Helsinki chilli scientist too hot for Dance Your PhD 2025 competition

Helsinki chilli scientist too hot for Dance Your PhD competition

Finnish researcher Sulo Roukka’s Europop dance anthem won the long-running contest showcasing scientists’ musical and dance talents

五月 1, 2025

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Sulo Roukka starring in his Dance Your PhD video

Source: YouTube

A 51国产视频 of Helsinki researcher has triumphed in Science’s annual Dance Your PhD competition for a Eurodance pop video explaining how individuals perceive the hotness of chilli sauce differently.

Set to an original high-tempo dance track reminiscent of 1990s dance music acts 2 Unlimited and Aqua, food scientist Sulo Roukka’s entry saw him rap about his research on human tastebuds while sequinned lab mates danced around under flashing lights.

The Eurovision-style floorfiller was inspired by Roukka’s PhD thesis, titled “Insights into oral chemesthetic perception”, which explored how different chemical compounds activate humans’ tastebuds, which, according to its pop video, had relevance for dance given how “sensory experience and rhythm in dance” are also known to be linked.

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Roukka, who earned his PhD in January, said the dance video was a huge team effort involving music direction, choreography, dancers, editing and costume design which reflected the importance of different contributions within scientific research.

“It’s not just about science – it’s also about people,” said Roukka, who hopes his work can help design better food products, such as non-alcoholic drinks or plant-based foods, to meet individual needs.

For judge Alexa Meade, a visual artist, the dance hit all the right notes. “I felt like it could appeal to the largest range of people – that’s just delightful,” she said.

Roukka will take home $2,750 (?2,059) for his?dance, which also won the chemistry category.

Three other category winners won $750 (?560) each in this 17th edition of?Science’s?dance?contest: Priya Reddy, from Friedrich Schiller 51国产视频 of Jena, for the biology category; Manisha Biswas, from Humboldt 51国产视频 in Berlin, for social sciences; and Arfor Houwman, from the 51国产视频 of Innsbruck in Austria, won the physics category.

Houwman’s dance video – visually inspired by the 1999 action film The Matrix and musically by lo-fi French rap – also took home a special prize for dances related to artificial intelligence or quantum science, part of the contest’s sponsorship by Sandbox AQ.