I find it so entertaining that our international science travels overlap. I just got back from the U.K. and now I'm about to leave for Kenya. When I was in France trying the visit the national herbarium (which was an adventure in and of itself), the most useful French for me was probably the alphabet. That way when people didn't understand my pronunciation I could spell it for them. I did that surprisingly often. I hope the rest of your trip is amazing!
Oh I definitely have those 'DEAR GOD PLEASE WORK' moments in the lab haha, I'm glad it worked though, those heart cells are absolutely mind blowing! also, I can't stress how much I love the style of your videos!! great job :)
It's inspiring to see your new expirience as a “ international science traveler“ :) i didn't know that heartcells beat bevor they are a “real“ heart also great impression from Helsinki, have a nice stay there So thank you that you sharing your journey with us. greetings from Berlin Gabriel
I'm so glad to hear that you're proud to be a Patron! I really do always hope that all my patrons are proud of the work they're helping to support! And according to my own 23andMe data, I'm 0.3% Finnish! That counts, right ;)
Wow, beating heart cells made from stem cells. Can we just stop for a second and appreciate how cool this is, like science fiction irl cool. . . . . . . . . . . Ok, moving on :) I love how excited you are about learning Finnish! I always carry a dictionary when ever I go to a foreign country. I feel more immersed learning the language while being there and idk, it's just fun :D I know some people whose first language is English and they sometimes get surprised or upset that people in some place don't speak English, so it's interesting to see it from your perspective and how it's kinda the opposite, heh. Also, I don't think it's the same experience coming to America because, at least in modern Europe, English is treated more like a standard 2nd language rather than some foreign language. Most people just kinda know it so when they go to an English speaking country they feel less intimidated than someone else who would visit their country. One thing I like to do, and I think is useful and fun (though an argument could be made that it isn't a primary concern) is to focus on the pronunciation. You mentioned podcasts, great way to immerse yourself into the sounds of a language. There are to aspects to this: training your ear and training your tongue/mouth. The former is like carefully listening to music, finding every inflection, noticing the difference between similar sounds in different contexts, etc. The latter is harder because is physical, especially if you lack flexibility from a 2nd/3rd language but like every other muscle, it can be trained with effort and repetition. It's really good to hear, for example, a single word said by different people, in different contexts because I think our brains are especially good at abstracting away the crucial part of the pronunciation. Unfortunately there aren't many good materials for this, short of just listening to the language for a long time. Also, people usually think language is about words and grammar but actually it's about communication including a non-verbal component which isn't taught in schools, but which quickly becomes apparent to anyone who is forced into a very quick immersion. If you have Finnish friends you can ask one of them to talk to you and correct your mistakes but you should also have one for a more important and fun exercise: freestyle talking ;D Off the book, no corrections and no English, the point is just to vaguely understand and be understood. It seems like it wouldn't be possible but I think you would be surprised how good the human brain is at subconsciously interpreting and finding patterns when it has no other choice :) This comment became way longer than I planned, sorry about that. I could just talk about this stuff for hours on end. Anyway, I hope you have a great stay in Helsinki ^^
I plan to try as many things as possible! I refuse to turn down anything offered and have been trying to buy each interesting thing I see. I haven't actually seen lutefisk yet though... but there's still time!
Having spent a short time living in a country where English was not the first language made me really sympathize with students who come here to study. For the first few weeks I would come home in the evening with my brain totally fried. Having to concentrate on each word that is said is so tiring. In science English has become the common language.
Hi Alex, I just discovered your channel, totally by accident - I was searching for "lab tour" (but I've meant a home networking lab, not a biology lab). Anyways, basically we have nothing in common - i'm a guy who's much older than you, from Europe, I have nothing to do with biology (in face, I hated it even back in high school) and I'm working in IT and electronics. So why did I watch like about a dozen of your videos in the last hours and why did I subscribe? Well, because a lifetime ago I was as enthusiastic about science as you sound to be and your videos brought back a lot of memories of my former self - the young student who wanted to work in a lab, discover new stuff, do experiments (though with algorithms and not genes), make breakthroughs, travel to foreign countries and work with colleagues there, etc. and in general to live for science. I think somewhere along the way I kinda lost track and now these videos of yours reminded me about what makes me tick. So I just wanted to tell that I owe you a big thank you and I wish you all the best from Hungary :)
I had the same language experience when I lived in the Netherlands for a year. I spent 2 years learning as much Dutch as I could before I moved, but I had great difficulty having a conversation in Dutch. I'd speak Dutch, they'd answer in English. I'd answer in Dutch, they'd still reply in English. I ended up learning more from watching Law & Order with Dutch subtitles than I did from conversation. Misdaad means crime.
