Posts by Uzay Sezen | Nature Documentaries

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Voyage of Darwin’s Beagle – Episode 6: Toolbox of Survival (2009)

February 12, 2015 at 12:12 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Global Patterns, Human Nature, Video

In Australia the arrival of Europeans profoundly effected the biology of the continent through introduction of non-native species that are reproducing and invading at an unprecedented rate. Australian biologists call it “extinction calamity” since the continent has lost one in ten of its native mammals species in the past 200 years. The effects of climate change is also evident with severe droughts and wild fires. A large fraction of Australian vegetation is serotinous that is adapted to disperse their seeds […]

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Voyage of Darwin’s Beagle – Episode 7: Adapt or Die! (2009)

February 12, 2015 at 12:09 am / Evolution, Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Video

In this leg of the journey in Australia the theme “On the Future of Species” dominates the episode. Darwin absolutely had no clue on how genetic information from parents were transmitted to the offspring and he was perfectly aware of his situation. On the other hand, while he was writing his book battling with hereditary questions, an Augustinian friar with a scientific mind was carrying out his experimental crosses in a monastery which was going to lay the foundations of […]

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Voyage of Darwin’s Beagle – Episode 8: The Ruins of Progress (2009)

February 12, 2015 at 12:07 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Global Patterns, Human Nature, Video

In this last episode of the series the crew of Stad Amsterdam visits Mauritius island before making a final stop in South Africa where the journey of modern Human ancestors began 200 thousand years ago. San culture in South Africa is the most ancestral Human population finding Like many island ecosystems Mauritius has been impacted by introduced species such as macaques. Species evolved on island systems are more prone to extinction. The flightless bird the Dodo is the icon of […]

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Great Transitions: The Origin of Humans – Rob Whittlesey – HHMI (2014)

February 11, 2015 at 11:25 pm / Evolution, Human Nature, Video

What did the common ancestor of Humans and chimpanzees looked like? This is not something we can triangulate simply by looking at a modern chimpanzee and Human. All the evidence points that Africa is the home continent for primates. Paleontologists are working hard to find the fossils that help us understand the key stages in Human evolution. Molecular genetic analysis of modern Human and chimpanzee revealed a very high degree of similarity. Through DNA hybridization experiments it was estimated that […]

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Salmon Confidential – Twyla Roscovich (2013)

February 2, 2015 at 2:30 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Fish are cold-blooded animals and this property make them very efficient in terms of biomass accumulation. For this reason ecological trophic levels in aquatic systems can be more than terrestrial systems. Compared to fish, a warm-blooded cow is a furnace burning 90% of the food intake. Fish is a very valuable food. The global demand for seafood is so large that wild fisheries can’t meet that anymore. How are we going to feed fish to humanity? Two-thirds of the salmon […]

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The Origin of Tetrapods – Rob Whittlesey – HHMI BioInteractive (2014)

January 30, 2015 at 3:13 pm / Evolution, Video

The program takes us into the fascinating saga of discovery of the tetrapods that explains how limbs of the terrestrial vertebrates came to be. Watch how the legendary 375 million year old Devonian tetrapod fossil Tiktaalik was discovered after a series of adventurous Arctic expeditions. Tiktaalik means “Little fish in water” in Netsilik Inuit language. Neil Shubin provides a first-hand account of the search for Tiktaalik and the evolution of four-legged animals. The limb structure in Tiktaalik appears as a […]

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Picture Wing Fly and Ant Competing for Nectar

January 27, 2015 at 1:01 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

A picture wing fly (Delphinium picta) and an ant (Formica palidefulva) are competing for nectar secreted from the extrafloral nectaries of the Passiflora vine (Passiflora incarnata). This short observation was filmed on August 25 2014. Georgia State Botanical Garden, Athens, GA, USA. Here we see multiple overlapping natural history stories. A passiflora vine is being defended by workers of a Formica palidefulva colony. A picture wing fly is sneaking around the vine looking for an opportunity to sip sweet nectar […]

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Seed Dispersal Under the Threat of Mustard Bomb – Michal Samuni-Blank (2012)

January 27, 2015 at 11:35 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video

