6 ms·

Cell and Molecular Biology Animated Textbooks

113 points by snailletters 7y ago

mncharity 7y ago
Computer graphics and XR are part of an opportunity to transformatively improve science education content, pre-K to graduate. And we're going to spend years aggressively declining the opportunity. As with that "Unit 1" video at the top of the page... by analogy, "<Attenborough voice> We will get to know the animal kingdom, starting with these airliner-sized mice wearing pink tutus and playing poker. Look at how beautifully rendered they are! You can just feel the feathers on their flippers. You're students will find that highly engaging." Ah well, MVP mumble mumble.
- Myrmornis 7y ago
  Could you clarify what you're saying? I thought the free sample video looked pretty promising. Did you?
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    They are saying, nothing in these images looks like the real thing.
  - mncharity 7y ago
    The "Unit 1" video presents atoms using aphysical cartoons misrepresenting size, behavior, structure, and properties. Nuclei size by more than 3 orders of magnitude. One might argue that it's so obviously physically unrealistic and representational, that it's "clearly" iconic. Except that it could easily be made more clearly iconic, but wasn't. And arguments of the form "that's so clearly unrealistic, it won't cause misconceptions" are... just not what happens. Then there are all the usual problems with computer graphical representations of chemistry, biochem, cell and tissue biology. Where "pretty"-but-misleading is prioritized over the messy multiple representations needed to avoid nurturing a rich ecology of misconceptions. > thought [...it] looked pretty promising. Did you? Better than many paper textbooks, yes. Doing the things we know are needed to produce good student outcomes... there's a ways to go. Promising? 3D graphics in general, oh very yes. But this project in particular, I've no idea. The incentives around education content are very dysfunctional. So actually providing deep transferable understanding... is usually not the metric of interest.
    - bsmitty5000 7y ago
      This seems to me like someone criticizing introductory physics courses because they're not taking into account air friction and all the other minutiae from the very beginning. If someone progresses to the point where these misconceptions really become an issue I think they would be corrected organically.
      - mncharity 7y ago
        > seems to me like [...] minutiae Or alternately, perhaps it's like students struggling with high-school stoichiometry, with atom conservation, because they've managed to remain unclear on the simple core concept that atoms are real objects, are real, physical, little balls. > think they would be corrected organically Yeah, that's a widespread impression. That say high-school misconceptions will disappear as students become undergraduate majors, and then graduate students. It's not been well studied, at least the last time I checked. But at a minimum, there are notable exceptions. If your 5-year old wants to know which finger-paint color to use for the Sun, asking a first-tier astronomy graduate student is likely to get them the wrong answer. Misconceptions turn out to be highly resilient. Which is why creating and reinforcing them is not something to do lightly.
Koshkin 7y ago
A picture is worth a thousand words; a video is worth, well, 24 pictures per second... (Times two, if it’s 3D.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  It's not, really. Someone needs to make a more accurate version of this saying that's rooted in information theory, to show that video isn't worth 24picturelength in seconds, but picture + whatever is communicated in how it changes over time (which is much, much less than a picture's worth).
chris5745 7y ago
This is amazing! I think this will really help the visual learners among us.
- notelonmusk 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism
  - chris5745 7y ago
    Are you suggesting people don’t learn visually?
    - notelonmusk 7y ago
      Would it make a difference if I did?
tasty_freeze 7y ago
The illustrations and videos are good at conveying the relative scale of things. But one mistake they make is common to just about every cartoon depiction I've seen: the molecules seem to have intent. they fly into the scene and an atom is exchanged with the binding site, then then remainder flys away again. the stochastic nature everything is completely missing.
- droithomme 7y ago
  > the molecules seem to have intent Take a look at dynein and kinesin walking along microtubules while dragging along their cargo. It's pretty neat. Unknown is how the really simple microtubules get to their destination while building themselves just ahead of the walkers or how the walkers know which turns to take. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbycQf1TbM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbycQf1TbM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8
  - mncharity 7y ago
    > It's pretty neat And very very misleading. Those video frames are strobe-like snapshots, very carefully cherrypicked and arranged to spin a very bogus tale. Those smoothly and carefully walking legs? They're really a cross between Monty Python and Cirque du Soleil, insanely flailing all around. Including backwards. The not-quite-random walking only makes net progress. And those stately-moving barge-like things being towed as if by a donkey? Picture instead a helium balloon, held by its string. By a crazed drunk mouse clinging to rope. In a cat 5 hurricane. And that's still not flailing violently enough. Between one step and the next, that "stately barge" explores the entire parameter space it can reach given its tether. Even in politics, we'd not call that spin, but more of a bald- and boldface lie. But "pretty".
    - droithomme 7y ago
      That first one was commissioned by Harvard University's BioVisions project and is directed at Cellular Biology students, utilizing in Harvard's words "rigorous scientific models of how biological processes occur". http://biovisions.mcb.harvard.edu/ http://biovisions.mcb.harvard.edu/ It was produced with the oversight of cellular biologists and lead by Dr. Robert A. Lue. (https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/directory/robert-lue/ https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/directory/robert-lue/) Yet you say it is a fantasy, misleading, and cherry picked. Since you consider Harvard University's cellular biologists incompetent and misleading, could you direct us to some accurate videos and name some more competent universities that are not backwater Monty Python loony bins like you consider Harvard? Also would be great if you could provide a critique of all the deficiencies in Dr. Lue's training and background that provided the substrate of total incompetence and ignorance you have discovered in his animations that you assess as "bold and bald faced lies". Thank you! Also if you have a chance, what sort of egregious errors led to Harvard being ranked the #1 University in the world for Molecular Biology and the only one with a subject ranking of 100? https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/molecular-biology-genetics https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/mo...
throwaway_n 7y ago
If you want something more accessible, I highly recommend the BBC documentary "The Hidden Life of the Cell": https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6agslv https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6agslv If this course is at the same level of production values, I would buy it just for entertainment purposes. It beats watching CGI explosions from movies! It looks like it's just $65 dollars for independent students. The samples look decent: https://www.smart-biology.com/life-unit-1-from-atoms-to-cells-free-sample-lessons/ https://www.smart-biology.com/life-unit-1-from-atoms-to-cell...
OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago
Armando Hasudungan's hand illustrated biology and medicine videos are also excellent. https://www.youtube.com/user/armandohasudungan/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/armandohasudungan/videos
zjg 7y ago
This is pretty awesome to see. I have longed dreamed of doing this kind of work, building interactive tools for teaching science (whether in an academic setting or in science news media). I'm planning to spend some time learning three.js in the coming months, but does anyone else have advice for getting into this kind of work? Should I go deep into linear algebra and the math behind the graphics? Or just keep things simple and focus on the actual creative / artistic representation of scientific ideas? (The latter certainly seems like the harder part). Also curious where one could find paid work doing these kinds of things.

