DNA animation (2002-2014) by Drew Berry and Etsuko Uno wehi.tv #ScienceArt
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended whenever people want to see the mechanical, jostling reality of molecular biology, which many find awe-inspiring.
What it is
A compilation of molecular animations of DNA replication and gene transcription by Drew Berry and Etsuko Uno at WEHI, made with no narration. It shows molecular machinery at work inside cells.
Recommended by 9 HN commenters across 8 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec anm89 · 2020-11 · on “I should have loved biology”
The thing that drove this home for me were the biovisions animations which got me to go back and basically learn high school biology. Seeing the mechanical nature of gene transciption and chemical signaling blew my mind. [this video] [LINK] On the other hand, I don't buy his thing about wishing his high school teacher had presented it differently. No on else can make you interested in this stuff. The best they can do is provide resources like the ones above.
Recommends pp19dd · 2020-03 · on “Covid-19 Open Research Dataset”
It takes downloading one of these files, gunzipping them, extracting the tar and opening up a JSON file at random to really understand just how distant the title of the project is from its contents. I fully realize this is about natural language processing, but... this is beyond reach. You'd have to teach a computer to become a doctor first. Feels like where AI (and computing in general) should go in case of Covid-19 and other illnesses is analyzing and simulating how the heck we work to begin with. Take a few minutes to watch these videos of supercomputer simulations that show -- fragments -- of the fundamentals of how we exist. Multi Scale Modeling of Chromatin and Nucleosomes - [LINK] DNA
Recommends Balgair · 2020-04 · on “What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics”
Some other good ones: [this video] [LINK] The GP is right in that our intuitions aren't cutting it down at the bottom. All these animations tend to edit out the water molecules so that the audience can understand better. The proteins aren't colored blobs at all. At these scales you'd clearly see individual atoms instead of blobs. But watching a bunch of really detailed atomic ball-stick models would be confusing. And not only are the H2Os battering everything like TIE fighters in the Hoth asteroid field [0], there are ions in there too (Na, K, Cl, etc) that really effect the cell. The membranes are also edited, as many cells are porcupined with receptors like an over crowded wave pool [1]. In add
Recommends jcims · 2020-11 · on “How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System”
ATP synthase is amazing. It uses the driving force from the potential gradient (aka voltage) built by the proton pump in the first video to spin at ~21,000 rpm and crank out ATP. I read that your body creates (and then consumes) about its own weight in ATP every day. This channel has a ton of great videos: [LINK] Here's one on kinetichore and mitosis (which also shows kinesin and dynein which are comically odd) - [LINK] There's a collection of their DNA ones here: [this video] Here's another view of the ATP synthesis process that shows the chaos a bit more: [LINK] When I think of these systematically I just wonder what the intermediate steps were. The proton pump uses energy to create the potenti
Recommends dnautics · 2021-03 · on “Moderna mRNA sequence released to GitHub [pdf]”
I like the wehi videos because they take effort to make the molecular motions appear to be random, a result of stuff blundering about: [this video]
Recommends ignoramous · 2023-03 · on “Close-Up of the First Mechanical Gear Ever Found in Nature”
Reminds me of this pretty common but all the more spectacular: a close-up of super complex production line (gene transcription) driven by DNA strands: [this video] / [this video]
Recommends bmitc · 2024-03 · on “Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]”
>> I think our brains are machines for predicting what happens next. > Technologist thinks that humans are machines (breaking news) While I also dismiss or at least be careful of the inherent biases of technocratic viewpoints, humans and life in general are very much made of many types of machines. Take a look at these videos: [LINK] [this video] I.e., life is insane and bewildering.
Recommends bhagyeshsp · 2026-04 · on “Biology is a Burrito: A text- and visual-based journey through a living cell”
What a beautiful depiction. Reminds me of high fidelity 3D animation videos I used to watch about DNA replication, cell signalling etc. One of the most fascinating parts to me was DNA transcription. The engineering is quite precise. Found the video I was referring to: [this video]