Professor Blue

Most stu­dents employ a pen­cil and paper or a com­puter to do their homework.

Imag­ine being able to do a dance to prove that you’d done your social stud­ies, math, eng­lish homework.

Well, Cedric Tan did just that, with the help of some friends, to demon­strate cer­tain repro­duc­tive behav­iors of the com­mon fruit fly, while pur­su­ing their PhD stud­ies in Zool­ogy.  What is a PhD study?  A PhD is a fancy diploma.  A cer­tifi­cate of achieve­ment.  It is proof that you have become the grand poo bah of a cer­tain sub­ject.  You’ve lit­er­ally spent years observ­ing, cal­cu­lat­ing, think­ing about, writ­ing about, and talk­ing about one thing.

Cedric Tan’s thing, as shown in the Dance below, is that he’s the grand poo bah of fruit flies and how they use the sense of smell to avoid mak­ing fly babies with relatives.

Stay tuned for an inter­view with Dr. Cedric for more info!

Dance your PhD 2011: Smell medi­ated response to relat­ed­ness of poten­tial mates from Cedric Kai Wei Tan on Vimeo.