Image: hitthatswitch/Flickr

Ever wondered what makes a video go viral? As an online science video producer I’m constantly mulling over this question, trying to figure out the right formula of content and style to create a popular video.

Some students of YouTube claim that viral videos have common characteristics.  Kevin Nalty, a professional marketer and “weblebrity” with over 187 million views on YouTube, thinks he has the formula at least partially figured out. He writes in his  book “Beyond Viral: How to attract customers, promote your brand and make money with online video” that viral videos tend to include these types of content:

• Pranks
• Dancing
• Music
• Children
• Political humor
• “Fails” (think America’s Funniest Home Videos)
• Song parodies
• Video blogs
• How to
• Attractive women

And additionally, viral videos have these qualities:

• Short
• Original
• Unusual
• Unexpected
• Funny, mysterious or sexy

To see if Nalty’s observations apply to science videos, I checked them against the all-time top-viewed videos in the “Science and Technology” category on YouTube. Here they are in descending order:

Podcast: See a live surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome (1:14)
38,126,896 views
Advertisement for a live streaming carpal tunnel surgery.

Pregnant Robot Trains Students (4:02)
35,448,518 views
A news video from DiscoveryNews.com that shows medical students learning to deliver babies from a robot that looks like a pregnant woman.

REAL ghost girl caught on video (2:59)
27,592,319 views
A brainless Ghost Hunters/Paranormal Activity-style video with the cameraman freaking out because he believes he saw an apparition.

NUCLEUS: McRoberts Maneuver for Shoulder Dystocia (0:26)
23,966,032 views
A short animated video showing a baby leaving the birth canal.

Sonic Boom (2:30)
19,600,176 views
A simple narrated video that explains how a sonic boom is created. Includes some amazing photos of fighter jets amidst a pressure wave.

Piano stairs (1:28)
14,132,358 views
Brilliant video showing that if you make stairs into an electric piano people will favor them over an escalator.

ISLAM ,MAHDI,DAJJAL(ANTICHRIST) ,JESUS CHRIST,UFOS,NASA (5:22)
13,721,915 views
Basically, this is an old Turkish guy video blogging but I don’t speak Turkish so I have no idea what he’s saying. Based on the title I’m guessing it’s some nutty shit–which may explain the appeal.

Intro to Google Buzz (1:56)
12,941,364 views
Just as the title says.

Did You Know? (4:56)
12,910,395 views
Infographic video on the progression of information technology.

R.M.S Titanic (4:31)
11,961,549 views
Audio slide show of old Titanic pictures and some more recent video of its rediscovery.

So how do these videos stack up to Nalty’s observations?

A majority of them fail in terms of content. The overriding element that remains is music. Seven out of ten videos contain a compelling soundtrack. The other two elements that survive are pranks (”Piano on the stairs”) and video blogs (”ISLAM ,MAHDI,DAJJAL(ANTICHRIST) ,JESUS CHRIST,UFOS,NASA”).

As far as Nalty’s qualities, I’d say most of them hold true. All the videos were relatively short; the longest at just over five minutes. All are originals, not remixes of other videos. Many are unusual or unexpected: a live streaming surgery, a robotic birth, little known facts about the growth of information technology and stairs turned into a piano.  As for “funny, mysterious or sexy”, those are so subjective that I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Here are some other observations:

-YouTube could really use some modest curation of its content.  The “REAL Ghost girl” video has about as much to do with science and technology as Politico.com has to do with restaurant reviews.  The other offender here is the “R.M.S. Titanic” video which, by some impressive stretch of the imagination, could fit under the umbrella of technology, but plays more like an homage to James Cameron and Celine Dion.  I’d also like to see YouTube split its science and technology category into “science” and “technology” to give science videos a fighting chance (see below).

-Only one of these videos (”Sonic Boom”) actually contains any science content. The two most viral topics seem to be technology and medicine, which are applications of scientific knowledge. In fact, two of the four most popular videos are an intersection of medicine and technology.

