Name that medical occurance!

[Josh Schonblum]

Impressive group who apparently does "medical animations".
Anyhow here is the challenge.
http://www.hybridmedicalanimation.com/demoReel.html
List the medical phenomenon which is happening in each scene.
First to answer gets 10 points and a cookie.

[Kara Hawkins]

These animations are awesome! Do you think that using professional animations like these to demonstrate the physiological mechanisms behind the link between unhealthy lifestyle habits and disease might motivate some people to change? (i.e. It might be easier to ignore this link when you don't really understand what's going on, but perhaps the more thorough your understanding becomes, the more difficult it will be to ignore).

[Josh Schonblum]

For sure! Most concepts and key words are utterly meaningless until your given a visual example. If we can literally see what it is that poor lifestyle choices can lead to then it becomes that much more a reality as opposed to just medical terminology.

[Tyler Vaivada]

Absolutely incredible.

This reminds me of the argument that was brought up in that podcast we listened to yesterday about how technology is making us dumb. This just goes to show what it can do to enrich learning and spark interest in health and science.

An animation showing those alveoli being destroyed by smoking, the DNA being corrupted by free radicals, or the clogging of arteries are all awesome ideas for videos such as these which could be featured on the site.

I could seriously watch these all day, especially the ones with captions or a narrator.

[Kara Hawkins]

Agreed

[Brian]

*whistle*

Impressive animations. It looks really similar to the animation of the "Life of a White Blood Cell" done by a group of Harvard students. It's pretty awesome visuals to have for a science lab, but I don't really believe it's effective in encouraging a change. Anti-smoking campaigns have brought in actual diseases ridden lungs and others organs on display for people to really realize what's happening to their body. The visuals are THERE, it's the real deal, but even that fails to change anything apart from the initial shock value.

[Tyler Vaivada]

We can't effectively STOP people (especially in this age group) from trying smoking, but we can teach them about it.

What better way than this?

Education leads to better choices no?

[Brian]

I guess. It is an excellent educational tool by all means, but hardly a means of encouraging healthier choices.

[Kara Hawkins]

I certainly see where you're coming from, i.e. illustrations on cigarette packages etc. really aren't all that effective in influencing change, BUT education is effective in influencing change (e.g. there is a robust correlation between education level and health status, admittedly there are certainly other variables at play here, e.g. social economic status, but it seems likely that having the ability to develop a descent understanding of how your body works might also play a role in this correlation). The issue here is that some people are better learners than others (for various reasons: effort, self-discipline, time management, intellectual ability, environmental circumstances - e.g. educational resources, teacher quality, distractions etc.), also people vary in their learning styles (hence the emphasis on multimedia and individually-tailored knowledge transfer that we hope to achieve with this website, i.e. something for everyone), I'm thinking that the use of animations such as these, which have the potential to enhance and perhaps simplify the learning experience, might help make the "oh, I get it!" light bulb go off in the brains of a larger number of people, which in turn may influence change.

[Tyler Vaivada]

i certainly hope so

[Brian]

as do I.