Academia could take some lessons from Silicon Valley about diversity. Credit: Wikimedia

Last week, MIT released a report that closely examines the state of diversity within the university.

The report considers MIT’s diversity not just in terms of students and faculty, but also looks at the Institute’s non-faculty research staff who represent approximately 28% of the institution as a whole.

Ariel between Wisdom and Gaiety. Wikimedia

My advice to the BBC: ignore the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee report on your future at your peril.

Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and hundreds of millions of hours are viewed daily, including many that cover areas of science. Despite this, if you want to use YouTube for science communication, reaching an audience is not always guaranteed.

We’ve analyzed nearly 400 science communication videos to understand what the successful YouTube science communicators do – those with numerous subscribers – that less successful communicators do not.

So, here are seven things we found that can help you to communicate science on YouTube.

3753 Cruithne's wacky orbit around the Sun. Image: YouTube, CC BY-SA

We all know and love the moon. We’re so assured that we only have one that we don’t even give it a specific name.

It is the brightest object in the night sky, and amateur astronomers take great delight in mapping its craters and seas.

To-date, it is the only other heavenly body with human footprints.

If I scratch your back and you scratch mine, then we’re both better off as a result – so goes the principle of reciprocity, one of the most popular explanations for how co-operative behavior has evolved.

But what if one partner provides a better service than another? A paper by Dolivo and Taborsky shows that Norway rats will only give as good as they get.

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, and NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will arrive at this dwarf planet on March 6, 2015. Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt, and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will arrive at this dwarf planet on July 15, 2015.