Damian Sendler: A chipmunk pays for groceries at the checkout in a TikTok video that has received over 30 million views and 7 million likes. “Paper or plastic?” inquires the checkout bunny. An unsettling chipmunk answers — and repeats, to the rabbit is bewilderment — “Mouth.” Next, the chipmunk eats the rabbit in hand and a mound of nuts in one gulp with its teeth. It also serves as a fun tidbit about chipmunks: their cheeks may grow up to three times the size of their heads.
Damian Jacob Sendler: Animals in human circumstances are the subject of an experiment being conducted by Natural Habitat Shorts, who state they are experimenting with “animals in human situations” by animating the chipmunk’s elastic cheeks (and morbid proclivities). “Animals see everything as routine. For them, it is just about surviving “Nicole Low, one of the account’s founders, stated this. “This is how we must see them when they videotape their life.”
Low, Brennan Brinkley, and Tyler Kula conceived of the films as a way to reinvent nature documentaries from the viewpoints of animals using TikTok. Cartoon-Network-style animation and narration are used in their movies, which depict bats enjoying coffee upside down in a café and crows dressed as scarecrows for Halloween.
Animal videos on the internet have a following, just like any other kind of video. The account has over a million followers and almost 20 million likes since it began in August.
Natural Habitat Shorts’ movies, which are less than a minute long and have well over a million views apiece, are not only going viral for chuckles. A teacher’s ambition is to get their kids enthused about science and history via the use of TikToks.
In Natural Habitat Shorts, each theme revolves on a humorous fact about a certain species. Brinkley, though, believes that nature’s absurdity lends itself to comedy, which may assist in the comprehension of difficult subjects.
A lot of humor is ironic, Brinkley said. “Finding the irony in the intriguing aspects of these creatures is critical.”
Science has a sense of comedy, and vice versa.
Damian Sendler
Using science and history as a comedy medium is nothing new. It took on subjects including previous US presidents and notable inventions for six seasons of Comedy Central’s “Drunk History,” where historical reenactments were based on intoxicated narration.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: A psychology professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Stephen Hupp, has investigated the role of humor in engaging students and discovered that constantly amusing pupils with hilarious facts or pictures may help them remember knowledge. – Stephen Hupp
Hupp believes that TikTok videos, although not as comprehensive as a whole class period’s worth of material, might help ignite the interest of students in natural history.
Hupp called it a “excellent engagement tool.”
“I have always been interested in museums and history,” says Adrian Bliss, the man behind TikTok. To gain more than 3.5 million followers, he combined his interest in these topics with a deadpan sense of humor. Reenactments of bizarre and amusing circumstances, such as an audience of crickets at the comedy performance, or a dinosaur attempting to get into Noah’s Ark, are the inspiration for his routines.
Bliss claims TikTok’s algorithms have helped him find “corners” of the site that other users have not yet discovered. As enthusiasts of the Tudor family told him, his film about Henry VIII ended up on “Tudor-Tok.”
“The most essential thing is that it be engaging and amusing,” Bliss remarked. “It is the ideal thing to produce if it ends up being instructive or motivates people to take interest in various areas.”
Bliss had no idea the book would be so well-received or that educators and scientists would take the initiative to contact her. Comments from instructors who had shown the movies to their students have been reported to Bliss. In response to Natural Habitat Shorts’ movies on bats, a bat sanctuary contacted Brinkley, Brinkley said.
A teacher has decided to display your opinion in class since they believe it is interesting, Bliss stated. A pleasant sensation. “It is quite awesome.”
As an assistant professor of educational psychology and technology at Michigan State University, Christine Greenhow focuses on social media in the classroom and how it might be used effectively. She said using hilarious films to engage children as “extremely effective.”
Students’ use of social media for educational reasons outside of the classroom should be better understood by educators, according to Greenhow.
Bliss has a vast collection of historical clothes to choose from. In the same TikTok skit, he is been Noah and all the creatures on the ark. Both Romeo and Juliet, as well as the characters from the Bible, have been performed by him. (Yes, she can dress up.)
A green screen, outfit, tripod, and a fact are all that is required for the one-man performance, which he obtains from the Natural History Museum in London and articles in National Geographic. “Down with the fourth wall” (an allusion to his characters breaching the fourth wall and establishing eye contact with the camera) sometimes applies too well in real life to his bio.
The sensation of shooting yourself in a costume is “quite odd,” Bliss added. Having the doorbell ring while costumed as a bumblebee or an egg is only a problem when it happens.
As a result, Natural Habitat Shorts is a very efficient business. Their influences include the children’s television program “Zoboomafoo” and instructive films from the Crash Course YouTube channel, which the three discovered while studying film at Florida State University. Natural Habitat Shorts has a new follower in Hank Green, one of the Crash Course creators.)
Everything from storyboards to animations to voiceovers and editing is handled by the three of them.
In his words, “Anyone can do it,” Brinkley said. “All you need is a group of individuals whose sense of humor you can rely on.”