Plants evolved diverse ways to disperse their seeds using animals. To give a few specific examples Long-wattled umbrella birds, Toucans and fruit eating bats are known for effective dispersal of palm tree seeds by eating the fruits. These dispersers regurgitate or defecate seeds after flying far away. On the other hand, most fruit eaters are also seed predators. Unlike birds and bats other animals such as agoutis, monkeys, peccaries and tapirs can chew and destroy the very same palm seeds. […]

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The Making of a Theory: Darwin, Wallace, and Natural Selection – John Rubin – HHMI (2014)

January 20, 2015 at 2:36 pm / Evolution, Video

This documentary does it right. The theory of evolution was co-discovered independently by two biologists that lived within the same time period. Darwin and Wallace were well known in their time but Wallace’s name gradually has been overshadowed by Darwin. Today we rarely (almost never) hear the name Alfred Russell Wallace. This documentary does a good job to revive Wallace’s name. Wallace was quite an impressive personality and his life most certainly was inspirational. He knew what “survival” really meant. […]

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The Forgotten Voyage: Alfred Russel Wallace and His Discovery of Evolution by Natural Selection – Peter Crawford (1983)

January 20, 2015 at 2:33 pm / Evolution, Video

The theory of evolution was co-discovered independently by two biologists that lived within the same time period. Darwin and Wallace were well known in their time but Wallace’s name gradually has been overshadowed by Darwin. Today we rarely (almost never) hear the name Alfred Russell Wallace. In this documentary Peter Crawford directs a dramatization of the events showing the interaction between the two influential scientist. We see Wallace as a determined resilient young naturalist without formal education build a respectable […]

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The Ladder of Creation – Jacob Bronowski – BBC (1973)

January 20, 2015 at 2:33 pm / BBC documentaries, Evolution, Video

The theory of evolution was co-discovered independently by two biologists that lived within the same time period. Darwin and Wallace were well known in their time but Wallace’s name gradually has been overshadowed by Darwin. Today we rarely (almost never) hear the name Alfred Russell Wallace. In this documentary Jacob Bronowski makes a rare attempt to focus on the biography of this very influential scientist. He tells Wallace’s story beginning from the early years of his childhood. We see a […]

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A Phorid Parasitoid Fly Attacking Carpenter Ants Tending Aphids

January 9, 2015 at 2:19 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

Recorded at the Georgia State Botanical Garden of Athens, GA on August 17th 2014. A carpenter ant (Camponotus spp.) colony nested at the base of a young beech tree (Fagus grandifolia) were tending aphids on the same tree. There is an interestic four level trophic interaction at this one spot forming a food chain. The parasitoid fly feeding on ants who feed on aphids sucking carbohydrate rich sap out of the beech tree: Beech tree > Aphids > Ants > […]

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How to Pin a Butterfly – Anshul Fernando (2010)

January 8, 2015 at 4:15 pm / Natural history, Video

Pinning insects is a craft perfected by early natural historians. Here you can find five instructional videos recorded by individuals and institutions from different parts of the world. Every recording shows slightly different tools employed but the overall procedure remains the same. Anshul Fernando is a nature artist who has butterfly farms in many countries such as Sri Lanka and India. He cultivates rare butterflies and sells them after pinning. He uses a standard traditional insect pinning set up that […]

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Slow TV: Bergen-Oslo Train Real Time – Thomas Hellum – NRK (2009)

December 21, 2014 at 11:22 pm / Human Nature, Video

It’s all relative. Slow-TV is not “slow” at all. Events are in real-time. It is perceived as “slow” compared to highly edited conventional TV programs. Why it’s in Nature Documentaries? Slow-TV concept is a paradigm invented by real-time uninterrupted nature observers. The idea was there for quite a while. For years there were live cameras showing bears hunt fish in rivers, birds nesting and rearing their chicks with viewers in the millions. A Discovery Channel series called “Earth Sunrise” recorded […]

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Hawaiian Honeycreepers: Evolution in Hawaii

December 5, 2014 at 11:36 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Untamed Science is a science video blog. In this episode the focus is on the evolution of Hawaiian honeycreepers and the geology of the archipelago. The documentary does an excellent job in describing the formation of the volcanic island chain with a brief animation showing the crossection of the Earth’s crust and the hot molten mantel. In Hawai’i, honeycreepers and a group of plant species called lobeliads belonging to the bellflower family (Campanulaceae) evolved in an intricate interaction involving nectar […]

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