-The more visceral or unusual your thumbnail image is, the more views you’ll get. Who can resist clicking on the E.T.-like thumbnail of the Turkish video blogger? Who knows, maybe he’s got the inside scoop on an alien landing?

-Speaking of old Turkish bloggers–if you are a crazy nutter, you will get views.

So what would the ultimate viral YouTube “science” video look like then? I don’t know for sure, but I’m thinking the description would read something like this:

Alien Birth
Pranksters fool onlookers at the mall into believing they are watching an alien birth using futuristic medical devices. Soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers.

David Attenborough in "The Life of Mammals" Image: BBC Worldwide

It’s 2011 and one of this year’s goals  is to relaunch this blog. When I started ScienceoftheTimes.com back in ‘09 my goal was to build and grow a “portal” website that would cover a lot of different areas of science. But this is a fool’s errand unless you have limitless time and resources to play with.

So ScienceoftheTimes.com is back with a more personal bent and  a new focus, which is to explore the intersection of science, journalism and multimedia. Or in other words, I’ll  mostly be writing about how we tell true stories about the natural world using all of the modalities of multimedia available to us in the 21st century…whew! Don’t worry–I promise it will be fun.

So with that, let me start by sharing with you some of the science and nature documentaries that have made an impression on me over the years and continue to be a source of inspiration as I create my own body of work.  If you think I’ve missed an awesome movie or three let me know in the comments.

Death by Design:Where Parallel Worlds Meet (Friedman/sBrunet, 1995)

This is a documentary about apoptosis–a.k.a. programmed cell death; a topic most documentary producers wouldn’t touch with a very long stick.  But it’s  artfully pulled off  by Jean-Francois Brunet and Peter Friedman (a microbiologist and film director, respectively) by blending archival footage of Hollywood musicals with microcinematography of cells committing suicide.

The Blue Planet Series (BBC/Discovery, 2001)

The best series on ocean life ever; both for it’s broad scope and magnificent cinematography.  If you get the series on DVD be sure to check out the supplemental disc “Deep Trouble” that highlights environmental threats to our oceans.

The Life of Mammals Series (BBC, 2002)

An expansive series on mammals great and small narrated by the illustrious Sir David Attenborough. Aside from the ace cinematography what amazes me about this series is how they stitched the whole thing together.  One minute Sir David is in New Zealand telling us about the duckbill platypus; the next he’s standing on the African savanna explaining the  feeding behavior of a bush baby.  It takes great ingenuity and planning to create a seamless narrative like that;  filming on different days, with different crews and across different continents.

Planet Earth (BBC/Discovery/NHK/CBC, 2006)

Aside from its sweeping vistas of our planet and never-before-scene shots of animals in nature, the stand out thing about this series is the jaw-dropping stop-motion footage of plants.  The flora that covers our planet rarely serves as anything other than a backdrop for the charismatic megafauna that populate most nature docs. But in this series the secret world of plants is brought to the fore.  Also of note: the scene of a parasitic fungus bursting through the head of an ant (also caught with stop motion).

The Science of Sex Appeal (Discovery, 2009)

I discovered this little gem searching around the streaming movies on Netflix.  Simple, concrete illustrations of the on-going battle of the sexes.

Walking with Prehistoric Beasts (BBC/Discovery, 2001)

I was a huge fan of the “walking with” series when it first came out but the whole dinosaur theme got a bit played out. Then along came the prehistoric beasts chapter which explores the bizarre mammals, birds and other creatures that lived between the end of the dinosaurs and the dawn of humanity. Many of these creatures seem familiar, because they are ancestors of species that survive to this day. But it’s as if modern animals were re-imagined into horrific beasts from a cruel bizarro-world parallel to our own; see the andrewsarchus and entelodont featured in this doc.

The Botany of Desire (Schwarz, 2009)

A video recreation of Michael Pollan’s book Botany of Desire. In general, a solid film, but I would recommend you skim the section about tulips unless you  are really, really into flowers.

