A herd of graceful creatures moves across the wide-angled image of the Mongolian landscape. The skeleton of an animal lies in the sand; a close-up reveals a bullet in its skull. A native administrator speaks to the camera about political, cultural, and natural complexities. A film-maker enters the intimacy of a yurt and focuses on a colorfully dressed elder and her grandchildren. And a vehicle full of Western researchers are candid while getting lost and then stuck in the desert.

"Scientists have always been faced with the difficulties of answering the hard questions of our times, but in the past few years they have been faced with a new challenge: communicating what they have learned in a media environment saturated with commercial interests, agenda driven messages, to audiences with a decreasing attention span.

Fortunately, modern technology has kept pace. High-quality digital video can be produced at a price that puts the scientist — not the spin masters — back in the driver's seat."

-Cody Sheehy

"A picture is worth a thousand words, and digital video is composed of 29.9 pictures a second. It isn't just the numbers that make scientists quick to realize how powerful a tool digital video can be for their research, both in generating funding and communicating their findings."

-Cody Sheehy

"I see a future where the scientific method and the modern digital media merge to create something greater than the pieces. Imagine a world where scientists can communicate the beauty and complexity of their research in a form that the entire world can access and understand."

-Cody Sheehy

Update asked Sheehy about his video equipment and experience, and advice to researchers about the process:

"The equipment I used for the video 'Khulan' was a high quality mini-DV camera. This is considered 'consumer-pro' level. Total equipment package is under $10k, including software. I used mainly Adobe (Premier, Aftereffects, and Photoshop) plus GIS software for the 3D. The scientist will need at least another 10k to pay basic expenses of shooting and editing for a video of this length. Salary would be on top of this, likely, as would be closed captioning for TV."

"My skill level . . . hmm, that is a good question. I started making digital videos about six years ago. There is this ambiguous phase somewhere in the beginning, where there is nothing formed yet, and it may take a certain type of creative person to generate the organization and ideas. Once those are in place, creating a video like this is basically paint-by-numbers. I would say I am a very low-level professional, since I have had some success this year at getting clips into the mainstream media."

"About podcasts and the new emerging distribution system — e-mail attachments, podcasts, Myspace, u-tube, university websites, etc.: these are all places that are going to be huge for this type of media. In fact, I think this is the future for most media. Podcasts themselves I have limited experience with — but this dialogue we're having has zapped me, and I'm going to figure it out ASAP!"

Maintaining a consistent supply of high-quality seawater is one of the most important tasks of the Facilities Department, led by Manager Randy Walker. HMSC achieves round-the-clock monitoring of temperature, salinity, and flow through the system.

When an alarm sounds in the middle of the night, electrician Dave Johnson is usually the one responding to the call, no matter the weather. Dave seldom, if ever, has collected overtime for these voluntary call-backs if things are running correctly. Thanks to the dedication of the Facilities crew, there has never been an unplanned seawater stoppage in HMSC's 41-year history.

"Chris Tasker, whose job title is 'developmental engineer,' is crucial to our success in transparent electronics. He makes so many contributions and has so many skills and extraordinary talents that it is hard to know where to begin.

First, he manages our Clean Room - that alone is more than most mortals could do. Second, he designs and builds many of our thin film deposition tools. I give him a piece of paper and a pencil, and the most amazing designs emerge. Third, he is now plugging himself into the actual research.

Chris comes to my research group meetings, mostly attended by MS & PhD students who have more formal book learning than Chris, and who also sometimes initially have a bit of an attitude. Invariably, during our meetings Chris will say, "Maybe I'm clueless here, but it seems to me . . "and then ZING he cuts through the academic ambiguity and hits the bull eye! It is good for graduate students to be exposed to Chris' professionalism, commitment to excellence, enthusiasm, work ethic, and humility.