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Hippie Science

Not so much to report in the way of music right now, so I thought I’d share this hilarious science video with everyone.

I was first shown this video in my sophomore year Genetics class at Penn State (ah, Dr. Price – I loved you because you looked like Linus from the Peanuts cartoons). It was made in 1971 by the Stanford Department of Chemistry, and attempts to show the dynamic process of protein synthesis (i.e. how proteins are made from DNA sequence code). It definitely bears the stamp of the times.

The first couple minutes are a bit dry, as Dr. Paul Berg explains protein translation on a chalkboard. And then the dancing starts. And the Lewis Carroll-like poetry. And the soundtrack, man! Hil-ar-i-ous.

P.S. Dr. Paul Berg won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980, “for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA.” Basically, he made the first DNA sequence that was composed of DNA from different species. He shared the prize with Dr. Walter Gilbert and Dr. Fred Sanger, who developed different ways to sequence DNA molecules. Kind of a big deal.

And that’s your science lesson for the day.