King Corn (Mosaic Films, 2007)

Basically a video version of the first half of Michael Pollan’s second book, the Omnivore’s Dilemna. In Pollan’s book, he buys a steer and takes it all the way from field to slaughter house. In this movie the filmmakers use a similar plot device buying a plot of land to grow their own corn. Also of note: stop motion fun with Playmobil figurines that help illustrate more abstract concepts.

NOVA: Dogs Decoded (BBC/WGBH, 2010)

If you think a secret Soviet breeding program to domesticate foxes is cool–this movie is for you.

NOVA : The Great Robot Race (WGBH, 2006)

Documentary storytellers often talk about the “train” of their film.  It’s the narrative line of the movie that pulls all the other parts along. In this case, the producers built the story around the DARPA Challenge, a car race sponsored by the  research branch of the U.S. military.  The twist is that these cars autonomously navigate the race course; a treacherous 130-mile trek  through the Nevada desert. First car to the finish line nets two million dollars for the team that built it . That’s one helluva train!

The Cove (Psihoyos, 2009)

This 2009 Oscar-winner, in Mission Impossible style, follows environmental activists as they try to film the secret slaughter of dolphins along the East Coast of Japan. This movie appealed to me as an environmentalist, animal-lover and spy gadget geek.

Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005)

A profile of activist Timothy Treadwell who anthropomorphized grizzly bears and was eventually killed and eaten by one. This is less a nature documentary than an essay on the perils of believing that nature has our best interests at heart. Treadwell was a skilled filmmaker in his own right and his beautifully-austere footage of the Alaskan wilderness complements Herzog’s storytelling.

March of the Penguins (Jacquet, 2005)

This nature doc grossed over $127 million worldwide, so I’m guessing most people reading this have seen it. So all I’ll say is this is a great film and one worth watching again…especially on a hot New York summer day when you want to fool your brain into thinking it’s cold out.

Winged Migration (Perrin/Cluzaud/Debats, 2001)

How they made this movie (included in the DVD extras) is as interesting as the film itself.  One feature of bird behavior is that young chicks imprint on their mothers. That’s why you see a gaggle of baby geese waddling along behind their mother. The filmmakers exploited that behavior and tricked various species of migratory birds to imprint on human handlers. They put the handlers (and a camera) into an ultralight airplane and filmed the birds as they flew alongside their “mothers”. Wicked genius.

How the Earth was Made (History Channel, 2009)

Personally, I find geology a bit dry, especially as the subject of a film, but this series works because it shows us how our planet was created.

Bonus:

I watched these a while back and have forgotten why I like them so much. But I gave them five stars in my Netflix queue so I’d recommend checking them out.

Evolution (PBS, 2002)

Strange Days on Planet Earth (PBS, 2005)

NOVA: Cancer Warrior (WGBH, 2001)

In the spirit of Celiac Disease Awareness Month, Science of the Times brings you the story of Kelly Courson, a 37-year old receptionist who was confronted with a bewildering array of symptoms in her early twenties. After years of misdiagnosis by doctors,  she recognized her illness as Celiac disease and began treating herself.

Now she helps other Celiac sufferers adjust to a gluten-free lifestyle through her website Celiac Chicks.

Correction:

The video refers to celiac disease as an allergy to gluten, which is technically incorrect. A true food “allergy” involves IgE antibodies circulating in the blood stream that trigger an immediate allergic reaction. According to Dr. Peter Green’s book “Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic”, celiac disease is better defined as a “delayed type of immune reaction.”

TRANSCRIPT:

NARRATOR:
Food…it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures. One that we often take for granted.

NARRATOR:
But what if the food you loved…was unknowingly making you sick?

NARRATOR:
That’s what happened to Kelly Courson, a 37 year-old receptionist who lives in Queens, New York.

KELLY COURSON: The symptoms came on hardcore when I was 21… I just had a lot of gastrointestinal issues, lost weight, the general malaise, the dermatitis herpetiformis, the sores that appear on different regions of people’s bodies. But for some reason they like to come out on my face.