Welcome to Finland! We have cookies... erm... salmiakki, I mean. Though I'm sure you could find some salmiakki cookies, if you wanted to. Thankfully you got here during good feather. Just 2-3 weeks ago people were skiing...
Considering I've seen salmiakki ice cream, salmiakki chocolate, and salmiakki potato chips, I'm sure the cookies exist... I've been sticking with sweeter flavors however! And actually, it snowed the second week I was here (this video is a little delayed). It was actually nice to see, as I miss it in California!
Nice to hear someone is not tired of the snow! :) As long as we're talking about weird finnish flavors, might I recommend tar? (Yep, real wood tar). You can get at least tar candy (Tervaleijona) and tar lemonade (Rili). There was tar ice cream, but I think that was a one-summer thing.
Hi Alex, I just discovered your channel, well, I discovered it a couple hours ago and by now I already watched a lot of your previous videos. And by that I want to say congratulations on creating this, you speak so naturally and you are so clearly talking about your field of knowledge that you should not worry about being or not an expert, this kind of thing comes naturally from you. I am also a grad student, currently doing my PhD on peptides/proteins and I can identify myself in those lab situations. I am thinking about creating a youtube channel also about science (but in portuguese, my native language), do you have any tips on doing a channel about science? Thank you and keep up the good work.
+Bruno Gildo Dalla Vecchia Morales Hello from one grad student to another! My biggest tip is to be yourself (what better way to show your enthusiasm for science) and to not be afraid to answer questions with "I don't know... let's find the answer together!" My favorite videos (like my one on peaches and nectarines) came from just that kind of question!
Terve Alex ! Interesting video (y) , best explanation on Salmiaki I´ve heard. If I´m not mistaking one of our human liquids contain amonium....that might be why most non Scandinavians don´t like it ;) Btw I love salmiaki , and I like you , down to earth personality.
Woo! Science with Alex! XD Also, if you want to learn some finnish, just ask someone on your team to go through some things with you during a break or something. Natives are always the best resource when it comes to learning a new language
First, I just want to say I really love the vlogs but if I had to say one thing that I really want more of is more science. I'm talking about the videos that you did about the genome sequencing on the ISS/at NASA, the CRISPR video, and the peach/nectarine video. Maybe go into more on how you take stem cells and make them into, what I assume is, myocardiocytes. I know that it kinda steps into your research a bit and people get a bit iffy about sharing their research before results are published. I also understand that the science videos take much longer to research and produce but they are always amazing.
Since I've heard there were candies made with ammonium chloride, I've always felt compelled to taste this salt each and every time I use this reagent in the lab :p Unfortunately, consumption of chemicals in the lab is obliviously very forbidden. I should probably just order some salmiakki online instead :P
I'm just a couple years behind, but.. That's a thing we do on our chemistry classes in Finland :D There has to be something to get the kids excited for and making something that resembles candy seems like a good place to start.
Spanish is the only other language I can really speak, though I'm massively out of practice. I do always try to learn at least enough of the language of the location that I'm traveling to to be polite, so I can still recall how to say please and thank you and excuse me in a few others as well.
Well Finnish is super hard to learn. I´m from Sweden and don´t understand any Finnish at all. Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have pretty simular langages, but finnland.. Man thoose guys must be on something, that langage is so strange.
It requires a bit of a different mindset, but if you speak Swedish, it's possible to pick up on some Finnish quite easily. A full 1/3 of the vocabulary in Finnish is from Swedish, it's just the complex conjugation and declination of words that makes it seem unintelligible. Consider this random assortment of words (just ones that happened to pop into my head): Torg = Tori Fara (som "farlig") = Vaara Kyrka = Kirkko Källare = Kellari Lag = Laki Domare = Tuomari Haj = Hai Verkstad = Verstas Ättika = Etikka Pojke = poika Lamm = lammas Gata = katu Furthermore, the pronunciation of those words is by and large even more similar than their orthography would indicate. The problem that I was alluding to before is that in Finnish, one might use a word like "toreillanneko", which seems unintelligible to a Swede. However, the root of the word is "tori/torg", and it translates to something like "...på era torg?" (depending somewhat on context). If you focus on the first few letters of a Finnish word, you might find something you recognize.
