Science Makes Squid Cells Dance Uncontrollably to Cypress Hill
The guys at Backyard Brains, promise "neuroscience for everyone," and, by gum, they are certainly trying. For their video "Insane in the Chromatophores" (scientists are notorious lovers of bad puns, ask anybody), researchers attached a suction electrode to a squid's fin nerve and played Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Membrane" through it to stimulate it. Or, in laymen speak, pretty colors!
The video is the view through an 8x microscope of a squid's caudal that basically has no choice but to jam out. The scientists were attempting to discover the mechanism that triggers squid's iridescent structural coloration to change. Or something. INSANE IN THE BRAIN!
If there's one thing to take away from all this, it's that there definitely should have been more rap music in high school science class. Also, "responses from a structurally altered preparation indicate that the reflectin protein condensation mechanism explains peak reflectance change, while an undiscovered mechanism causes the fast colour shift," but mostly RAP MUSIC!