NARRATOR:
Unknown to Kelly she was suffering from Celiac disease, a severe allergy to gluten, which is a molecule found in wheat and other grains.

NARRATOR:
According to an estimate from the National Institutes of Health over two million Americans may suffer from Celiac disease. Although, like Kelly, an unknown number live without a doctor’s diagnosis.

NARRATOR:
The most common symptoms of Celiac Disease, diarrhea and malnutrition, are caused by damage to the small intestine.

NARRATOR:
The small intestine’s role in the body is to break down and absorb nutrients.

NARRATOR:
It is lined with a carpet of tiny, finger-like structures called villi that help to maximize its surface area.

NARRATOR:
The villi, in turn, are covered by millions of cells called enterocytes.

NARRATOR:
These cells absorb nutrients and pass them into the blood stream for use in the body.

NARRATOR:
Gluten, like any nutrient, is normally digested and absorbed by the enterocytes.

NARRATOR:
But occasionally, undigested gluten sneaks past the enterocytes into the lining of the gut

NARRATOR:
In normal people its no problem. But in people with Celiac disease, the immune system perceives a threat and mounts a chemical attack.

NARRATOR:
This damages the enterocytes and prevents them from doing their job of absorbing nutrients.

NARRATOR:
Outwardly, the damage usually appears as diarrhea, vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition.

NARRATOR:
But sometimes Celiac disease displays other symptoms. This makes it difficult for doctors to distinguish from other illnesses.

DR. PETER GREEN:

Celiac disease can really be regarded as a great imitator, because there are many different conditions that have similar manifestations….irritable bowel syndrome…peripheral neuropathy…balance disorders…lupus…chronic fatigue syndrome and all of these may actually be manifestations of Celiac disease.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Peter Green is the director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. He says that only about three percent of Americans with Celiac disease are ever diagnosed.

DR. PETER GREEN: The main hindrance to people getting diagnosed is doctor’s not being aware of the condition, not being aware of how common it is, and how easy it is to actually diagnose.

NARRATOR:
In Kelly’s case, doctors had failed to recognize her symptoms.

KELLY COURSON: I’d go to clinics and ask them to test me for mono or hepatitis and they just wouldn’t ask a lot of questions and run the blood test and be like, “you’re fine.” I don’t know if there is anything worse than to be sick and not know why.

NARRATOR:
It was her mom that finally put the pieces of the puzzle together.

KELLY COURSON:
My mom read a Prevention magazine article about celiac disease and she put together everything–the gastrointestinal symptoms, skin problems and the depression or lack of energy combined and said why don’t you try this diet because it sounds what like you have, it makes sense, it’s everything all together.

NARRATOR:
Kelly tried a gluten free diet. Currently the only treatment for celiac disease. She had to eliminate all wheat and other sources of gluten.

KELLY COURSON:
There’s a huge learning curve, learning what ingredients mean. All these words like, what is maltodextrin and does it have gluten it?

NARRATOR:
She saw immediate results…

KELLY COURSON: It was like a miracle cure. In two weeks my skin was clear and I felt stronger and we were definitely headed in the right direction and I wanted to continue with the diet.

NARRATOR:
Twelve years and many gluten free meals later Kelly’s symptoms haven’t returned. She says this is the reason she has never gotten a formal diagnosis from a doctor.

KELLY COURSON: As I mentioned, my mom’s research you could say and then my trial and error with the diet and the results that I saw, that I was self-diagnosed. Now., learning more and more about the disease and the tests that have become available I would have to go through what’s called a gluten challenge and eat gluten for at least a month, if not more, in order to get a biopsy, intestinal biopsy and sacrificing my health to do that,isn’t worth it to me.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Green says this isn’t uncommon…

DR. PETER GREEN:
We often see patients who are already on a gluten free diet, they self-diagnosed it or they went on an weight reduction Atkins diet and they got better, they’re really on a gluten free diet. Now if they’ve been on the diet for six to 12 months, the biopsy would be negative, more than likely and the blood tests would be negative. What we would do then is offer them a gluten challenge. We’d say you should eat bread or pasta or the equivalent for one to three months and then have a biopsy. Some people say “yes I want to do that because the diet’s expensive, its socially inconvenient and I want to make sure I have it.” Other people say “I feel so good, I don’t want to eat that stuff again” and that’s a very reasonable approach, it’s reasonable for them to say they have Celiac disease if that’s better for them to get a gluten free diet under all the other circumstances.

