Highlights of the Immune System by Kurzgesagt
Executive Summary
- Kurzgesagt has produced fantastic videos on the immune system and then released a book.
- This article provides a synopsis and commentary on this great work.
Introduction
In my view, Kurzgesagt is the number one scientific educator on YouTube. They cover a broad variety of scientific topics, but they have several videos and a book on the immune system. The videos provide an insight to the immune system that I don’t think has ever been attained previously, which greatly increases the ability to understand it. They also have a book which I read and which I have added some quotes from and provided my commentary.
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Video #1: Immune System Introduction
This is Kurzgesagt’s introductory video to the immune system.
This video does a great job of explaining how the immunity is an emergent property of many different parts working in concern in amazing complexity.
Video #2: Proteins of the Immune System
Of the video series, this one is probably the weakest and is the most difficult to follow.
Video #3: Immune System The Individual Mechanisms
This video explains more of the detail of the individual parts of the immune system and how it identifies and responds to invaders. This video addresses auto-immune disorders, which is a type of misidentification on the part of the immune system where healthy cells are attacked.
Video #4: Bacteriophage
This video describes how bacteriophages, which are a type of viruses that attack bacteria, can one day be used to fight bacterial infections in humans.