Can you dance your thesis?

OK, courtesy of the CBC it’s my turn to post a funny video,  about doctoral student Maureen McKeague and a team from Carleton University.  They won Science Magazine’s top prize for something called “Dance Your PhD” .  That came with a prize of $1,000 at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City Monday night.

“I never thought I’d be asked to dance my thesis,” McKeague said. “But I’m delighted that this kind of competition is helping to get the word out about our scientific research.”

The students, wearing leotards and baggy shirts, performed a dance version of a paper called DNA Aptamer for Homocysteine Using Systemic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment.

Using a mashup of different dance styles — from highland jigs to disco — the students created a dance video to illustrate how a type of nucleic acid, called an aptamer, can bind to specific molecules. The research could have implications for the diagnosis of heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and birth defects.

Mind you, I’m none the wiser after watching it. But it’s amusing to see all those years of highland dancing (among other styles) applied to the effort.

What’s it take to render complex ideas as dance?  Would you have have enough friends willing and able to make this happen? Does unusual presentation take ideas to new places, or is this just so much larking about?

In any case, it made this non-scientist smile!