We've blogged about feature documentaries about science and art, and more recently about experimental sciart docs. In the spirit of the quick-fix, on-the-go need for science, we decided this time we’d explore the many mini-docs about science on the web. There are literally thousands if not millions of science videos available online, and not all of them are dry educational explanations. Most involve demonstrations, illustrations, and fun new ways of thinking about bits of science like the periodic table.
Periodic table by Armtuk, from Wiki Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Periodic_Table_Armtuk3.svg
Lots of people have YouTube channels, with subscription services offered for their frequently updated science videos. Smarter Every Day has a video explaining the physics of how cats manage to land on their feet (particularly interesting and poignant for me, since my cat fell four stories and survived!). Other channels include: Minute Physics; Vi Hart’s channel, which includes math doodling videos explaining how to draw fractals and infinite series; SciShow and AsapSCIENCE; Numberphile, Deep Sky Videos and Sixty Symbols; Veritasium; The PBS Idea Channel; and VSauce.
NASA has a great video series, PBS and the Public Library of Science have Science Bytes, and Stephen Palumbi’s lab at Stanford has a collection of microdocs on sustainability and coral reefs. Science Daily covers the latest videos, and Story Collider and Khan Academy have archives of their lectures and events.
Then there are videos which have won competitions, awards, and funding from certain groups, which are not serialised like the videos above. Collections of these videos include Planet SciCast, Sloan Science and Film, the WellCome Trust’s YouTube channel, the HHMI short films site, and the International Film Festival at CERN’s site.
Seriously, whatever you’re looking for, you can find it. Expand your horizons! Bend your mind!
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TOP OF PAGE: Screenshot from Vi Hart’s Video “What is Up with Noises?” shown below.
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