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Animations of unseeable biology | Drew Berry | TED

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  • Recommended by 7 people, in Hacker News, across 7 different months.
  • Presented by Drew Berry, as the video describes them

For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.

2.7M views14 years ago7 recommendations

How the body worksCells and moleculesGenetics and genomics

Drew Berry presents scientifically accurate, detailed animations of molecular and cellular processes, including DNA replication, occurring within our cells.

ted.com We have no ways to directly observe molecules and what they do -- Drew Berry wants to change that. At TEDxSydney he shows his scientifically accurate (and entertaining!) animations that help researchers see unseeable processes within our own cells. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at ted.com/translate If you have questions or comments about this or other TED videos, please go to support.ted.com

Why it's here

7 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended for its mind-blowing and scientifically accurate visual representations of DNA replication and other cellular machinery.

Moments people linked to

nol13in Hacker News • Recommends

On “Why Do DMT Users See Insects from a Parallel Universe?”

link to this video ^My favorite way I've seen it described, and also a really cool video even without the subtext. (but ya this is one rabbit hole that I've yet to travel down. guess i took the blue pill, but more pills just seemed unnecessary at the time)
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nomin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Close-Up View of DNA Replication”

If you liked this video, also check out this one: Inner Life of the Cell link And here's a nice TED talk by Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology link to this video These kind of visualizations are of course an idealized view on how it works. As others have already mentioned, the processes are hugely chaotic and much more probabilistic than deterministic. On this scale everything is just one huge wobbling soup of things crashing into each other, which makes it even more fascinating that it works as well as it does.
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joering2in Hacker News • Recommends

On “No human genome has ever been completely sequenced”

Slightly off-topic, but this semi-animation of DNA replication machine that is working right now in your body (in amounts of trillions of devices) blew my mind few months ago. from TED: link to this video
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discrisknbisquein Hacker News • Recommends

On “The life cycle of HIV in 3D [video]”

Drew Berry creates similar animations and refers to them (in this talk) as "accurate representations", but doesn't go into much detail. Interesting history in the beginning as well. link to this video
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Darkskynetin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?”

On the topic of 'scientifically accurate animations of biological processes'. You may know of these videos, but I thought these might be worth sharing for others interested in this topic: Here is a TEDTalk by Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology. (uploaded in 2012) link to this video Here is also a more recent video by Veritasium on YT that also talks about these animations. (uploaded in 2017) link
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benjismithin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Rendering protein structures inside cells at the atomic level with Unreal Engine”

This reminds me of the amazing molecular animations of Drew Berry, which he showed in this TED talk: link to this video Which was 12 years ago! After watching that video, I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines. Fascinating stuff!!
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Zealotuxin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Super-resolution microscopes reveal new details of cells and disease”

Sorry for being a bit off-topic. Biology wasn't my forte in high school, I wish I had read this article back then link and seen that video (9:08 min) link to this video
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Vladislavin Biology Stack Exchange • Mentions

I've just found once again this famous animation I've been curious about for many years: link to this video Here's a screenshot from the animation: The green blobs (proteins, I believe) are moving from outside the scene to "the crowded area" (where unzipping happens). Then some of them (paler-green ones) are leaving in the same way as they came. I am curious about how they are doing it! I suspect that the "crowded area" emits some molecules (or perhaps ions), and "green blobs" might be literally electromagnetically attracted to the source due to density gradient of those ions. As for the "paler ones", they might be gaining on some other molecules (after contact), which probably disables their a…
22View on Stack Exchange