forceps to tease out cortical tissue.
Studying Aggression in Drosophila
Sarah Certel, Edward A. Kravitz, Sibu Mundiyanapurath, Harvard Medical School.
Video Building glass arenas and staging bouts between drosophila.
Goal Figuring out how aggression is wired in the brain.
Highlight It's fruit-fly fight club — close-up lunges, blocks, and feints.
Testing Visual Sensitivity to the Speed and Direction of Motion in Lizards
Kevin L. Woo, Centre for the Integrative Study of Animal Behaviour, Macquarie University, Sydney
Video Coaxing Jacky dragons (an Australian lizard species) to take cues from moving dots.
Goal Working with lizards as a model for motion sensing.
Highlight The lizard actually completes the experiment. It's tough to motivate reptiles to stay interested in scientific work, Woo says.
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