In keeping with my emerging tradition of posting a video while contemplating my Sunday post, here’s one that shows how science education would look if us Goddam Hippies got control of the process.

You’ve got to have a little patience with the straight guy in the tie, for about three minutes, then the real learning begins. I promise this — you will be both smarter and more stoned by the time you finish this video.

From the blurb for the vid on YouTube:

On an open field at Stanford University in 1971, several hundred students convened to undulate and impersonate molecules undergoing protein synthesis by a ribosome. A few were trained dancers, wearing costumes and colored balloons to identify their roles; most were recruited with the promise of fun and refreshments.

But make no mistake: despite the flower-power feel and psychedelic strains of the “Protein Jive Sutra,” this is serious science. The narrator is Nobel laureate Paul Berg, who explains the process in a prologue that introduces the leading players, such as 30s Ribosome, mRNA, and Initiator Factor One.

EDIT: I’m having a weird sense of Deja Vu, especially because I don’t remember where I got the link. Have we done this one before? A quick search of EOB doesn’t find it.

In either case, I blame the drugs.