Must-See Science: Videos From Science Friday
Mar 19, 2010 — In perhaps the cutest study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, psychologist Marcel Zentner and Tuomas Eerola found that babies will spontaneously groove to music. While babies are not great dancers, they smile more when they do hit the beat.
Feb 12, 2010 — Leaves have an intricate web of veins that transport nutrients and water and provide structural support. But what determines the pattern of venation? Physicists Marcelo Magnasco and Eleni Katifori investigated this question using sophisticated algorithms and a little glow-in-the-dark dye.
Jan 22, 2010 — Brenda Tan and Matt Cost, high school seniors from Trinity School in New York City, used a technique called DNA barcoding to find out what species were present in over 200 animal products. Their results suggest buyers should beware!
Jan 8, 2010 — Basalt formations off the East Coast of the U.S. could suck up a billion tons of carbon dioxide, according to a new study. Paleontologist Paul Olsen, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, explains how to get the CO2 into the rocks, and why scientists believe it won't leak out.
Jan 1, 2010 — Winter weather means more than skiing and snowmen. Bullet rosettes, stellar plates and capped columns are just a few of the crystal varieties commonly found in snowstorms. Science Friday asked Kenneth Libbrecht, physicist at Caltech and snowflake expert, for guidance on snowflake hunting.
Dec 18, 2009 — A perennial holiday dilemma: Will alcohol kill bacteria like salmonella in homemade eggnog? Microbiologists Vince Fischetti and Raymond Schuch, from The Rockefeller University, ran an experiment in the lab to see whether salmonella can survive in a vat of spiked eggnog.
Dec 4, 2009 — Feed nematode worms a particular light-sensitive chemical and after the meal, the worms become paralyzed when exposed to UV light. Remarkably, the effects can be reversed under visible light, Neil Branda and colleagues report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Nov 20, 2009 — The holiday season is here and for many that can mean a surge in stress. But what is stress exactly? Science Friday hit the streets of New York City to gauge stress levels and consulted with experts on the effects of stress and strategies for how to cope.
Nov 13, 2009 — Researchers have figured out how to track the facial expressions of one person and map those movements onto a digital image of another person's face in real time. The result is something like a digital video puppet, which psychologists say may reveal something about human nature.
Oct 23, 2009 — Sam Easterson has refined the art of the critter cam. He is the curator of the Museum of Animal Perspectives — an online repository of "remotely sensed wildlife imagery." All the footage comes from cameras implanted in the landscape or strapped to the backs of animals.