7 Quick Vid Takes (9/2/11)

Last week: literature and language, this week: YouTube clips.  (And the process of clearing out my Quick Takes link list carries on apace).  No explicit theme, but I suppose you could play stereotypical-Leah-interests bingo, or something.

(Fractal geometry is the FREE space on this bingo board, natch).

If advertisements for malls were usually this charming, maybe I wouldn’t regard them as a blight on civilization.  One English mall shows 100 years of fashion (and dance moves) in a minute and a half.

And if you’re a video creator (and a Ph.D. candidate), you should definitely check out the “Dance Your Ph.D” contest.  It’s exactly what it sounds like: a challenge to summarize your research in dance, rather than PowerPoint or 200 page tome.  Here’s one of last year’s winners “Directed transport without net bias in physics and biology” from Steven Lade.

Should cheer you up if you’re stuck with a bad project…

(I’m so glad I tried wet bench work in high school, so I realized early I didn’t want to do it.  And the year I put in was enough to reap all the thrills of recognizing equipment in the costumes above).

Elsewhere in the world of science, researchers build an apparatus to keep donor organs alive and functional for longer outside the body.  It’s an exciting step in medicine, and as a bonus, means you can watch a heart beat outside the body at 1:02.

[the video is no longer available]

How amazing is it to remember that, inside your chest, your heart is thrashing like that all the time? And if you want a reminder that the heart is breathtakingly delicate, as well as wonderfully strong, this picture of the angel veins (the vessels that supply the heart with blood) should do the trick. All other parts of the heart have been removed. (h/t Chris Blattman).

And sometimes medical science pops up in the strangest places, like applying epidemiological methods to address gang violence as though it were a viral violence epidemic.  The great New Yorker article I first read on David Kennedy’s Ceasefire program is sadly behind a paywall, but you can check out the trailer for the documentary below.

I realize, despite my claim this week would be unthemed, I’m going into heavy science rotation.  So I guess that means it’s time to pull out a little Sondheim, right?  The below is a rarely heard gem from his score for the Dick Tracy film.  Karen Ziemba and Bill Irwin are a riot.

Finally, I don’t think a video week can pass without a nod to my favorite music video creators: Fall Out Boy.  The impression I get from watching their videos is that no one told them music videos might be expected to correspond a little with the songs they sing.  As a result, Fall Out Boy always seems to take their allotted budget and do exactly what I would do with a video camera and nice sets: fight vampires.

I commend you, sirs.

[Seven Quick Takes is a blog carnival run by Jen of Conversion Diary]