Okay, okay, maybe the dance shoes could be useful when doing science… Now, I mentioned this competition in passing a while back, but wasn’t sure how many people were keenly awaiting the results…
‘Winning entry in the graduate-student division by Sue Lynn Lau of the University of Sydney in Australia, whose thesis is titled, “The role of vitamin D in beta cell function.’
Go Australia!! Yay Sydney U! If you head to this link, you’ll be able to see it for yourself, but if your video isn’t working:
Soundtrack booms with ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’ by Buster Pointdexter; dancers start on a dark stage with flashlight headbands (with a particularly energetic young man bopping about in a sunshine-yellow shirt when the lights go up); then a pink-dressed lady whom I suspect is PhD / Winner Sue Lynn gets to enjoying the ‘sunshine’ by flicking out a towel and having a bit of a bask (this is all really quite Australian, honestly).
Then it all kind of goes to a representation of the micro-level, with what I suspect is the influence of all that Vitamin D (I think Lau again, with a bit of impromptu ballet to Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy‘ -- very apt!) and some classic contemporary dance by a trio in black leotards and tights. It’s not interpretative dance unless someone’s got lycra creeping up their bottom, after all.
Ah ha! It’s time for the marshmallows and bubble-blowing toys to be symbolically dispersed to the ‘cell parts’ -- they then eagerly begin puffing soap bubbles about. We then see the ‘Beta’ sign on the back of their costumes, as Pink Dress breaks out the Sunburst orange soda, Toblerone chocolate and munches some more marshmallows. I think Sir Robert Helpmann had a similar approach when he was brainstorming for ‘The Merry Widow’.
Then it’s break out the High School Musical homage with a bit of syncopated bopping to Katrina and the Waves’ ‘Walking on Sunshine‘. It’s just not insulin secretion unless someone’s doing the booty-slap.
About the 4.30 min mark, you’ll be hitting rewind to watch Sunshine-Yellow guy do his manic flips again. I’ve never seen radiation get down like that before, quite frankly. And a quick credit with signs to ‘Diabetes and Transcription Factors’ -- the Garvan Institute must be a cheerful place to work, that’s for certain.
Additionally:
Before you see the winner in this year’s professor category, you might try imagining how you would choreograph a thesis titled, ” “Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids.” Then you can see how Vince LiCata, a biology professor at Louisiana State University, turned this thesis into the dance masterpiece, “A Molecular Dance in the Blood, Observed.”
Thanks to Digital Cuttlefish for alerting me to the results!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
AAAS huh? That’s better than Australian Society of Scientists. Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Say the secret word and win $100.
Mr Marx – *smooch* – let me know if you do children’s parties and bring your own baby hippo.
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