Monday AWESOME!

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This week's Monday blog is less about the funny, and more about the awe-inspiring.  THIS is the stuff that made me want to study science.

Back in the 70's, the Time-Life Science series of books combined incredible artwork with understandable explanations of everything from the atom to the workings of the brain.  This combination of eye-catching visuals with science is a great way of catching nascent scientists - it certainly caught me.  Now we live in a digital multimedia age - and illustrating science takes something that will appeal to the 3-D CGI audiences of today.

Biovisions, at Harvard University is working on just that.

http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/

I cannot link the videos directly, but please follow the link, click the "X" at left to close the first page, then look at the videos in the middle of the page.  At the top is The Mitochondria.  Below that is The Inner Life of the Cell.  Both are incredibly awesome animations that depict real-life cellular mechanisms.  This is stuff that is *way* beyond Hollywood EPIC!  [The only thing that would make it better would be an epic soundtrack - http://www.youtube.com/user/TwoStepsFromTheMusic#p/u/20/JNOpKwnAQyw.]

When done viewing the two clips, click on "The Inner Life Series" button at the left, then select the super speed version of Inner Life (lower left) for a narrated explanation of the scenes in the 'music video.'  You can also go to the "All Media" link and view some other interesting video such as the Myosin video which illustrates the actin-myosin interactions underlying muscle contraction and intracellular transport.
This is neat stuff, and I can't wait to see what Biovisions produces next.

To continue both the concept of what makes scientists laugh - or cheer! - with getting back to regular blog posting, Wednesday's blog will feature "The Medical Student Syndrome" along with a peak at some of the strange and bizarre stories doctors hear from patients, then a few Mailbag blogs featuring the questions that readers have asked - or comments that deserve more than just a sentence of answer.  We'll return to "The Lab Rats' Guide to the Brain next week - just in time for me to be gone a few days to Dragon*Con. I promise to build up some backlog and get back to a normal posting pattern.

Until next time.  Treat your brain to some *AWESOME*!