ScienceHack

If you searched YouTube, the community-driven video site, for the term "biology" in early October, the first result you would have received was Girls Aloud, a quintet of black-clad women gyrating and singing their single, "Biology." If you searched ScienceHack, a video-hosting site for the sciences, for the term "biology," the first result was a video entitled Evolution of the Eye."YouTube and other video-hosting services started filling up with spam and search for videos using keywords returned irrelevant results, conspiracy theories and low-quality production videos," ScienceHack founder Rami Nasser wrote in an Email. Nasser, who works as an electrical engineer while studying at the Dalhousie School of Business in Halifax, Nova Scotia, grew tired of sorting the wheat from the chaff on these services--so he created ScienceHack, where he posted science-related videos that met certain criteria of production quality and scientific accuracy.Now, ScienceHack hosts over 600 videos and receives about 2,000 visitors per day. Nasser receives all his content from his users and reviews it himself. The site claims that "every video is screened and approved based on accuracy and quality by our scientists." However, Nasser says he is the only one reviewing the videos."I find that all of the scientific content is as good as you can find on TV," said David Bickford of the National University of Singapore, who reviewed ScienceHack for The Scientist. (Bickford co-authored a recent opinion suggesting conservationists post videos on YouTube.) "That is to say, the level of information is mainstream and dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. While there are not many factual errors, there are many of the typical simplistic treatments of complex problems with the overuse of cliches or inappropriate metaphors."Kelly Pennington, of the University of Minnesota Conservation Biology Graduate Program, who also reviewed ScienceHack, noted in an Email that the site would be useful "to an interested public with time on their hands, but not enough time to search YouTube themselves." However, without cited sources, it's difficult to verify the accuracy of ScienceHack clips, she added. "It makes it impossible for me to judge the objectivity and reliability of the information in the videos, and therefore I'm not comfortable using these in a presentation to other scientists or to students."While advanced scientists may not use the site because of its lower-level target audience, Nasser has noticed the IP addresses of several high schools and universities in his site statistics, which may mean that schools are beginning to use ScienceHack as a research tool.For example, there is Joe, whose corpus callosum was severed in order to allay the effects of severe epilepsy. The video, "Split brain behavioral experiments," features a young Michael Gazzaniga, famous for his work with the lateralization of cognitive functions across the cerebral hemispheres. Another popular video of basic science is "Gene Control in Plants," a video on cytoplasmic cell biology."I just added a news section where users can submit news articles and videos, comment on them and vote for them," wrote Nasser. "Eventually, teachers and professors will be able to create a customized page for their school or class where students can watch videos related to their curriculum and comment on them."Nasser launched ScienceHack in May of 2007. He hopes to continue improving the site until it becomes a more robust and widespread resource of scientific media. And while this means that you won't find videos of goofy Japanese game shows, you can still find a little scientific fun, like Gummy Bears exploding in molten potassium chlorate -- now viewed over 30,000 times.Jonathan Scheff mail@the-scientist.comLinks within this article:YouTube video hosting http://youtube.com/"Girls Aloud," by Biology, hosted on YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=w-vDTTtVBXAScienceHack science video hosting http://sciencehack.com"Evolution of the Eye," hosted on ScienceHack http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/Stb9pQc9Kq0Rami Nasser http://raminasser.com/R. Clements, D. Bickford, and DJ Lohman, "Can YouTube save the planet?" The Scientist, September 1, 2007. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53525/"Split brain behavioral experiments," hosted on ScienceHack http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/ZMLzP1VCANoA. McCook, "Panel limits use of embryos," The Scientist, April 5, 2004. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22092/"Gene Control in Plants," hosted on ScienceHack http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/CVauCphuTyw"Human Tetris II," hosted on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84_QL1kEmH4"Gummy Bear (Sucrose) in molten potassium chlorate," hosted on ScienceHack http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/MUensqImzXM

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