Aardvark Daily

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Now that's interesting

It's amazing what you find on the internet when you're twiddling your thumbs and dying to get back to work...

While checking my usual haunts, I came across several absolutely brilliant university-based science YouTube channels that kept me entertained and somewhat better educated for an entire day on Monday.

Making science into a subject that captures the attention, the minds and the spirits of the average person is not an easy challenge. As soon as you trot out a graph, formula or start using polysyllabic words, many "average" viewers will start searching for some pirated copy of a US reality TV show instead.

However, I'll give the following channels a plug because they've done an excellent job of keeping me clicking on video after video of their offerings -- and I think, based on my assumptions of the average Aardvark reader, you'll probably find likewise.

First up is the Sixty Symbols channel which bills itself as being "cool videos about physics and astronomy".

This channel also has an accompanying website which is worth a look as well.

Run by folk from the University of Nottingham, it seems that Sixty Symbols was originally set up as a limited series of vids that would explain the top 60 symbols associated with physics and astronomy. Like so many "best laid plans", the success of the idea came as a surprise to its initiators so that now the videos on this channel have been watched nearly 30m times and have attracted almost 380,000 subscribers.

Well done... and well worth browsing through what's on offer, I think you'll find something to interest you pretty quickly.

The other super-cool science channel I spent an inordinate amount of time watching is also created by The University of Nottingham and is the Periodic Videos channel, again with accompanying website.

This channel is even more popular than the previous one, boasting over 400K subs and almost 60m views.

In fact, it appears as if the University of Nottingham have done a splendid job of creating a range of similar offerings such that they run 19 channels with a total of over 187 million views and 2.4m subscribers!

Who would have thought that science would be so damned popular?

Perhaps there is hope for the world yet, in the face of relentless reality TV series! :-)

If you take some time to scan these (and the related) channels, how about sharing your favourite videos -- or indeed, other similar channels with a science/technology focus via the forums.

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