HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from Animations of unseeable biology | Drew Berry | TED Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Animations of unseeable biology | Drew Berry | TED

96 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
7 HN users recommended this talk7 months2017–2025 score 8
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN recommends it for mind-blowing visuals that make cell biology tangible.

Drew Berry shows scientifically accurate animations of molecular processes inside cells, such as DNA replication, at TEDxSydney.

“I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines.” (HN, 2024)

2 strong recommendations · 5 recommendations · Talks

7 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@joering2 Oct 2017 Strongly recommends
on HN thread No human genome has ever been completely sequenced
Slightly off-topic, but this semi-animation of DNA replication machine that is working right now in your body (in amounts of trillions of devices) blew my mind few months ago. from TED: [this video]
Animation of DNA replication machinery inside the body.
@benjismith Feb 2024 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Rendering protein structures inside cells at the atomic level with Unreal Engine
This reminds me of the amazing molecular animations of Drew Berry, which he showed in this TED talk: [this video] Which was 12 years ago! After watching that video, I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines. Fascinating stuff!!
Molecular animations showing the body as trillions of protein machines.
@nol13 Feb 2017 Recommends
on HN thread Why Do DMT Users See Insects from a Parallel Universe?
[this video] ^My favorite way I've seen it described, and also a really cool video even without the subtext. (but ya this is one rabbit hole that I've yet to travel down. guess i took the blue pill, but more pills just seemed unnecessary at the time)
Animated molecular biology that is compelling on its own.
@nom Jun 2017 Recommends
on HN thread Close-Up View of DNA Replication
If you liked this video, also check out this one: Inner Life of the Cell [link] And here's a nice TED talk by Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology [this video] These kind of visualizations are of course an idealized view on how it works. As others have already mentioned, the processes are hugely chaotic and much more probabilistic than deterministic. On this scale everything is just one huge wobbling soup of things crashing into each other, which makes it even more fascinating that it works as well as it does.
Drew Berry's TED talk on cell animations.
@discrisknbisque May 2018 Recommends
on HN thread The life cycle of HIV in 3D [video]
Drew Berry creates similar animations and refers to them (in this talk) as "accurate representations", but doesn't go into much detail. Interesting history in the beginning as well. [this video]
Drew Berry on scientifically accurate biological animations, with history.
@Darkskynet Aug 2022 Recommends
on HN thread Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
On the topic of 'scientifically accurate animations of biological processes'. You may know of these videos, but I thought these might be worth sharing for others interested in this topic: Here is a TEDTalk by Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology. (uploaded in 2012) [this video] Here is also a more recent video by Veritasium on YT that also talks about these animations. (uploaded in 2017) [link]
TED talk on scientifically accurate animations of biological processes.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close