Microstructure-Property relationships in Ti2448 components produced by Selective Laser Melting: A Love Story [Source: Joel Miller]
The winners of the 2011 Dance Your Ph.D. contest were announced back in late October but I just found out about it and I couldn’t resist posting:
“Science’s fourth annual “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest [is] a competition that recognizes the best dance interpretations of scientific doctoral work…The rules of the contest were simple: Each dance had to be based on a scientist’s Ph.D. research, and that scientist had to be part of the dance.”
A study of social interactivity using pigeon courtship [Source: Emma Ware]
This year’s contest had 53 entries from all over the world, too many to post here but definitely worth a look. The videos on this post are the four finalists with the grand prize winner, Joel Miller, at the top.
Smell mediated response to relatedness of potential mates [Source: Cedric Kai Wei Tan]
I think this is such a great idea and I’m glad to see Science giving it a highly visible platform. I only found out about it recently via dancer friends sharing the news on Facebook.
The Holy Grail to X-ray crystal structure of human protein phosphatase [Source: FoSheng Hsu]
Looking back at my own Ph.D. experience at Ohio State University, I remember that people in my interdisciplinary Cultural Studies program who were involved in dance and movement studies would often raise the question, “Why can’t we dance our dissertations?”
While some would occasionally do alternative presentations in addition to a written dissertation and oral defense, I find it kind of amusing that it was a scientist and science writer who actually popularized the idea of dancing your Ph.D. with a series of videos from doctoral candidates in the sciences!
Big ups to John Bohannon and all the participants!
Official Site: Dance Your Ph.D.