(this article is first published in the fruit shell)

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I have read a doctor, but others always don't understand what you are doing all day. It's time for a dance!

Dance Your PhD, this is an amazing dance competition hosted by Science (to that Science), especially for doctoral and doctoral students in science. The requirement is simple: PhD /PhD students should perform their own research projects in dance and perform in person.

on February 15th, the winning results of the 11th PhD Dance Competition were newly announced (I don't know why the submission deadline and awards are so late. ). What did the doctors dance this time?

as usual, I will choose a work to focus on according to my preferences. My choice this year is the award-winning work of the biology group (and it also won the audience's favorite award) with the title: "using brain stimulation to measure the state of consciousness after severe brain injury."

well, it's a topic of saving lives, but the direction of the dance is always a bit of a mystery.

the video begins by introducing two protagonists An and B, who were originally a happy couple:

but after an accident, both of them were admitted to the hospital because of severe brain damage.

after a while, both An and B woke up from the coma. Although they opened their eyes, they did not respond to external stimuli, a condition known as unresponsive lucid syndrome (unresponsive wakefulness syndrome).

(there is no response like this. But why are you so happy about the sister who plays the medical staff in the middle? )

from the outside, the condition of these unresponsive patients is the same, but this is not the case. Some patients will slowly recover, but others remain unresponsive for a long time without improvement, or even die of serious illness.

and Olivia Gosseries, PhD in neuropsychology, is writing a paper to help doctors better judge how serious brain damage is in these patients. The specific method is to use "transcranial magnetic stimulation" to stimulate the patient's brain, and then see what changes in neuroelectrical activity.

in dance, A's brain stimulation is like this:

neurons are lifeless and slow to respond. Some are even lying dead:

(the hue of the mystery horror movie …...

after stimulating the brain of B, the situation is completely different, and the neurons become active one after another:

from this point of view, the condition of B is much more optimistic than that of A.

you can probably guess what happens next. Six months later, patient B has recovered a lot:

while the unfortunate patient A …... Not only did she die, but she was also arranged to dance on her grave.

(see the white shadow behind... )

Director, isn't that a little too much?

after introducing this work, let's take a look at several other award-winning dances:

Physics Group Champion & Champion

(contribution PhD:Pramodh Yapa)

the theme of this work is superconductivity. At sufficiently low temperatures, some metal materials exhibit superconducting properties, and the electrons in them combine to form a "Cooper pair". The dancers hugging each other represent the Cooper pair.

this video not only has self-choreographed and performed dances, but also carefully paired with a song with its own lyrics to explain the research content, but the 11-minute physics popular science song and dance is still a bit too long for me.

the champion of the chemistry group

(contributed PhD:Shari P. Finner)

this work shows how to improve the electrical conductivity of plastics. The plastic itself is mostly insulator, and the dancer in the picture who competes with cling film shows that electrons cannot move freely in the plastic. If some carbon nanotubes are added to the plastic, their electrical conductivity can be greatly improved.

Champion of the Social Science Group

(contribution PhD:Roni Zohar)

this work is probably the most intuitive and easy to understand. It discusses how to use sports activities to improve physics education. For example, the paragraph in the picture is to feel Newton's third law (force and reaction) while pushing the wall.

you can see the full video of these works in the following link, and you can also learn more about this amazing competition:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/winner-year-s-dance-your-phd-contest-turned-physics-art

if you want to participate, you can also follow the registration time. Oh, it should be held every year (works need to be uploaded to YouTube as a video).