On Monday, we presented the five nominees for Science Parody of the Year. By placing their votes, our readers choose "Grad School I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down" by Mark Grabiner and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkley as the 2012 winner for Science Parody of the Year.
"Science Parody of the Year" Winner
Grad School I Love You (But You're Bringing Me Down)
M. Grabiner, et al. 2011. Grad school, I love you (but you're bringing me down): parody of "New York, I Love You (But You're Bringing Me Down)" by LCD Soundsystem.
Grabiner provided the music, lyrics, and concept for the video. Nathaniel Krefman (who was also nominated for his song "Blue and Yellow FRET") handled the video production, and Angela Kaczmarczyk was the hands behind the video's star, a puppet of the Muppet Beaker. The video was produced for the university's Department of Molecular and Cell Biology annual Follies event.
For Grabiner, this was his second attempt at a science parody of a pop song. In 2010, he produced the song "Bright Scope/Long Lab Coat," a parody of "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" by the rock group Cake. Both of parodies were produced for the UC, Berkley Department of Molecular and Cell Biology's annual comedy event called the Follies.
"Something I've known since before I started grad school was that I would have to balance it with other things in my life," Grabiner said. "Artist expression outside the lab has always been the best source of relief for me."
Besides his science parody songs, Grabiner is also engaged in other artist endeavors to get his mind off frustrating experiments, which can be found on his website, www.francesthemute.net.
Finally, we would like to thank Grabiner and the other nominees who brought some much need humor to labs across the country this week.
"Science Parody of the Year" Runners-Up
N. Krefman et al. 2011. Blue and yellow FRET: a science parody of "Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa. YouTube.
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Science University. BEHRN. February 2011. Grid Hole by Chri$: scientific parody of "TiK ToK" by Ke$ha). YouTube.
P. Pluge and F. Daddy. Stanford Records, Inc. 2011. Official LMFAO "Sexy and I Know It" parody: I'm a Chemist and I Know It. YouTube.
Dalhousie BioChemistry Student Society. 2011. I Wanna Be a Biochemist. YouTube.
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Last Year's Winner
And, of course, who could forget last year's winner "Bad Project" from the Hui Zheng Lab at Baylor College of Medicine?
