October 10, 2011

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From the Axis of Evo: This Week's Monday Music Video

By Carin Bondar

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

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This week’s Monday Music Video comes to you from graduate students at UC Berkeley. Nathaniel Krefmanis a cell and molecular biologist in the Drubin/Barnes lab, and Phillip Cleves and Andrew Glazer are genetics students in the Miller lab. The model organism for most of the developmental genetics work done in the Miller lab is the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), a powerful model system in several areas of biology. So it won’t come as a surprise that the music video entitled ‘I’m bringin’ Stickleback’ (a parody of Sexyback by Justin Timerlake and Timbaland) is chock-full of references to several aspects its biology, ecology and physiology. The lyrics of this video are among its best assets, with one liners like ‘my genotype is wild’, ‘let me see your bony fish’ and ‘get your stickle on’. It’s a true delight for anyone in the fields of evolution, evo-devo, genetics or ecology. This video was my favorite, but I would also like to note that Krefmanis has produced several fantastic science parody videos, two other noteables are ‘Bright Scope/Long Lab Coat (a parody of Short Skirt/Long Jacket by Cake) and ‘Bad Habits (in lab)’ a parody of Magic by B.o.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo). Awesome work Nathaniel!

 

Carin Bondar is a biologist, writer and film-maker with a PhD in population ecology from the University of British Columbia. Find Dr. Bondar online at www.carinbondar.com, on twitter @drbondar or on her facebook page: Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist With a Twist.

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