I'm quite sad that English is becoming more of a universal language, but it's quite nice to hear a French person and a German both talking in a common language (for example).
Heart cells beat? Before they're assembled into a full heart? That's fascinating!!
Isn't it?!?! These are some of my favorite cells.
How does that work without an outside electrical stimulus or an SA node?
Beating heart cells! Congrats! And the weather was incredible, not partly cloudy with drizzle as it so often is. Looks like you had a great time!
I find it so entertaining that our international science travels overlap. I just got back from the U.K. and now I'm about to leave for Kenya. When I was in France trying the visit the national herbarium (which was an adventure in and of itself), the most useful French for me was probably the alphabet. That way when people didn't understand my pronunciation I could spell it for them. I did that surprisingly often. I hope the rest of your trip is amazing!
Oh I definitely have those 'DEAR GOD PLEASE WORK' moments in the lab haha, I'm glad it worked though, those heart cells are absolutely mind blowing! also, I can't stress how much I love the style of your videos!! great job :)
Girl your Badass scientist don't doubt yourself .
The faces you made eating that were priceless. :)
this was wonderful. helsinki looks stunning.
It's inspiring to see your new expirience as a “ international science traveler“ :)
i didn't know that heartcells beat bevor they are a “real“ heart
also great impression from Helsinki, have a nice stay there
So thank you that you sharing your journey with us.
greetings from Berlin
Gabriel
Thank you. Very good and interesting Video. Can't wait for more!
Thank you for watching!
Exciting stuff you are doing!
Great video! Proud to "patronize" content like this.
And I loved learning a couple words of Finnish. That's part of my ancestry, as shown my by DNA test
I'm so glad to hear that you're proud to be a Patron! I really do always hope that all my patrons are proud of the work they're helping to support! And according to my own 23andMe data, I'm 0.3% Finnish! That counts, right ;)
Awesome!
ahhhh Helsinki... Finland... I miss this place so much. Try the fazer salmiakki ice cream !!!
I haven't been brave enough to try more! Everything *is* better as ice cream...
Wow, beating heart cells made from stem cells. Can we just stop for a second and appreciate how cool this is, like science fiction irl cool. . . . . . . . . . . Ok, moving on :)
I love how excited you are about learning Finnish! I always carry a dictionary when ever I go to a foreign country. I feel more immersed learning the language while being there and idk, it's just fun :D
I know some people whose first language is English and they sometimes get surprised or upset that people in some place don't speak English, so it's interesting to see it from your perspective and how it's kinda the opposite, heh. Also, I don't think it's the same experience coming to America because, at least in modern Europe, English is treated more like a standard 2nd language rather than some foreign language. Most people just kinda know it so when they go to an English speaking country they feel less intimidated than someone else who would visit their country.
One thing I like to do, and I think is useful and fun (though an argument could be made that it isn't a primary concern) is to focus on the pronunciation. You mentioned podcasts, great way to immerse yourself into the sounds of a language. There are to aspects to this: training your ear and training your tongue/mouth. The former is like carefully listening to music, finding every inflection, noticing the difference between similar sounds in different contexts, etc. The latter is harder because is physical, especially if you lack flexibility from a 2nd/3rd language but like every other muscle, it can be trained with effort and repetition. It's really good to hear, for example, a single word said by different people, in different contexts because I think our brains are especially good at abstracting away the crucial part of the pronunciation. Unfortunately there aren't many good materials for this, short of just listening to the language for a long time.
Also, people usually think language is about words and grammar but actually it's about communication including a non-verbal component which isn't taught in schools, but which quickly becomes apparent to anyone who is forced into a very quick immersion. If you have Finnish friends you can ask one of them to talk to you and correct your mistakes but you should also have one for a more important and fun exercise: freestyle talking ;D
Off the book, no corrections and no English, the point is just to vaguely understand and be understood. It seems like it wouldn't be possible but I think you would be surprised how good the human brain is at subconsciously interpreting and finding patterns when it has no other choice :)
This comment became way longer than I planned, sorry about that. I could just talk about this stuff for hours on end. Anyway, I hope you have a great stay in Helsinki ^^
that moi moi in the end was perfect btw 😉
Alex: I love your videos and I wish you would make more of them :)
I love this Helsinki vlog! please make more? how long will you be staying in Finland?
Exciting journey! Congrats on the lab successes. Any plans to try the lutefisk while you are there?
