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Geological History of the Continents/Paleomap Project – Christopher Scotese (2015)

January 5, 2017 at 9:28 pm / Evolution, Global Patterns, Video

Geology and biological evolution of life are inseparable. More than half of the minerals now incorporated into the upper crust of our planet were produced by living organisms. The movement of continental plates has played a fundamental role in the recycling of mineral resources by the biosphere. Scientists now predict that tectonic activity may have been one of the prerequisites for the origin of life. The acceptance of continental drift by the scientific community and how it affected Earth’s history […]

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Western Ghats Program – CEPF/ATREE (2016)

December 25, 2016 at 9:28 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Video

India’s Western Ghats is an ecologically unique biodiversity hotspot recognized by the United Nations as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF) in association with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) have been supporting projects by conservationists and researchers in the area. The exceptionally high level of biological diversity and endemism in this mountain chain represents some of the best representatives of non-equatorial tropical evergreen forests in the world. Natural history and evolution […]

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Earthquakes and Tsunamis – PTWC/NOAA (2016)

December 9, 2016 at 12:11 pm / Global Patterns, Video

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) of NOAA has produced a set of educational videos to inform public about earthquakes and tsunamis. The playlist includes seismological analysis of many destructive earthquakes and dynamics of subsequent tsunamis from tectonically active regions of the world. The first animation in the playlist graphically compares the relative sizes of some notable earthquakes by their moment magnitudes. Each circle’s area represents its relative energy release. Color of the circles indicate their tsunami potential. Their labels […]

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How to Build a Climate Laboratory – Julia Slingo – Royal Institution (2016)

October 19, 2016 at 6:03 pm / Global Patterns, Video

Climate models have revolutionized our understanding of the world. Julia Slingo, the Met Office Chief Scientist and High Level Group Scientific Advisor to the European Commission, examines the processes controlling the planetary climate system. Realistic encapsulation of these processes in models increases our predictive power tremendously. Climate science works at so many different fields and scales with a common goal of converging into a common truth. Some scientists study mass balance of glaciers measuring growth and shrinkage of the cryosphere. […]

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Cornell University Sapsucker Woods Pond Camera (Live)

October 14, 2016 at 1:37 pm / Natural history, Video, webcams

This live camera was initially established to monitor nest activities of a heron pair. The nest collapsed during spring 2014. The mating of a female and ‘Dad’ heron in the tree shortly after gave everybody the impression that herons may build a new nest. Unfortunately it looks like the male heron ‘Dad’ who has nested on the pond since 2009 may not have found a suitable mate this year. Volunteer camera operators have been watching the heron activity on the […]

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Planet Earth – Jungles – BBC (2006)

October 13, 2016 at 5:15 pm / BBC documentaries, Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Jungles is the 8th episode of the BBC TV series Planet Earth. It makes a rapid tour around the tropical belt and highlights a few key phenomena and spectacular behavior including mating dance of bird of paradise, forest regeneration after a treefall, plant-animal interactions in the forest canopy, fig trees as a keystone species, primate territoriality, forest sounds, mating leaf frogs, water cycle through evapotranspiration, nutrient cycle through decomposition, food webs, parental care in insects, fungal parasitism, gliding calugos, carnivorous […]

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Plight of the North Atlantic Right Whale – Jeffrey Mittelstadt (2013)

October 3, 2016 at 11:38 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Directed, edited and produced by Jeffrey Mittelstadt of WildSides the short documentary was made for Whale and Dolphin Conservation. North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) are highly endangered. Less than 500 North Atlantic right whales live in the wild. Close to 350 of them live in the East Coast of North America. The whale continues to be endangered but thanks to conservation measures like the acoustic stations its population more than tripled in a century. Apart from indirect negative Human […]

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Climatic Dynamics of Monsoons – NASA SVS (2016)

September 30, 2016 at 10:18 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

The monsoon was noticed for the first time in India. It is a seasonal rain and wind pattern that occurs in many places on our planet. The quasi-regular atmospheric pattern is hugely influential in Human history. The first truly global economy was established in the Indian ocean by sea faring merchants who traveled from Africa and middle east all the way to Indonesia and Malaysia and back. Predictability of the wind patterns around the Indian Ocean was the defining factor. […]

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Bacteria Evolution on a MEGA Petri Plate – Michael Baym – Harvard Medical School (2016)

September 10, 2016 at 10:36 pm / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Video

The Microbial Evolution and Growth Arena plate (MEGA-plate) experiment designed by Harvard Medical School researcher Michael Baym and his coworkers is an absolutely fascinating demonstration of evolution in action. They were able to visualize with a stunning didacticity (is that a word?) how bacteria evolves resistance to the antibiotic trimethoprim surprisingly fast for the Human time scale. The experiment is reminiscent of a highly simplified 2-D version of a long-term evolution experiment by Richard Lenski of the Michigan State University. […]

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A Jaguar and Her Cubs from Belize – Bart Harmsen (2016)

August 30, 2016 at 8:44 pm / Natural history, Short Observations, Video

In this short observation we see a rare sequence of footage recorded by the researchers working for the conservation program Jaguar Corridor Initiative. These particular observations were captured in Belize but the conservation program covers much of the jaguar range in 14 states including Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela. Jaguar is an elusive top predator of the neotropical forests. Observations of reproductive females and offspring numbers are very valuable in […]

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Great Moments in Science with Dr Karl – Karl Kruszelnicki – Royal Institution (2015)

August 26, 2016 at 9:21 pm / Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki is an Australian science communicator with an amazing talent for concatenating subjects with a free-associative style. Just watch his whirlwind lecture full of interesting and eccentric facts and learn…

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Journey Into The Sun – KQED QUEST (2010)

August 22, 2016 at 11:08 pm / Global Patterns, Video

The Sun is the most influential celestial object for life as we know it. Understanding and predicting its behavior is essential for our existence. Plants are green because our Sun is a red star. However in the early days of life this relationship was quite different. The young Earth was spinning much faster and the days were 8 hours long. The Sun was less bright and cooler. The early photosynthesizing organisms were purple to maximize light harvesting in liquid environment. […]

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Carolina Anole Lizard Changing Color

August 18, 2016 at 10:44 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

You can watch the gradual color change in this Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) from green to brown over 4 mins. Summer of 2011 was drier than usual in Athens, GA. Annual rainfall (37.11 inches) was lower than the 1981-2010 average (46.66 inches). The month of July was particularly hot. Average monthly temperature was 81.9 F (above 1895-2012 average of 80.0 F). Reptiles in such conditions have a rather fast metabolism and burn calories fast. This female lizard was a […]

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Mating Displays of Peacock Spiders – Jürgen Otto (2011)

August 18, 2016 at 12:11 am / Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video

Here you see a series of short observations recorded by Jürgen Otto documenting the mating dances of Australian peacock spiders (for full scientific names of the spiders please see a list at the bottom of this post). Peacock spiders are another astonishing example of variation of the same theme in nature: “males display, females choose”. Mating displays have always been an attractive topic. A biological explanation for such behavior is given in a short animated documentary by the Cornell University […]

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The Life Cycle of a Mosquito – Prelinger Archives (1947)

August 6, 2016 at 4:37 pm / Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The mosquito-transmitted disease malaria is killing around 600.000 people every year world wide alone. The year 2010 was a record peak with 1.2 million deaths. Mosquitos transmit so many diseases that they are arguably the most dangerous animals on Earth. They even act as vectors in transmitting parasites including the Human bot fly. Mosquitoes are a family of small, midge-like flies: the Culicidae. Although a few species are harmless or even useful to humanity, most are a nuisance because they […]

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