Regular readers will know that I have a penchant for posting science videos every now and then. I’ve written about vids on how to explain Newton’s laws with Lego, A spoof sweet potato battery to power your mp3 player, Einstein meets Hendrix, and desktop hockey with one of the most water-repellent materials ever invented from chemists at Queen’s University Belfast. Youtube has long since been oustripped as the place to go for science-related videos, there are dozens of sites that specialise in science videos:
Science Hack, for instance, showcases hundreds of videos every one of which has been screened by a scientist to verify its accuracy and quality. Typical searches include Hubble, Space, Sulfur Hexafluoride, Psychology, and the site has its own Facebook app if you’re feeling supra-uber-geekish. Indeed, I’ve used the Science Hack Facebook app on my own Facebook pages.
Science press release repository Science Daily also has its own dedicated video channel. At the time of writing, top video posts included “Engineers Measure Blood Alcohol Content With Spectroscopy”, “Cardiac Electrophysiologists Make MRIs Safe For People With Pacemakers”, and “Engineers Build Automated Parking Garage”.
Often referred to as Youtube for scientists, SciVee.com doesn’t really have any more of a claim to such a title as any of the other science vid sites listed here, but it is good, carrying an intriguingly entitled video called “Ten Simple Rules for Making Good Oral”, which turns out to be about presentations rather than anything else.
AthenaWeb has also been given that Youtube for geeks label (like there could be anything more geeky than using Youtube in the first place) by various bloggers. I’m pretty sure AthenaWeb has gone through at least a couple of launches, but it looks pretty fresh today and offers a Top 5 science videos, which include an exploration of nanotechnology and one on apoptosis, or cell death.
Then, if you want to limit yourself to one science guy, there’s Robert Krampf who has a stack of science experiments he records to video, in fact one or two of his videos have featured on Sciencebase in the past, including Save a balloon with water.
Finally, in this brief round-up, there is Youtube itself, which is the archetypal Youtube for Scientists. Just follow a search for science to bring up a goodly number of science vids.
There are many other science video directories (including VideoJug’s environment section, the public relations offices at various companies, universities, and other organisations often include videos with their output. If you know of any gathering place or the next Youtube for scientists, let me know by putting the link in the comments frame below.