113 points by snailletters 7y ago

Computer graphics and XR are part of an opportunity to transformatively improve science education content, pre-K to graduate. And we're going to spend years aggressively declining the opportunity. As with that "Unit 1" video at the top of the page... by analogy, "<Attenborough voice> We will get to know the animal kingdom, starting with these airliner-sized mice wearing pink tutus and playing poker. Look at how beautifully rendered they are! You can just feel the feathers on their flippers. You're students will find that highly engaging." Ah well, MVP mumble mumble.

Myrmornis 7y ago
Could you clarify what you're saying? I thought the free sample video looked pretty promising. Did you?
- Koshkin 7y ago
  They are saying, nothing in these images looks like the real thing.
- mncharity 7y ago
  The "Unit 1" video presents atoms using aphysical cartoons misrepresenting size, behavior, structure, and properties. Nuclei size by more than 3 orders of magnitude. One might argue that it's so obviously physically unrealistic and representational, that it's "clearly" iconic. Except that it could easily be made more clearly iconic, but wasn't. And arguments of the form "that's so clearly unrealistic, it won't cause misconceptions" are... just not what happens. Then there are all the usual problems with computer graphical representations of chemistry, biochem, cell and tissue biology. Where "pretty"-but-misleading is prioritized over the messy multiple representations needed to avoid nurturing a rich ecology of misconceptions. > thought [...it] looked pretty promising. Did you? Better than many paper textbooks, yes. Doing the things we know are needed to produce good student outcomes... there's a ways to go. Promising? 3D graphics in general, oh very yes. But this project in particular, I've no idea. The incentives around education content are very dysfunctional. So actually providing deep transferable understanding... is usually not the metric of interest.
  - bsmitty5000 7y ago
    This seems to me like someone criticizing introductory physics courses because they're not taking into account air friction and all the other minutiae from the very beginning. If someone progresses to the point where these misconceptions really become an issue I think they would be corrected organically.
    - mncharity 7y ago
      > seems to me like [...] minutiae Or alternately, perhaps it's like students struggling with high-school stoichiometry, with atom conservation, because they've managed to remain unclear on the simple core concept that atoms are real objects, are real, physical, little balls. > think they would be corrected organically Yeah, that's a widespread impression. That say high-school misconceptions will disappear as students become undergraduate majors, and then graduate students. It's not been well studied, at least the last time I checked. But at a minimum, there are notable exceptions. If your 5-year old wants to know which finger-paint color to use for the Sun, asking a first-tier astronomy graduate student is likely to get them the wrong answer. Misconceptions turn out to be highly resilient. Which is why creating and reinforcing them is not something to do lightly.

