In video Veritas
"A picture is worth a thousand words" is the idea underlying a unique collaboration at Dartmouth. Biomedical science and video laser disc technology have been combined to produce a scientific journal illustrated with television segments.
The journal, Cell Motility, is edited by biology professor Robert Allen, and the video supplement is produced by the College's Office of Instructional Services, directed by psychology professor William Smith. Founded by Allen in 1981, Cell Motility is issued six times a year to report new findings about movements of and within cells. "We now offer with the journal," explained Allen, "a collection of television segments from all over the world illustrating scientific results and new data, so that scientists can communicate with one another by means of these pictures." The video supplement allows subscribers not only to read about but also to see the movements observed in laboratories. Each side of the video disc contains 54,000 frames that may be viewed in motion, in slow motion, or individually in stop motion for analysis. In addition, the video supplement makes it easier for scientists of different backgrounds to understand extremely complicated observations, which can be very difficult to describe in a reasonable amount of space.
"This may prove to be a very important shortcut in scientific communication by permitting scientists to view each other's raw observations without those observations being filtered by interpretation," noted Allen. "Viewers of these video discs can reanalyze the raw data and draw their own conclusions. College professors will find these discs an important source of illustration for their lectures."
The first video supplement contains, among other items, views of movement within cells taken from the lens of a frog's eye. The ability to detect such minute motions is the result of a new microscopy technique which Allen played a part in developing and which is used worldwide in cell research. Called "Allen Video Enhanced Contrast" (AVEC), the technique has earned widespread recognition for Allen.
The idea for a video supplement came from Smith, who has long been interested in the potential of video discs. He suggested the possibility to Allen after seeing a copy of Cell Motility and went on to obtain financial support for the venture from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, World Book, and the College. In addition, two commercial sponsors Carl Zeiss of New York and Photonic Microscopy of Illinois backed the production of the first disc.
William Smith, left, and Robert Allen, right, use the whole array of technical paraphernaliabehind them to produce a video supplement to the journal in Allen's hands, Cell Motility. An excerpt from the video disc is visible on the screen above the journal.