I plan to try as many things as possible! I refuse to turn down anything offered and have been trying to buy each interesting thing I see. I haven't actually seen lutefisk yet though... but there's still time!
Well done with the cell line! The clip of the beating cells was brief but nice :) Will you travel to other EU countries after?
keep the videos coming! good work
Having spent a short time living in a country where English was not the first language made me really sympathize with students who come here to study. For the first few weeks I would come home in the evening with my brain totally fried. Having to concentrate on each word that is said is so tiring. In science English has become the common language.
Here's one possible translation for "Go forth and do science!":
"Menkää ja tehkää tiedettä!"
Welcome to Helsinki! Hope you enjoy your stay.
Kiitos!
omg that's so cool good for you . and yep we get your point science is international ... goo science 😀😀😀
Hi Alex,
I just discovered your channel, totally by accident - I was searching for "lab tour" (but I've meant a home networking lab, not a biology lab). Anyways, basically we have nothing in common - i'm a guy who's much older than you, from Europe, I have nothing to do with biology (in face, I hated it even back in high school) and I'm working in IT and electronics. So why did I watch like about a dozen of your videos in the last hours and why did I subscribe? Well, because a lifetime ago I was as enthusiastic about science as you sound to be and your videos brought back a lot of memories of my former self - the young student who wanted to work in a lab, discover new stuff, do experiments (though with algorithms and not genes), make breakthroughs, travel to foreign countries and work with colleagues there, etc. and in general to live for science. I think somewhere along the way I kinda lost track and now these videos of yours reminded me about what makes me tick. So I just wanted to tell that I owe you a big thank you and I wish you all the best from Hungary :)
This is such a sweet and wonderful comment! I am so happy to have brought some of those memories back for you!!
I had the same language experience when I lived in the Netherlands for a year. I spent 2 years learning as much Dutch as I could before I moved, but I had great difficulty having a conversation in Dutch. I'd speak Dutch, they'd answer in English. I'd answer in Dutch, they'd still reply in English. I ended up learning more from watching Law & Order with Dutch subtitles than I did from conversation. Misdaad means crime.
I've heard of this before, the Scandinavia and the World webcomic did a bit about it called "Language Barrier".
Hah, I just looked it up, and that does seem to be accurate, if exaggerated. Everyone here has been very, very nice about it!
Welcome to Finland! We have cookies... erm... salmiakki, I mean. Though I'm sure you could find some salmiakki cookies, if you wanted to.
Thankfully you got here during good feather. Just 2-3 weeks ago people were skiing...
Considering I've seen salmiakki ice cream, salmiakki chocolate, and salmiakki potato chips, I'm sure the cookies exist... I've been sticking with sweeter flavors however! And actually, it snowed the second week I was here (this video is a little delayed). It was actually nice to see, as I miss it in California!
Nice to hear someone is not tired of the snow! :)
As long as we're talking about weird finnish flavors, might I recommend tar? (Yep, real wood tar). You can get at least tar candy (Tervaleijona) and tar lemonade (Rili). There was tar ice cream, but I think that was a one-summer thing.
There's even sparkling mineral water with salmiakki taste, which is ... um... interesting :o) I mean, disgusting. Normally I love salmiakki.
Great that you are trying to learn and use Finnish! I think you may be living on my street... Enjoy the rest of your time in Finland!
Moi, naapuri!
Heyy Helsinki!! I live like an hour away from there and am applying to that university to study pharmacy :D
I loved this vlog! :)
gz on 25k onward to 100k! ..for science :)
Thank you!!
Hi Alex, I just discovered your channel, well, I discovered it a couple hours ago and by now I already watched a lot of your previous videos. And by that I want to say congratulations on creating this, you speak so naturally and you are so clearly talking about your field of knowledge that you should not worry about being or not an expert, this kind of thing comes naturally from you. I am also a grad student, currently doing my PhD on peptides/proteins and I can identify myself in those lab situations. I am thinking about creating a youtube channel also about science (but in portuguese, my native language), do you have any tips on doing a channel about science? Thank you and keep up the good work.
+Bruno Gildo Dalla Vecchia Morales Hello from one grad student to another! My biggest tip is to be yourself (what better way to show your enthusiasm for science) and to not be afraid to answer questions with "I don't know... let's find the answer together!" My favorite videos (like my one on peaches and nectarines) came from just that kind of question!
