How to work with Ebola virus.

I have a thing for science, obviously, but viruses are my ultimate love. It's the field in which I am working toward my PhD (and hopefully will receive in the next few months). Related to this, I follow an awesome virology blog and podcast put on by Dr. Vincent Racaniello. I highly recommend these resources because they are meant to be useful for non-scientists.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a cool thing they did, which was to create a documentary about a biosafety-level 4 (the highest there is) facility and what it is like to work there.

See the trailer first:

Then watch the documentary! ...through their blog or through microbeworld.

Aaaaand then read The Hot Zone to have your mind blown by virus awesomeness.

Animations are the best.

This is one of the best cell biology animations that I've ever seen. It's exciting and detailed and shows why studying viruses is a good way to understand basic cell biology! My younger brother thought it was sweet so that's a good sign for you. 

Watch Curiosity: Battlefield Cell.

 

It seems to be from a discovery series called Curiosity. I don't have cable soo thank goodness for the internets.

I really think animations like this are a great way to understand complex systems like a cell, where there are a lot of things happening in three dimensions.  I guess I was already pretty excited by cell biology from studying the normal books in high school, but if I had seen this, I probably would have peed myself.