Koshkin 7y ago

A picture is worth a thousand words; a video is worth, well, 24 pictures per second... (Times two, if it’s 3D.)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 7y ago
It's not, really. Someone needs to make a more accurate version of this saying that's rooted in information theory, to show that video isn't worth 24picturelength in seconds, but picture + whatever is communicated in how it changes over time (which is much, much less than a picture's worth).

chris5745 7y ago

This is amazing! I think this will really help the visual learners among us.

notelonmusk 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism
- chris5745 7y ago
  Are you suggesting people don’t learn visually?
  - notelonmusk 7y ago
    Would it make a difference if I did?

tasty_freeze 7y ago

The illustrations and videos are good at conveying the relative scale of things. But one mistake they make is common to just about every cartoon depiction I've seen: the molecules seem to have intent. they fly into the scene and an atom is exchanged with the binding site, then then remainder flys away again. the stochastic nature everything is completely missing.

droithomme 7y ago
> the molecules seem to have intent Take a look at dynein and kinesin walking along microtubules while dragging along their cargo. It's pretty neat. Unknown is how the really simple microtubules get to their destination while building themselves just ahead of the walkers or how the walkers know which turns to take. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbycQf1TbM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbycQf1TbM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8
- mncharity 7y ago
  > It's pretty neat And very very misleading. Those video frames are strobe-like snapshots, very carefully cherrypicked and arranged to spin a very bogus tale. Those smoothly and carefully walking legs? They're really a cross between Monty Python and Cirque du Soleil, insanely flailing all around. Including backwards. The not-quite-random walking only makes net progress. And those stately-moving barge-like things being towed as if by a donkey? Picture instead a helium balloon, held by its string. By a crazed drunk mouse clinging to rope. In a cat 5 hurricane. And that's still not flailing violently enough. Between one step and the next, that "stately barge" explores the entire parameter space it can reach given its tether. Even in politics, we'd not call that spin, but more of a bald- and boldface lie. But "pretty".
  - droithomme 7y ago
    That first one was commissioned by Harvard University's BioVisions project and is directed at Cellular Biology students, utilizing in Harvard's words "rigorous scientific models of how biological processes occur". http://biovisions.mcb.harvard.edu/ http://biovisions.mcb.harvard.edu/ It was produced with the oversight of cellular biologists and lead by Dr. Robert A. Lue. (https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/directory/robert-lue/ https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/directory/robert-lue/) Yet you say it is a fantasy, misleading, and cherry picked. Since you consider Harvard University's cellular biologists incompetent and misleading, could you direct us to some accurate videos and name some more competent universities that are not backwater Monty Python loony bins like you consider Harvard? Also would be great if you could provide a critique of all the deficiencies in Dr. Lue's training and background that provided the substrate of total incompetence and ignorance you have discovered in his animations that you assess as "bold and bald faced lies". Thank you! Also if you have a chance, what sort of egregious errors led to Harvard being ranked the #1 University in the world for Molecular Biology and the only one with a subject ranking of 100? https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/molecular-biology-genetics https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/mo...

throwaway_n 7y ago

If you want something more accessible, I highly recommend the BBC documentary "The Hidden Life of the Cell": https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6agslv https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6agslv If this course is at the same level of production values, I would buy it just for entertainment purposes. It beats watching CGI explosions from movies! It looks like it's just $65 dollars for independent students. The samples look decent: https://www.smart-biology.com/life-unit-1-from-atoms-to-cells-free-sample-lessons/ https://www.smart-biology.com/life-unit-1-from-atoms-to-cell...

OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago

Armando Hasudungan's hand illustrated biology and medicine videos are also excellent. https://www.youtube.com/user/armandohasudungan/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/armandohasudungan/videos

zjg 7y ago

This is pretty awesome to see. I have longed dreamed of doing this kind of work, building interactive tools for teaching science (whether in an academic setting or in science news media). I'm planning to spend some time learning three.js in the coming months, but does anyone else have advice for getting into this kind of work? Should I go deep into linear algebra and the math behind the graphics? Or just keep things simple and focus on the actual creative / artistic representation of scientific ideas? (The latter certainly seems like the harder part). Also curious where one could find paid work doing these kinds of things.