Animations of unseeable biology | Drew Berry | TED on HackerTube: recommended by 7 Hacker News commenters across 7 separate months, 2017–2025.
talk · evergreen
Drew Berry shows scientifically accurate animations of molecular processes inside cells, such as DNA replication, at TEDxSydney.
HN recommends it for mind-blowing visuals that make cell biology tangible.
“I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines.”
7 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
This reminds me of the amazing molecular animations of Drew Berry, which he showed in this TED talk: ▶ this video Which was 12 years ago! After watching that video, I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines. Fascinating stuff!!
in “Rendering protein structures inside cells at the atomic level with Unreal Engine” · View on HN
Slightly off-topic, but this semi-animation of DNA replication machine that is working right now in your body (in amounts of trillions of devices) blew my mind few months ago. from TED: ▶ this video
in “No human genome has ever been completely sequenced” · View on HN
Sorry for being a bit off-topic. Biology wasn't my forte in high school, I wish I had read this article back then [link] and seen that video (9:08 min) ▶ this video
in “Super-resolution microscopes reveal new details of cells and disease” · View on HN
On the topic of 'scientifically accurate animations of biological processes'. You may know of these videos, but I thought these might be worth sharing for others interested in this topic: Here is a TEDTalk by Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology. (uploaded in 2012) ▶ this video Here is also a more recent video by Veritasium on YT that also talks about these animations. (uploaded in 2017) [link]
in “Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?” · View on HN
Drew Berry creates similar animations and refers to them (in this talk) as "accurate representations", but doesn't go into much detail. Interesting history in the beginning as well. ▶ this video
in “The life cycle of HIV in 3D [video]” · View on HN
If you liked this video, also check out this one: Inner Life of the Cell [link] And here's a nice TED talk by Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology ▶ this video These kind of visualizations are of course an idealized view on how it works. As others have already mentioned, the processes are hugely chaotic and much more probabilistic than deterministic. On this scale everything is just one huge wobbling soup of things crashing into each other, which makes it even more fascinating that it works as well as it does.
in “Close-Up View of DNA Replication” · View on HN
▶ this video ^My favorite way I've seen it described, and also a really cool video even without the subtext. (but ya this is one rabbit hole that I've yet to travel down. guess i took the blue pill, but more pills just seemed unnecessary at the time)
in “Why Do DMT Users See Insects from a Parallel Universe?” · View on HN