Can scientists dance?

March 8, 2008 10:59 PM

Can scientists dance? "No one quite knew what to expect as the lights came up on a pair of astrophysicists dressed as binary galaxies. The rowdy audience of scientists exploded with applause. The world's first Dance Your Ph.D. Contest was off to a good start."
posted by dhruva (18 comments total)

Emphatically NO.
posted by SevenPercentSolution at 11:08 PM on March 8, 2008

Nice find... nerdy academics are so cute!
posted by not_on_display at 11:09 PM on March 8, 2008

Yes, but not well.
posted by PM at 11:25 PM on March 8, 2008

Computer Scientists sure can.
posted by Gary at 11:31 PM on March 8, 2008

Gary,

There may be computer scientists somewhere who can dance, but your links do not bear this out. Them some whitebread geeks, but smart, no doubt. At least they got that going for them.
posted by wsg at 12:06 AM on March 9, 2008

The winner was an archaeologist, of course, rocking out.
posted by Rumple at 12:54 AM on March 9, 2008 [2 favorites]

Where can I report the winners plagiarism? They are just doing a short sanitized version of the Danza del Venado!.

If the money turns out to be bad for an archeology PhD, they could make a nice living dancing in tourist restaurants in northern Mexico.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:43 AM on March 9, 2008

Of course they can!
posted by lawrencee at 4:13 AM on March 9, 2008

Well, off the top of my head:

Dancing astrophysicist (performance clip starts about 9 minutes and 45 seconds in)

Dancing neurobiologist (performance cliip starts about 1 minute in)

Dancing biotechnologist (performance clip starts about 15 seconds in)
posted by kyrademon at 4:32 AM on March 9, 2008

I've been to events at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab and seen many scientists, mostly Asian, dancing. I give them points for effort.
posted by etaoin at 6:52 AM on March 9, 2008

I got recruited once to help a recent Geology Ph.D. stage a dramatic re-enactment of her dissertation. I got to play a layer of sediment. The girl I was trying to sleep with at the time was playing the next layer of sediment up.

Alas, it wasn't very sexy. Turns out sediment just sort of lays there.

So I'm all in favor of this dancing business. Maybe it would have helped.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:29 AM on March 9, 2008

Awesome! When I was in graduate school, my department had a tradition of putting on a skit at the annual Xmas party, in which students and postdocs roasted the faculty mercilessly (it was our only opportunity to even the score, you see). The 2 years I was in it, the skit was a fairly elaborate musical with satirical lyrics and a few dance numbers. I have to say, the music was a lot better than the dancing, but I got a few comments on the Rockettes-style kick line (maybe because I was wearing lime green polyester pants over a pillow duct-taped to my butt, in honor of a professor who basically looked like that). we were cruel
posted by Quietgal at 8:50 AM on March 9, 2008

I got recruited once to help a recent Geology Ph.D. stage a dramatic re-enactment of her dissertation. I got to play a layer of sediment. The girl I was trying to sleep with at the time was playing the next layer of sediment up.

Alas, it wasn't very sexy. Turns out sediment just sort of lays there.

Just FYI, in case the situation recurs, with enough heat and pressure (often a byproduct of tectonic megathrust seismic events leading to uplift and/or subduction around so-called "rings of fire") lowly sediments can metamorphise, fusing adjacent layers into an eternal bond. Intriguingly, such formations may include "metasediments".
posted by Rumple at 9:04 AM on March 9, 2008

Yes, we scientists can dance.
posted by kldickson at 9:09 AM on March 9, 2008

The winner was an archaeologist, of course, rocking out.

I would expect that to be a geologist, actually.

ha!
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 11:39 AM on March 9, 2008

I would expect that to be a geologist, actually.


Do you have a bone to pick?
posted by Rumple at 1:37 PM on March 9, 2008

Scientists do it.... significantly.
posted by anthill at 6:49 PM on March 9, 2008

Do you have a bone to pick?

No, thanks. I'll leave that to the paleontologists.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 9:45 PM on March 9, 2008