Smile, you're on video!

Trying to learn experimental procedures by following the instructions of the "Materials and Method" part of a paper can be quite an adventure. Written instructions, that seem so clear to the author, can easily be misunderstood by others. The video how-to's, published by the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), a new online journal, come as an answer to this problem.

Do you know how to separate eggs and whip them to a foam? And what about a mixture, where you are told to "fold in the beaten egg whites"? Some can imagine themselves standing there with a cookbook in their hands after a few failures, desperately longing for someone to come and show them how to make that damned mousse au chocolat. No problem, others will say, thinking of the soufflŽ they made last night.

When you are already familiar with the techniques described, recipes are easy to follow. You just need the book to look up the amount for each ingredient. However, to actually learn how to "fold in egg whites" a written description is clearly not the best choice. Although you understand that ordinary stirring will pop the air bubbles and ruin the delicate texture of your dessert, you don't know how to mix without stirring. You may have to read about that folding technique several times and still can't imagine the procedure in your mind's eye. Depending on the skills of the writer, understanding what is meant can range from difficult to misleading.

And what applies to the kitchen holds true for the laboratory, too. The situation is actually worse for scientists. Every year new techniques emerge and it takes weeks or even months to establish them in the lab. People have to regularly pour over written protocols of the most complex manipulations. They often become puzzled by techniques that aren't that challenging when demonstrated but might remain a mystery when reading descriptions only.

If flying in an expert is not within your budget but you still long for someone to show you the tricks and handling in a field of research new to you, take a look at the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). JoVE is a newly launched online database of lab videos, demonstrating experimental procedures of the life sciences step by step. Here you find a practical guide for nuclear transfer in mouse oocytes or you can learn how to monitor actin disassembly with time-lapse microscopy. You're more interested in gene-gun transfection of hippocampal neurons? Or you want to get acquainted with the adhesion/invasion assay in yeast? JoVE is your friend. Watching the videos is free of charge for everyone and you don't have to register.

You'd also like to add your own contribution to the list? JoVE invites submissions in all areas of biological sciences. An editorial board is currently reviewing the videos. Setting up a peer-review process is planned for the future. The project is run through volunteer work by the initiator Moshe Pritsker, postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and his friend, Nikita Bernstein, who provides technical support. As Pritsker told Nature he hopes to eventually sell advertisements, so that no fee has to be levied for the publication of the videos.

It looks as though we no longer have to worry about reproducing scientific protocols. So maybe you can snatch a little extra time to talk about "folding in" beaten egg whites again. For those of you that are still wondering how to mix without stirring, here's a description I found:



I don't know what you think but reading this, I feel a strong need for a Journal of Visualized Cooking, where experts can enlighten the less experienced. Any volunteers? Peer review would be cool, too. Although it's not an absolute must-have for me ...

(The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is available at http://www.myjove.com/)

Last Changes: 11.12.2006