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I was recently a guest on a panel discussing "Making Science Public".

Among my numerous rambles, I explained why science communication could learn something from football..  maybe?

Here is what I said:



Extended footage from the panel here.

So the "excitement" of Berzelius Day is over - posting 24 short videos of chemical reactions in 24 hours.

Was chuffed to see it even rated a brief mention on the homepage of YouTube (right).

It was a fun day for my chemistry channel - periodicvideos.

But life moves on and other channels need tending to.

Three new videos have popped up today and I thought I'd share them here.

First, here's a new video for the occasional series My Favourite Scientist.

In an unusual choice, it features the fictional scientist Mr Spock!



A new Numberphile video has been uploaded - here we have a card trick with a numbery streak.



And finally Deep Sky Videos is continuing its journey through the Messier Catalogue with a new video on M76 - the Little Dumbbell Nebula.

I've blogged previously about my trip to Canada and the US, meeting with fellow YouTubers.

Today I published some videos created during the trip.

The main one, on Sixty Symbols, features five of them talking about their own logos and symbols.



In addition, there is extended interview footage with Destin and Derek.





Destin's typically honest interview contains some of his views about religion, which resulted in some rather intolerant, knee-jerk discussion on YouTube - what a shock!

Direct link to Destin's faith discussion.

PS: I also spent some time in the US with the Green brothers (from SciShow and Crash Course) and Michael Stevens from Vsauce, but never really had time to conduct interviews with them... They were pretty busy at VidCon.

Hopefully next time!?

Fans of football (or soccer, as some may say) may be aware the European Championships has begun.

Here are some football-related videos from my back catalogue (let me know if I have forgotten any!).

Steve Bennett designing a football computer game - here is a day in his life!



The physics of a football... (from Sixty Symbols)



The Professor famously analyses the World Cup trophy! (from Periodic Table of Videos)



Some football philosophy (from PhilosophyFile)



The shape of the ball... (from Numberphile)



A scientific penalty shoot-out (extra footage from the football physics film above).



Birthday probability... you'll never watch the game the same way again!? (from Numberphile)



More philosophy!



About the annoying vuvuzelas which appeared at the South Africa-hosted World Cup.

It's Australia Day.

Here are some videos - covering chemistry and astronomy - from our recent roadtrip Down Under.

This week I posted a video about a viewer in Norway who named her pet rabbit "Buckyball".

Small, round, black - it seems an appropriate name for a chemistry fan. 

Buckyball (rabbit)



The 16-year-old owner, named Izabelle, told us that Buckyball was expecting babies and was after more science-themed names.

Since then, viewers of our chemistry videos have been suggesting plenty of options. And feel free to suggest more here on the blog, etc.

However I've since cast my net wider and been asking people to share more pets who have science-inspired names.

Here are a few that have caught my eye:

Neil deGrasse Tyson (boxer dog) 



Jayden from New Zealand told me his family adopted this dog because his owners were fleeing Christchurch after the first big earthquake.

Apparently he was in poor condition and underweight, but he's since back to full fitness.

Jayden's family wanted to call the dog Tyson...

But Jayden only agreed on the condition the dog's official name was Neil deGrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist and science communicator.

Dubnium-Dysprosium (centipede)



A Swiss physicist named Maja sent me this rather alarming picture of a pet centipede named after two of the lesser-known elements on the periodic table.

Maja said she chose the name because: "I thought it sounded special."

But apparently Maja's mother preferred to call the creature "Alejandro" because it was easier to pronounce and was from a popular Lady Gaga song?!

Dubnium-Dysprosium died of old age last September.

Niels (cockatiel) 



Twitter user paradoxosaurus shared a picture of his cockatiel named Niels.

The bird's named after the late, great Danish scientist Neils Bohr.

We can now add the bird-naming to Bohr's impressive list of honours which also included the Nobel Prize.

Today I posted two videos about scientific papers.

The video for Sixty Symbols was very timely, because it was about The Beatles.

Timely because yesterday (October 9) was the late John Lennon's birthday and the third wedding of Paul McCartney.

The video is about a paper co-writen by four people, including Ed Copeland and Tony Padilla who are regulars on Sixty Symbols.

Their paper drew inspiration from The Fab Four, as they explain.



You can read the paper (for free) at this link.

The second video, from periodicvideos, was about a paper published by Pete Licence, Adrian Boatwright and Simon Puttick.

It's about using a siphon in a vacuum.

We filmed it a long time ago but had to wait for publication.



Again, here's a link to the paper, but this one will cost you $35 to read!!!

I should point out that's a fee set by the journal, not the writers.