Archives for April 2019 | Nature Documentaries

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Climate Change – The Facts / David Attenborough – BBC (2019)

April 23, 2019 at 8:46 pm / BBC documentaries, Global Patterns, Human Nature, Video

This documentary has a very urgent message (so urgent that I don’t even have time to write up an accompanying text about it!). It is a call to arms. Climate change from global warming due to Human activities is now a well-established fact. Global atmospheric carbon dioxide level is now more than 410 ppm. In fact, you can check the most up to date atmospheric CO2 reading from Hawaii yourself. We have less than a decade to curb our emissions […]

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A Diverse Tropical Forest Canopy and Crown Shyness – Dimitar Karanikolov (2019)

April 22, 2019 at 7:21 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video

This is a wonderfully poetic and at the same time quite informative piece of short observation captured by the photographer Dimitar Karanikolov. The video successfully demonstrates a botanical phenomenon known as “crown shyness” by providing a nicely stabilized vertical view of canopy trees swaying by the wind in Tulum Mexico. Tree canopies are some of the most diverse sections in tropical forest. The exact mechanism of crown shyness is still not resolved but there are quite a few convincing hypotheses. […]

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How Enzymes Work? – PDB/RCSB

April 20, 2019 at 3:55 pm / Molecular Nature, Video

Enzymes are a catalytic subgroup of proteins formed as end products of the Central Dogma of biology. They are essential for cellular functioning. Here in this Protein Data Bank (PDB) video the enzymes constituting the hugely important metabolic pathway –the citric acid cycle– that connects carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism are briefly visualized. Subsequently, the enzyme aconitase (aconitate hydratase; EC 4.2.1.3) in this hugely important metabolic pathway is highlighted as an example. The steps taking place in the active site […]

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What is a Protein? – Protein Data Bank/RCSB

April 19, 2019 at 3:17 pm / Molecular Nature, Video

Proteins are end products of the Central Dogma of biology. They are essential for cellular structure and function. Proteins have dizzyingly diverse structures. Since the invention of X-ray chrystallography by the Australian physicist William Lawrence Bragg structures of many complex molecules have been resolved including proteins. Solved structures of proteins are deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB), a free and curated structural data resource for thousands of biological molecules. These structures are stored in the form of Cartesian coordinates […]

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The Red-Shanked Douc Langur – Ryan Deboodt (2019)

April 11, 2019 at 8:54 pm / Evolution, Natural history, Wildlife Documentaries

The douc langurs are among the most visually striking primates in the world. There three species of douc langurs: the red-shanked douc langur (Pygathrix nemaeus), black-shanked douc langur (Pygathix nigripes) and gray-shanked douc langur (Pygathix cinereus). All are endemic to Indochina. Here the filmmaker Ryan Deboodt has filmed the Red-Shanked Douc Langur of the Vietnam forests. Habitat loss, disease and trappers are threatening this species. Doucs are found in a variety of habitats: from lowland to mountainous terrain up to […]

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Hurricane-induced Selection on the Morphology of an Island Lizard – Nature (2018)

April 10, 2019 at 4:15 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Video

Hurricanes are catastrophically destructive and can have long-lasting effects on ecological systems. For instance, the Atlantic hurricane season of 2005 was a particularly strong one with record breaking 27 named storms. Mass mortality observed after hurricanes may be a force of natural selection. The hypothesis that destructive events such as hurricanes could drive natural selection has been controversial. In order to test this, scientists surveyed a common, small-bodied lizard (Anolis scriptus) that lives throughout the Turks and Caicos archipelago before […]

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