periodicvideos-ABC-News

An occasional series on Test Tube is a light-hearted but informative guide to trees, fronted by ecologist Markus Eichhorn.

With the final Harry Potter film about to be released, Markus decided to have fun with trees used in the films.

Markus discussed, among other things, the famous Whomping Willow which appears in some of the films.

In particular, he questioned whether it's truly a willow.

It was all tongue-in-cheek, but like a typical scientist Markus has since delivered me the following analysis (for the true tree enthusiast).

"It appears that there are actually two different 'whomping willows' in the Harry Potter films.

"Both are amalgams of several different trees, though in fairness, freezing frames on the DVDs reveals that they have been dressed with appropriate willow leaves.

"The first one, which Harry crashes into in a flying car (yes, I can suspend disbelief) is almost certainly modelled on a sweet chestnut, and the bark was taken from this tree in Kew: http://www.kew.org/news/kew-chestnut-is-whomping-willow-of-harry-potter-films.htm.

"In the second film, the group fights the tree before getting thrown underneath it.

"From a distance it has silvery bark, more like a beech, and those flailing branches resemble lianas.

"Still, however, the close-up shots suggest that there is actually some willow in there.

"That said, what would a tree of wet ground be doing on a rocky outcrop?"

I just read that Neptune is about to celebrate its first birthday.

July 12 marks one Neptunian year (164.79 Earth years) since its discovery in 1846.

Sixty Symbols has done videos on all the planets (and the Sun - and Pluto - and asteroids).

Here's our Neptune video (from last year)... Some nice stories in it.

This took me a while, but I'm quite pleased with it!

It is a periodic table of QR codes, with each code linking to our YouTube video about that element.

If you don't know what a QR code is here's a Wiki article.

And here's a link to a hi-res version of the poster... Feel free to print it out and stick it up somewhere for us!!!

And here's a link to a version with symbols under each code...



PS: Special shout-out to Professor Merrifield from Sixty Symbols who loves QR codes much more than me and will be rather smug about the fact I've done this!

Received some fascinating photos from a fan in Colombia.

I'll just share the email...

Hi, I'm a chemist from Colombia.
I want to share with you a few photos of the 140's periodic table birthday. This event was made in the Antioquia University (Colombia) due to a huge effort of the group "Metodologies in Chemistry Teaching" at Chemistry Institute of the University.
And welcome at any moment in Colombia. Thanks for you magnificent project.
Johnatan Diosa Arango
Químico
Grupo de Coloides
Universidad de Antioquia




I've put bigger versions of the pics on the periodicvideos Flickr account.

Over the last few days I've been pulling together a few statistics about The Periodic Table of Videos.

It's mostly for my own use, but I thought one figure was worth sharing.

We've now uploaded 22 hours, 57 minutes and 42 seconds of footage.

Nearly a full day!

And that's just PTOV.

I have not added up the figures from other projects like Sixty Symbols and Test Tube, etc.

It occurs to me that we didn't do anything to mark the 4th of July.

So I thought I'd share this older video I filmed during a visit to the US a while back (it includes a pledge of allegiance, which caused plenty of chat in the YouTube comments section).



And The Prof answering questions from US students.

Our latest element update in Barium...

Or as one of our viewers delicately described it on Twitter, "the heavy element that goes in your butt".

This was a reference to barium meals and enemas used in x-rays... described in slightly more subtle terms by The Professor himself!