I don't know why you doubted your ability to make hearts skip a beat. ;-)
Terve Alex ! Interesting video (y) , best explanation on Salmiaki I´ve heard. If I´m not mistaking one of our human liquids contain amonium....that might be why most non Scandinavians don´t like it ;) Btw I love salmiaki , and I like you , down to earth personality.
did you try compressible input in order to learn Finish
Woo! Science with Alex! XD
Also, if you want to learn some finnish, just ask someone on your team to go through some things with you during a break or something. Natives are always the best resource when it comes to learning a new language
That's not a bad idea!
And check out HiNative (It is on Android but I'm not sure about iOS) because it is a way to interact with native speakers when you are on your own :)
First, I just want to say I really love the vlogs but if I had to say one thing that I really want more of is more science. I'm talking about the videos that you did about the genome sequencing on the ISS/at NASA, the CRISPR video, and the peach/nectarine video. Maybe go into more on how you take stem cells and make them into, what I assume is, myocardiocytes. I know that it kinda steps into your research a bit and people get a bit iffy about sharing their research before results are published. I also understand that the science videos take much longer to research and produce but they are always amazing.
yay first to comment 😀 🎊
go science
#scientists
Alex, you're the best. Can we get a video about the flat earth?
I applied to grad school there for next semester 😅. Maybe I'll see you.
u r my idola in science... i will keep follow you... :)
i have same dream as u...
There's always a moment where I read "anion" as "an onion"
Are you hungry when that happens?
Lol funny as that would be, nah
Wooo! science!
nice, glad i subbed a while ago :)
Since I've heard there were candies made with ammonium chloride, I've always felt compelled to taste this salt each and every time I use this reagent in the lab :p
Unfortunately, consumption of chemicals in the lab is obliviously very forbidden.
I should probably just order some salmiakki online instead :P
I'm just a couple years behind, but.. That's a thing we do on our chemistry classes in Finland :D There has to be something to get the kids excited for and making something that resembles candy seems like a good place to start.
🐱ion*
maybe You should try Lakritsal next or Finnish Horna.... those are pure salmiakkipowder compressed-pill-form.... *looks evil*
Who was your cinematographer here?
Me and a very small tripod ;)
Pretty good for video selfies.
What other languages do you speak?
Spanish is the only other language I can really speak, though I'm massively out of practice. I do always try to learn at least enough of the language of the location that I'm traveling to to be polite, so I can still recall how to say please and thank you and excuse me in a few others as well.
"I am eating Salmiakki because science is international" best false attribution argument.
If you wanna hear Portuguese, it will be a pleasure to be a scientist on your lab, or in the lab next door. hahaha
Etene, ja tee tiedettä! :D
:) :)
How Na natrium translates to sodium? Does not make sense.
you are dope af don't doubt yourself
This is a great comment.
Alex Dainis no problem keep doing your thing
If there's water sound everywhere, you probably have to pee a lot then, eh? ;P
On par to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson / Carl Sagan. Just keep it up.
So sad to hear that you dont have Indian scientists😭
Toivottavasti sinulla on hauskaa Suomessa.
Kiitos! Se on suuri!
Google Translate is a wonderful thing. Isn't it?
1st
why couldn't english people call it natrium.
Well Finnish is super hard to learn. I´m from Sweden and don´t understand any Finnish at all. Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have pretty simular langages, but finnland.. Man thoose guys must be on something, that langage is so strange.
It requires a bit of a different mindset, but if you speak Swedish, it's possible to pick up on some Finnish quite easily. A full 1/3 of the vocabulary in Finnish is from Swedish, it's just the complex conjugation and declination of words that makes it seem unintelligible.
Consider this random assortment of words (just ones that happened to pop into my head):
Torg = Tori
Fara (som "farlig") = Vaara
Kyrka = Kirkko
Källare = Kellari
Lag = Laki
Domare = Tuomari
Haj = Hai
Verkstad = Verstas
Ättika = Etikka
Pojke = poika
Lamm = lammas
Gata = katu
Furthermore, the pronunciation of those words is by and large even more similar than their orthography would indicate.
The problem that I was alluding to before is that in Finnish, one might use a word like "toreillanneko", which seems unintelligible to a Swede. However, the root of the word is "tori/torg", and it translates to something like "...på era torg?" (depending somewhat on context). If you focus on the first few letters of a Finnish word, you might find something you recognize.
satana perkele
I'm quite sad that English is becoming more of a universal language, but it's quite nice to hear a French person and a German both talking in a common language (for example).
Will you marry me
Awkward brilliant scientist 😘