VIDEO: Particle Accelerators and beyond

Two new videos produced recently for the Royal Institution that take you inside the ISIS Neutron and Muon Facility in Oxfordshire. This is a scientific research facility that uses a high-energy proton accelerator to generate neutrons which are then used by visiting scientists to research the structure and properties of materials.

Find out about how they power the facility and an example of the cutting edge research taking place in the videos below!

Proteins and Particles

How to Power a Particle Accelerator

Crystal Clear: Exploring Crystallography on Film

X-ray Crystallography - ever heard of it? Perhaps not, but it's arguably one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 20th Century. Why? Well, it's an incredibly powerful technique that allows us to look at really small things, like protein molecules or even DNA! Once we know how these molecules are assembled, we can begin to better understand how they work. How does it work? Essentially you take your sample, crystallise it and then fire X-rays at it. You then measure the way in which the crystal scatters or diffracts the X-rays - the resulting 'diffraction pattern' is what you need (and a bit of maths) to work back to the structure of the molecules that make up the crystal. So in theory, as long as you can crystallise your sample - you should be able to work out the molecular structure!

To find out more watch this simple animation we recently published:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqQlwYv8VQI

The technique was developed over 100 years ago and it has led to some incredibly important discoveries, including the structure of DNA - since it's inception, work relating to Crystallography has been awarded 28 Nobel prizes. To mark the continuing success of Crystallography - we received funding from the STFC to produce a series of films that helped explain and celebrate this technique.

The above animation was scripted in house and animated by the awesome 12foot6 - it also features the voice of Stephen Curry, a structural biologist based at Imperial College London.

Understanding Crystallography

I produced and directed this two-part series, working with Elspeth Garman of Oxford University and Stephen Curry. The two pieces aim to explain how the technique works and what's needed to grow your crystals and subject them to X-ray analysis. The films take us from a microbiology lab at the University of Oxford to the Diamond Light Source, a huge facility that hosts a particle accelerator designed to generate incredibly powerful beams of X-rays.

As always, the hardest part in producing these pieces was in deconstructing the explanation of what is a very complicated process... hopefully we pulled it off - see for yourself below!

Part 1 - why proteins need to be crystallised and how this is done.

http://youtu.be/gLsC4wlrR2A

Part 2 - what it takes to shine x-rays at your crystals and how we work back from diffraction patterns to determine structures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJKvDUo3KRk

Crystallography and beyond

Producer Thom Hoffman also worked on this project - he produced two pieces, one exploring the history of farther and son team who helped develop the technique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZnLtFgGwY

and the other looking at the application of this technique on the recent Curiosity Mars rover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr_PDXyNu1E

Video: This Film Sucks! - The Science of Leeches

Tim Cockerill returns to take a  look at some leeches in a short piece produced for YouTube's Geek Week back in August. If you're a bit squeamish this probably isn't for you! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jerqq06uxAo&w=640&h=360]

We couldn't really make a video about leeches without showing off their impressive feeding apparatus, a Y-shaped jaw packing in roughly 300 teeth! This was a tricky shot to achieve, we had to persuade the leech to attach to a glass plate, holding it in position by hand, allowing us to shoot from below with a macro lens. It was a great sight to behold once we finally got it and it certainly helps bring something to the film that you hopefully wont have seen elsewhere.

We also had to get some footage of a leech feeding, so we set one loose on Tim's arm, shooting a time-lapse to demonstrate how much they can expand during the feeding. Once it had attached to feed, we were very much at the mercy of the Leech's hunger as we couldn't shoot the final shots until it had detached. As Tim mentions in the film, it's not a good idea to pull or burn leeches off as this may cause them to vomit their stomach contents back into the open wound - not a good idea if you don't know what the leech as been feeding on previously. The best course of action to take is to let detach when it's good and ready.

We also wanted to dispel a common myth about leeches using anaesthetics to dull the pain the sensation of pain whilst feeding - as Tim reports there's little scientific evidence to support this and he certainly reports to feel a stinging sensation as the leech feeds on him.

After about 3 hours the leech was finally full and very happily detached from Tim's arm - during 'the feeding' the leech utilises an anti-coagulant (called hirudin) and as you can see in the film this prevents the blood from clotting, causing the wound to bleed profusely four a couple of hours after it's detached!