'Dance Your Ph.D.' Finalists Announced
The dreaded question. "So, what's your Ph.D. research about?" You could bore them with an explanation. Or you could dance.
That's the idea behind "Dance Your Ph.D." Over the past 3 years, scientists from around the world have teamed up to create dance videos based on their graduate research. This year's contest, launched in June by Science, received 45 brave submissions.
Today, judges—including scientists, choreographers, and past winners—announced the finalists in four categories: physics, chemistry, biology, and social sciences. Each receives $500.
The judges will announce the winner next month at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City. But you can vote for your favorite now. We'll reveal the victor—and our reader pick—on 19 October.
The Winners
Selection of a DNA aptamer for homocysteine using systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment
McKeague's Ph.D. dance, based on her research at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, is about a technique called Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX). The target is a small molecule called homocysteine. SELEX uses natural selection to find the small strands of DNA called aptamers (the other dancers) that bind specifically to the target. Watch for the hilarious Taq Polymerase scene in the middle of the dance.
Pick your favorite winner
You can change your vote, but you can't vote more than once. On October 19, we'll announce the reader favorite along with the judge's winning choice.
Runners Up
PhysicsGeneration and detection of high-energy phonons by superconducting junctions
Singer's Ph.D., completed at Indiana University in Bloomington, was a study of "phonons," vibrating atoms in a crystal lattice that cause superconductivity. In the dance, keep an eye out for the scenes during which the video becomes grainy and weird. That's when the phonon is transported from the generator to the detector.
Biology
Genetic Diversity of Bacillus anthracis in North America
Kenefic's dance tells the story of his Ph.D. research at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff: the colonization of the New World by the anthrax bacterium at the end of the last ice age. He plays the bison (with horns), and the kids are anthrax spores.
Chemistry
Mechanism of Integration of NBU1, a Bacteroides mobilizable transposon
The microbiology of the bowels has never been danced so beautifully. Rajeev's Ph.D.—completed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign—is about how special pieces of DNA called a transposon (represented here by handkerchiefs) moves around between bacteria in the intestine. Don't miss the second half of the dance during which the transposon DNA integrates itself into the chromosome.
Social Sciences
The role of Urban Agriculture in promoting adaptive capacity of urban food systems to global phosphorus scarcity: Case studies of Phoenix, AZ and Accra, Ghana
Metson's dance—based on her Ph.D. at Arizona State University, Tempe—is all about phosphorus and agriculture. She wears a "P" to help you keep track of the movements of this nutrient. See if you can figure out how agricultural practices in Phoenix and Accra affect environmental phosphorus differently.
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