Getting Down to Their Dissertations

Her modern dance, based on her research on how the brain processes regular and irregular verbs, was one of the winning submissions. With simple steps, jumps, slides and turns, she demonstrated that the brain uses the same neural network to process different kinds of verbs.

A contest created by the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science...

A contest created by the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science challenged scientists and graduate students around the world to choreograph dances that represent their doctoral theses and then post them on YouTube as part of the Dance Your Ph.D. competition.

(Courtesy Science/AAAS)

"Usually science only approaches a few people. Just to bring it into a broader perspective, I thought was very amazing," she said. "Usually science is so highly specialized. It was a challenge to bring this into an expression that a lot of people can understand."

Christin Murphy, a graduate student at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, took a different approach.

To share her research on "Hydrodynamic Trail Detection in Marine Organisms," she used ... hula hoops.

Hydrodynamic trails are created when water animals -- like lobsters -- move through the water. Detecting these water vortices is crucial for underwater creatures that use the information to prey on other organisms or avoid predators, Murphy said.

She's been a dancer for most of her life and has been hula hooping for the past few years. When she had a chance to dance to her work, the hoops immediately came to mind. She donned a sparkling spandex suit and, to a Beach Boys medley, twirled away.

"It's fun and visual and makes it really accessible in the community and outside the community," Murphy said.

By watching videos posted by the competition, she said that she herself learned information that she wouldn't otherwise encounter.

"They're not articles I would have read, but I will certainly remember the dances," she continued.

Other winning submissions include a modern dance piece on the "molecular dance in the blood," a lively twist on the role of vitamin D in beta-cell function and a physics tango that won the popular choice category with more than 14,000 visits.

All the entries are posted online at the contest's Web site.

Bohannon hopes to secure enough funding to support a world tour that will allow the scientists to share their work with an international audience.