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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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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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Hawaiian ‘I’iwi Bird – The Nature Conservancy

December 5, 2014 at 11:35 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

This short observation was recorded at The Nature Conservancy’s Waikamoi Preserve on Maui. It shows one of the classic examples of co-evolution between a plant and a bird. The long bill of the scarlet ‘i’iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) and the curved, tubular flower of the blue ‘ōpelu (Lobelia grayana), a native lobelia have evolved together due to selective forces that increase the survival success of both species. In Hawai’i, honeycreepers and lobeliads evolved in an intricate interaction involving nectar feeding pollination […]

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What Ants Teach Us? – Deborah Gordon TED Talk (2014)

November 4, 2014 at 2:05 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

There’s never enough ant coverage in Nature Documentaries. Ants are a paradigm for self organizing systems. Here you can watch two TED lectures by the prominent ant scientist (Myrmecologist) Deborah Gordon of Stanford University. She has been studying red harvester ants intensely both in the field and in laboratory. Observation of ants in both environments have been very informative in understanding emergent properties of a complex system such as an ant colony. How does a living system with no central […]

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Ants in Space – Stanford University – BioEdOnline.org

November 4, 2014 at 2:05 pm / Evolution, Natural history, Video

Teachers! Students! A new citizen science project needs your help! You can help scientists collect data by repeating an experiment that was carried out in space. In January 2014 live colonies of pavement ants (Tetramorium caespitum) were taken to the International Space Station for a curious experiment. The experiment sought to understand whether worker ants change their search behavior in microgravity? The experimental set up was designed by Dr. Deborah Gordon in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine Center for […]

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Red Eyed Green Frogs Mating (2002)

November 4, 2014 at 8:48 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Red eyed green frog (Agalycnis callidryas) mating is an event visible to few visitors of the Neotropical forests. These frogs live high up in the forest canopy and only come down to swamps to breed in large numbers. The economy of nature limits reproductive effort of females. Egg production is costly compared to sperm therefore not all females can be ready to mate when the mating time comes. There’s always less females in a given mating aggregation and males put […]

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Chromosome Evolution in Plants

September 21, 2014 at 3:27 pm / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Video

Accidents happen all the time and sometimes living cells fail to divide properly. During cell division the genetic material that was supposed to be distributed equally between two cells may all stay in one of the cells. If this happens in body cells a cancerous tumor may develop or the cell may die. If it happens in an embryo at the very early stages of development at rare occasions these individuals may survive to maturity and may even reproduce to […]

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RNA Interference (RNAi) – Nature Reviews Genetics

June 25, 2014 at 10:06 am / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Video

Welcome to another post of Molecular Nature series highlighting a gene silencing mechanism known as RNA interference. The discovery was made by Craig Mello and Andrew Fire who shared 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Please keep in mind that this video is quite advanced in content and assumes the viewers know about basic molecular biological concepts such as the Central Dogma of Biology. RNA interference (RNAi) is a process used by wide range of organisms to regulate the […]

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The Hidden Life of the Cell – BBC (2012)

May 16, 2014 at 11:33 pm / BBC documentaries, Evolution, Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Video

Ebola virus is threatening to spread out of Africa. Zika virus is evolving and circulating in more than 50 countries. At this stage we must inform ourselves and others about viruses. The Hidden Life of the Cell does just that by illustrating a real scenario of adenovirus infection and while doing that introduces major cellular components. The documentary is quite successful in explaining the biology behind events. However, you might also want to see Inner Life of Cell and the […]

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The Making of the Fittest: Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies – HHMI – Sean Carrol (2012)

April 22, 2014 at 11:07 am / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies is one of the series of educational videos called The Making of the Fittest by Sean Carroll for communicating biological evolution to public with the support of Howard Hughs Medical Institute – HHMI. Evolution is thought to be acting very slow usually over millions of years. However, it can happen suprisingly quick. In this documentary, we look at a fish that evolved to change its body between two states reversibly multiple times over a few thousands […]

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The Making of the Fittest: Birth and Death of Genes – HHMI – Sean Carrol (2011)

April 21, 2014 at 3:11 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

A fish caught known as Crocodile fish or icefish in Antarctic waters by the Norwegian expedition in 1927 tells us another fascinating story on evolution of life. Birth and Death of Genes is one of the four educational videos Sean Carroll has produced for communicating biological evolution to public with the support of HHMI. These fishes (called Nothothenoids) are unique for they are the only vertebrates in the world that lack the oxygen-binding protein hemoglobin, which gives blood its red […]

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First Life with David Attenborough – Arrival BBC (2010)

February 15, 2014 at 10:32 pm / BBC documentaries, Evolution, Video

BBC’s First Life is a marvelous encapsulation of life’s evolution in two episodes. Episode one “Arrival” covers major events until the Cambrian Explosion. If you are here because you want to know about the origins of life you may be slightly frustrated. The episode will briefly mention underwater hydrothermal vents as possible locations that life may have started and will mention about stromatolites which appeared in geological history around 3.5 billion years ago and that’s it. It will not talk […]

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