Animations of unseeable biology | Drew Berry | TED

2.7M views · 14 years ago · talk · evergreen

Drew Berry, a biomedical animator, shows his scientifically accurate animations of molecular processes inside cells at TED, including DNA replication. He explains how data from research is turned into visuals that make the invisible machinery of life understandable.

HN people recommend it for the molecular animations, which give a lasting appreciation of cells as trillions of tiny protein machines.

“After watching that video, I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines.”

9 comments from Hacker News

j
@joering22017 · in “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
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Z
@Zealotux2025 · in “Super-resolution microscopes reveal new details of cells and disease”
Sorry for being a bit off-topic. Biology wasn't my forte in high school, I wish I had read this article back then link and seen that video (9:08 min) ▶ this video
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t
@thunderbong2025 · in “Animations of Unseeable Biology [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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t
@thunderbong2025 · in “Animations of Unseeable Biology [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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b
@benjismith2024 · in “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!!
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D
@Darkskynet2022 · in “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
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n
@nom2017 · in “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.
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n
@nol132017 · in “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)
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d
@discrisknbisque2018 · in “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