Sometimes there’s no substitute for a demo. In experimental work, techniques are commonly passed on from person to person. (I somehow ended up pipetting left-handed for years because of the single time my left-handed advisor showed me how to do it.) But what if you want to try a protocol that’s new to your lab? While it’s possible to follow the methods section of a paper to reproduce a result (and people do it all the time), it can be challenging. In both microfabrication and biology, specialized techniques can border on black magic and often go undocumented, although some are trying to change this (e.g. the excellent Chips & Tips feature of Lab on a Chip).
Enter the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), a peer-reviewed, Pubmed-indexed video journal publishing biological research. While there are many online microfluidics videos, they tend to display results, not methods. JoVE is different because its main purpose is to demonstrate how protocols are performed. Since JoVE began publishing in 2006, a number of high-profile labs have appeared in the journal, including stem cell researchers from Kevin Eggan’s lab and George Daley’s lab (see the beautiful trituration technique!), as well as microfluidics work from several groups. Most of the videos are viewable to subscribers only, although a 1-day free trial is available. Explore over 25 videos related to microfluidics/bioengineering, including:
- Platelet Adhesion and Aggregation Under Flow using Microfluidic Flow Cells (2009) Note that this video has free access because it is sponsored by Fluxion Biosciences who is promoting its BioFlux system
- A Multi-compartment CNS Neuron-glia Co-culture Microfluidic Platform (2009)
- Interview with Catherine Klapperich (2008) on disposable diagnostics
- How to pattern embryonic stem cells using the BioFlipChip (2007) by Nikhil Mittal and Stephanie Flavin of the Voldman lab
In some of the earlier videos (e.g. from 2007) it’s hard to see all of the steps clearly (a serious drawback), but recent videos seem to have improved significantly, with more close-ups and better editing. I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on JoVE and other forms of scientific video communication. Check it out!
Tracking science news across the web
I studied engineering, not journalism, so the way science research enters the mainstream has always been mysterious to me, like wondering how migrating birds find their way thousands of miles to another continent. I wonder how journalists decide what topics get covered and when to break the news, since the process of doing research tends to take place slowly over years. The paper that gets published today may be just a slight extension of similar work published two years ago. (Of course, to the researchers even minor advances feel huge, but to most people they may be indistinguishable from the original news story.) If the advance is minor (how minor?), is it still newsworthy? Often the trigger for publication in mainstream media is publication in a major journal, although results presented in conferences also tend to get covered heavily in the pharma sphere, since even preliminary results from clinical trials can be important for investors and competitors.
Some research has inherent public appeal. Such was the case with a paper that came out in Analytical Chemistry in September. The paper was evocatively titled “Material Degradomics: on the Smell of Old Books” and described using the volatile degradation products from old books as a way to diagnose how the books are decomposing, to aid in preservation. What happens when a paper like this enters the world of Web 2.0? A quick internet search revealed the following:
I’m sure someone must have blogged or Tweeted this story between September 17th and November 10th, but a brief search hasn’t turned up anything yet. It’s notable that prominent blogs BoingBoing and Freakonomics still deemed the item newsworthy over two months after it originally appeared–perhaps a testament to the increasingly niche and fractionated readerships who may not have heard the story yet. I’d love to see a more thorough analysis on how this information was transmitted and spread through the web–when does the peak occur, and why? What is the pattern of transmission?
As of December 11th, the original Analytical Chemistry paper and commentary were among the top 5 most-read Analytical Chemistry papers within the past month. I’m curious to see how long they stay there.
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Material Degradomics: On the Smell of Old Books