1.5M views · Aug 25, 2018 · 3:21 · 4 HN recommenders · 7 mentions · discussed 2024–2025
A Capella Science parody of Camila Cabello's Havana, retold as a song about molecular machines and nanotechnology. It features animations of rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular switches, and comes with footnotes.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters recommend it as a catchy, accurate piece of science edutainment, and admire its footnote practice.
“made a catchy "edutainment" song”HN comment, 2024
“My current song pedantry fave is”
Favorite song parody, with numbered references.
My current song pedantry fave is Nanobot , perfected by a video with 18 numbered [refs]: this video (presumably Brian May would have had his phases of astral matter correct in the first set of lyrics?)
“If you've not already watched it, I recommend this video by A Capella Science”
A cappella song on molecular machines and life as nanobots.
> could we distinguish engineered vs emergent life? I think we can tell the difference between engineered and evolved (but note that simulated evolution is still evolution) — oddities like the path of the recurrent laryngeal nerve are cited as evidence against an intelligent designer, and I expect it isn't the only such oddity: link > But I really like that the answer to a most ancient question such as "what is life" is building up to something like "it's all nanobots controlled by molecular computers"... If you've not already watched it, I recommend this video by A Capella Science : this video
“made a catchy "edutainment" song”
Catchy edutainment song with animations of molecular switches encoding binary state.
Related to the first answer: Tim Blais on youtube has made a catchy "edutainment" song [1] on molecular machines based on A. Leigh's research (eg [2]) with some cool animations that show how electrochemical "switches" can encode a binary state, which one could (in principle) use to build logic gates. [1]: this video [2]: link
“I recommend the series together for how well it frames humans in relation to other life and universe as a whole.”
Three-minute intro to nanotechnology, part of recommended series.
Yup, DNA turned out to not merely be a sequence of triplets telling a dumb matter printer which hard-coded proteins to make - at least according to what little I understand of evolutionary developmental biology[0], DNA is much more like procedural generation in gamedev or demoscene. That is, there's plenty of recipes for various structures and body parts, and then there's lots of DNA that's responsible for conditionally enabling or disabling or modulating those recipes, depending on more DNA that controls when and where and how much to enable them, and then more - a complex network of logic . -- [0] - Didn't get much further than this four-minute intro to the field, but it is a good intro : link . (EDIT: It's actually the second part of a trio, that starts with a four-minute bottom-up overview of organic chemistry[1], and ends on a three-minute intro to nanotechnology[2]. I recommend the series together for how well it frames humans in relation to other life and universe as a whole.) [1] - link [2] - this video
“EDIT: even more apropos”
Apropos link on diffusion and entropy.
It'll gradually creep away*, proportionally to sqrt(t). Got a timestamp in that video that says differently? * in the absence of (restoring) forces, it's unwise to rely on things staying where you left them, as that'd be betting against entropy. Lagniappe: link EDIT: even more apropos: this video
“Up until today, I'd only encountered this practice on A Capella Science”
Example of a video with footnotes.
Pleasantly surprised to see a video with footnotes. Up until today, I'd only encountered this practice on A Capella Science: this video
“Sometimes the footnotes[0] are even the best part.”
Example of enjoyable footnotes.
> No one is going to say, “I love lots of footnotes in writing.” I will. Sometimes the footnotes[0] are even the best part. > Otherwise, it would save a lot of time to write in a more informal tone or to not have to use citations. It may save authorial time, but it saves reader time even more by driving it to zero. As a reader (even as a reader primarily for entertainment), I'm aiming to spend my limited attention on things that someone else has thought about for a lot[1] longer than it'll take me to absorb, not just brain-dumps on a whim: ideas, not vibes. [0] eg, those in this video [1] see link