NARRATOR:
In 2002, Kelly decided to turn her illness into something positive. She started a blog with a co-worker who also had Celiac disease. They named it Celiac Chicks. It provides gluten-free recipes, restaurant reviews and links to gluten-free products.

NARRATOR: Although Kelly receives some compensation for her efforts–Google advertising pays for the cost of running the site and she gets to keep free samples of the products she reviews—she says that isn’t her primary motivation from Celiac Chicks.

KELLY COURSON: I like to think that my blog has had a good impact on people and has helped them in some way, as I mentioned the business owners on their end that are trying to help us, that we’ve somehow helped them to survive as a small specialty business and then for the people who this is their new lifestyle change, which is pretty drastic in the beginning, that its helped them to put a positive spin on it and make it more of a fun adventure, than just a drag and feeling like they’re alone and can never enjoy food again. So that’s what I hope that I have done.

CREDITS:

Written, Directed & Edited by Eric R. Olson
Camera by Eric R. Olson & Melissa Schisler
Narrated by Melissa Schisler

Within every cell of our bodies is a chaotic symphony of molecular and chemical interactions that are difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye.  Scientists rely on experimental ’snapshots’ to give them an idea of what’s happening at the microscopic level. Then they work backwards, reconstructing a sequence of events from these rather abstract clues.

The field of biomedical animation helps us to visualize what can never be observed by the naked eye.  Animators  take the scientist’s mental model of events and render out a real-time 3D visual representation. With the advent of cheaper and faster computers, biomedical animators are producing startlingly life-like animations that rival those found in Hollywood movies (often with a soundtrack to match). Below are three beautiful examples that caught my eye.

Which biomedical animations have caught your eye? Post your favorites in the comments.

Also check out:

Scitimes Video: How the Flu Virus Jumps Species (my own attempt at 2D biomedical animation)

TRANSCRIPT:

Only a subway ride away from Manhattan, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is located on a sandy atoll in the middle of Jamaica Bay, Queens. It is a small sanctuary for both aquatic birds and turtles.

As you cross over a bridge on the way to the sanctuary, you get the feeling that the subway has magically transformed itself into a boat. The water sits only a few feet below the bottom of the train.

Although technically still in New York City limits, the train drops you in a neighborhood that evokes the feeling of a small beach town. The streets are packed tightly with small, simply-constructed houses.

The first sign that you are near a refuge are the broken clam shells that litter the nearby parking lots. Seagulls drop the shells from on-high, seeking to extract the sweet clam meat from inside.

A newly renovated nature center, operated by the National Park Service greets you at the entrance to a two-mile long trail.

The trail circles around a giant brackish pond that is the home to hundreds of seabirds including swans, Canadian geese, snow geese, seagulls, egrets and various kinds of ducks.

Songbirds find refuge here as well. Take a moment to listen.

Nesting Canadian geese step out to greet you but hiss a warning that you’d better stand back–this is their turf.

Divided from the trail by tall thickets of vines and bushes, a sandy shell-strewn beach beckons for hot and weary feet.

However, this beach is off limits. It’s used as a breeding ground for the endangered diamond-back terrapin turtle.

In this dry environment, succulent plants and even small cactuses  emerge from the sandy soil.

Vegetation on other parts of this little atoll can be dense, as the plants fight for the precious rays of the sun.

The vines of the invasive Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) don’t fight fair. They strangle the other plants in their skyward quest.

In the middle of a flat, marshy, expanse full of debris, park service employs have constructed a nesting platform for ospreys–also known as seahawks.

If you look closely, you can just barely make out something stirring in the nest.