Science, meet YouTube
Molly Edwards is a scientist, and she also plays one on TV — or at least on YouTube. Most days, Edwards can be found in the lab of Elena Kramer, the Bussey Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, where she is a Ph.D. student working to understand the genes that control the shape of Columbine flower petals. Outside the lab, however, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student is the creator and host of “Science IRL (In Real Life),” a YouTube channel she launched more than a year ago while working as a lab technician at New York University, and is dedicated to taking viewers inside labs for an up-close-and-personal view of the day-to-day work of scientists. “I was realizing that the way science works in real life isn’t very transparent,” Edwards said of her inspiration for the series. “How are the science concepts we learn from textbooks actually used by real...