David Bolinsky, a medical illustrator and animator, has taken on the challenge of vistualizing the amazing complexity of the inside of a cell. Accepting a challenge put forward by Harvard’s biology department to help students understand what really happens within a cell, XVIVO, his medical imaging company has produced an amazing video – “The Inner Life of the Cell”
The challenge with the video is both showing the complex clutter of a cell while offering “the whole vista”. The focus of his remarkable animation is the “self-directed, powerful, precise” micromachines that allow a cell to do what it needs to do to allow our bodies to function. It’s a beautiful and strange look at a scale we’re rarely able to think about never mind see.
That is one of the two most amazing movies I have ever seen. (The other was an Oxford Scientific Films one about pollination, narrated I think by Attenborough.) I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched “Cell,” and every time it takes my breath away.
Just a footnote: the lead animator is John Liebler, and the two main scientists providing input are Alain Viel and Robert Lue.
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