With its endless flow of films under three minutes, TikTok offers a place for short, punchy content—Bliss’ and Natural Habitat Shorts’ videos have never lasted more than one minute. According to Brinkley, the allotted time is just long enough to establish a concept and conclude with a joke.
He said that his movies were never meant to be utilized in a classroom or to replace a lecture. He does, however, intend to stir interest in issues that he finds humorous by writing about them.
You may make a fascinating information more accessible by presenting it in a funny manner, according to Bliss. “Of course, you can not cover everything, but it is an excellent starting point.”
To be successful, both Bliss and Natural Habitat Shorts say they must provide material that they find both interesting and amusing. Every fact has its own joke, as the old adage goes.
As Kula put it, “I do not see us ever running out.” This is a problem of overpopulation.
The James Webb Space Telescope’s journey into deep space was only the beginning.
To be sure, the telescope was launched on Christmas Day, but it still has a long way to go before it can see the cosmos in orbit.
In order for the observatory to reach a certain orbital position a million miles from Earth, it must spend “29 days on the edge,” as the organization calls it.
Damien Sendler: A wide range of cosmic events will be studied, including the first glimmers after the Big Bang that formed our universe, and the birth of the galaxies, stars, and planets that now populate it. For the first time ever, astronomers will be able to study the planets and galaxies that originated 13.5 billion years ago because to the capabilities of this telescope.
NASA’s most sophisticated telescope was developed to achieve all of these goals, and it must all operate perfectly before it can begin operations.
A enormous gold mirror and a tennis court-sized sunshield will be unfurled by Webb throughout the duration of the 29-day festival. Thousands of components must work together and in the correct order to complete this task. Each step may be regulated from the ground in case there are problems.
Webb has already had a tremendous start to the season. Two of the three necessary course correction burns have already been performed by the spacecraft to verify that it is on the proper trajectory.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Because the Ariane 5 rocket was so precise in its launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, “the observatory should have adequate fuel for support of scientific activities in orbit for much more than a 10-year research lifespan,” NASA said.
An initial five-year timeline was established for the mission’s execution. We have already seen observatories like Spitzer and Hubble beyond their predicted lifespans, so scientists are betting that Webb will do the same.
It was on December 26 that Webb delivered its antenna assembly, which includes a high-data-rate dish antenna, that would serve as the telescope’s means of transmitting back 28.6 terabytes of research data twice day.
To trace Webb’s voyage since launch and share photographs and video of the observatory against a background of stars, astronomers have even used The Virtual Telescope Project.
Now, Webb is beginning to take on the recognizable form that it will become once all of the components are in place. Pallet components that will eventually support the sunshield have been unfurled and attached to the spaceship, a procedure that will continue until Sunday. Additionally, the team widened the Deployable Tower Assembly, which separates the spacecraft’s two sections.
As a whole, the observatory is made up of three parts.
There is a place for Webb’s four instruments in the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). Images will be captured or spectroscopy will be utilized to break down light into distinct wavelengths in order to identify physical and chemical components using these devices.
The spacecraft bus and sunshield are included in the Spacecraft Element. To put it another way: The bus contains all of the spacecraft’s essential components: propulsion, power, communications, data, and temperature controls.
In order to study the cosmos in its intended form, a temperature of minus 188 degrees Celsius must be maintained on Webb’s large mirror and equipment, which will be shielded from the sun’s heat by the gigantic five-layer sunshield.
For Webb to work properly, the sunshield must be successfully installed, and NASA says this is one of the most difficult spacecraft deployments it has done.
According to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, there are 50 key deployments that turn Webb from its stowed, launch configuration into a fully operating observatory.
“A successful mission requires the execution of these important actions, even if they have been tested and rehearsed on the ground and in the Mission Operations Center. Best wishes to our team, and stay cool, Webb!”
If all goes according to plan, Webb will now release its sunshield coverings, extend booms, and stretch the five layers of the sunshield into position.
Then there is the mirror, which has become something of a signature for Webb.
Once the telescope is in orbit, it will be able to capture more light from the things it sees thanks to a mirror that can stretch to a huge 21 feet and 4 inches (6.5 meters) in length. Hexagonal gold-coated pieces of 4.3 feet (1.32 meters) in diameter make up the mirror’s 18 sections.
It is the biggest mirror NASA has ever constructed, but its size posed a unique challenge. Because of its size, the mirror was unable to go in a rocket. In order to fit in a 16-foot (5-meter) launch area, the telescope’s mechanical sections were intended to fold like an origami crane.
Getting all of those mirrors out and locking them together to form one gigantic mirror is a critical next step for Webb.
All of this work should be completed by the end of next week at the latest.
One additional change will be made to the trajectory of Webb, which will take it into an orbit that extends beyond the moon.
In addition to that, the telescope will spend six months in orbit being commissioned, which includes cooling down the equipment, aligning them, and calibrating them. The instruments will all be checked to make sure they are in good working order.
Webb’s initial photographs are planned to be revealed in June or July of 2022, reshaping our understanding of the cosmos for the better.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.
