Buy a fish head cake and Peking duck, and after eating the remaining small bones, most people throw them away directly as "wet garbage", but in the hands of Lu Jing, an associate researcher at the Institute of vertebrate paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, these bones can play tricks. Recently, Lu Jing posted his popular science video "Playing with Bones" on the Internet, which caused many netizens to like it, and some videos even liked more than one million. In an interview with Beijing Youth Daily, Lu Jing said that some video ideas were "unintentionally inserted", but the effect was also very good. She said that the video that netizens see is often only about one minute, but the effort behind it may be half a day, so insisting on shooting is the most difficult place.
"Teacher Lu playing with bones"
Won over one million praises from netizens.
Vertebrate paleontology scientists asked students to buy a chicken skeleton specimen, and as a result, students bought a yellow chicken. What should I do? Lu Jing, an associate researcher at the Institute of vertebrate paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, encountered such a situation in his vibrato video. After a group of people ate the yellow chicken, they cleaned the bones and put them together one by one, and it didn’t take long to make a skeleton specimen.
On the 16th, Lu Jing said in an interview with the reporter of Beiqing Daily that he was introduced by someone and thought that if Tik Tok was used for popular science, it might be more effective than reading the book in class. "Our usual job is actually to contact all kinds of bones and bone fossils, so for us, our usual job is ‘ Play with bones ’ , so we just want to put ‘ Play with bones ’ The interest is conveyed to more audiences. "
In June this year, Lu Jing published his first section of Tik Tok Science Popularization, which showed the making process of the specimen by splicing the bones of the chubby fish in a fish head cake into a specimen. "I didn’t expect that this video was on fire at once. A few days after the first video was sent, the number of fans reached 100,000. I read the comments of netizens and found that many netizens are very interested in this knowledge. "
As of the press release of Beiqing Daily, "Teacher Lu who plays with bones" has gained more than 200,000 fans. The video of using the yellow chicken to spell specimens has been praised more than 1 million times.
From eating to filming
It will take five or six hours.
Braised chicken, fish head cake, Beijing roast duck … … In Lu Jing’s video, you can spell everything, but by spelling out the bones of the ingredients in the dish, she found that the food on the table didn’t give enough weight, which made netizens marvel that "knowledge is power". Of course, there are exceptions. On one occasion, when Lu Jing assembled the fish head, he found that a bone could not be found. "It took a long time for a classmate to take the initiative to confess that he should have accidentally eaten the bone when he was eating."
Although most of these videos only take about 1 minute, Lu Jing admits that it is not easy behind each video. "Basically, it takes half a day for each video to be completed. For example, at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, we will start to fight after eating. When it is finished and filmed, it may be six or seven in the afternoon."
Lu Jing introduced that compared with the fine specimen production, the specimen production process shown in the video is actually greatly simplified. Even so, the splicing of specimens often encounters difficulties. "For example, we will find that some chicken bones cannot be well bonded with glue, and it is necessary to use materials such as iron wire to assist. At this time, the difficulty of work has obviously increased."
However, this process sometimes brings unexpected creativity to Lu Jing. "Because it is not easy to put chicken bones together, we thought that we could put chicken bones together like the famous archaeopteryx fossils. After putting them together, we showed the audience the relationship between primitive birds and modern birds by comparing them with the original fossils, and showed the evolution from ancient birds to modern birds. This effect was unexpected before we ate it, and it was also ‘ Unintentionally inserted willow ’ The result. "
conversation
The biggest challenge is to keep shooting.
Beiqing Daily: We have noticed that with the increase of fans, some viewers have taken the initiative to send you animal bones found in the wild, asking you to identify which animals these bones belong to.
Lu Jing: Yes, now I’m starting to get some help from netizens. For the sake of "video science popularization", I sometimes use the specimens stored in the institute to explain the differences of different animal bones.
Beiqing Daily: Are there any interesting stories?
Lu Jing: Once a netizen sent me a video of a bone found in the wild and asked me what animal it was. After reading it at that time, I found that the netizen made a mistake. He mistook the animal’s pelvis for a skull and put it in the wrong place. When I received help, I was on a business trip in Yunnan. I wanted to find a suitable specimen in Yunnan to make a popular science video response, but I couldn’t find it. After returning to Beijing, I immediately went to the specimen room of the institute and found the bone specimen of the sheep. By comparing the specimen with the video of the netizen, I proved that the netizen posted the bone of a sheep or a wild boar. Taking the specimens of other animals as examples, I pointed out the differences between the bones of cattle, horses and other animals and those found by netizens. After this video was sent out, many netizens told me that they found such popular science interesting, and some netizens took the initiative to ask us if these specimens were all eaten.
Beiqing Daily: It should be very difficult to judge what animal it is just by bones, right?
Lu Jing: Indeed, once I received a request from a netizen for help, saying that a suspected ichthyosaur fossil was found. "At first, several of our colleagues looked at it and thought it was true, but after carefully comparing the bone structure, we found that this ‘ Ichthyosaur fossils ’ There is a problem. It is impossible for a real ichthyosaur to have some of its skeleton structures. So we compared the ichthyosaur specimens collected in the library, made videos of the problems and shared them with netizens.
Beiqing Daily: Can you briefly introduce other daily work?
Lu Jing: Another project is to build 3D models of ancient fish fossils scanned by precise CT, restore the vascular and neural structures of ancient fish, and import these models into VR equipment. In this way, people can enter the bones of ancient fish and other ancient creatures, observe the physiological structures of extinct creatures most intuitively and shockingly, and understand the evolution of their body structures. The virtual reality of paleontological morphological data not only greatly facilitates scientists’ research, but also allows visitors, including children, to feel the charm of ancient animals.
Beiqing Daily: Were you surprised that you became online celebrity?
Lu Jing: I’m very busy at work, and my biggest worry now is whether I can stick to filming for a long time. I have been thinking about how my video should be positioned, but netizens are very enthusiastic and interested in our popular science video, and I will continue to shoot hard. (Reporter Qu Chang)