Recent Videos

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  How El Niño and La Niña Cause Extreme Weather – The Economist (2023)

  June 1, 2023 at 4:47 pm / Global Patterns, Video

  El Niño and La Niña are opposite states of one of Earth’s most important climate processes together constituting the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It can lead to devastating weather events all over the world. But how does it work, what kinds of extreme weather does it cause and how is global warming affecting it? The ENSO observed during the 1997/1998 period was a legendary one. It appears 2023/2024 could be another significant ENSO event. Since 1950 the amplitudes […]

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  FAST: The World’s Largest Telescope | China Icons (2016)

  June 1, 2023 at 1:48 pm / Cosmological, Video

  Large scale project management is in the tradition of China. Construction of impressively large Junk ships in dry dock environment, the terra cotta army with uniquely sculpted soldiers and the Grand Canal is just a few examples among many. Large projects also require risk management skills enabling adapting to inevitable series of changes as the timeline advances. Yet, here we see another recent marvel proudly created by the Chinese. The Five-Hundred-Metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, known as FAST had been constructed […]

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  Drone Footage of the Geldingadalur Volcano, Iceland – Olivier Grunewald (2021)

  May 12, 2023 at 11:38 am / Evolution, Global Patterns

  The drone footage by Olivier Grunewald shows the crater filling up and forming a short lived lava lake like the one that was present in the crater of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or that of Erta Alé in Ethiopia. Subsequently. the lava begins to cascade at high speed through an opening in the walls of the crater. The surface of the lava lake experiences bubbly explosions releasing hot gasses similar to Bembow and Marum craters […]

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  Updates from NASA’s Curiosity Rover [Mars Science Laboratory]

  April 15, 2023 at 11:38 pm / Cosmological, Global Patterns, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video

  Geological evolution of the Earth and Mars have started from very similar origins but yet the two planets have followed quite different trajectories. Geology of our planet has shaped the evolution of life (and vice versa). Understanding Mars will also help understand our own planet. For this reason, Nature Documentaries will be paying attention to this ambitious Mars rover project. Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been holding regular detailed update sessions. You can follow some of these updates below starting from […]

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  MAP Kinase Signaling – Ribosome Studio (2020)

  February 15, 2023 at 1:14 am / Molecular Nature, Video

  In order to learn a subject matter that has detailed sequential stages, it is best to consult multiple resources that tell the same story with their own twists. Mitogen Activated Protein Knase (MAPK) signaling pathway is one of these important subjects. Here as part of the molecular nature series you can find three such narratives focusing on MAPK signaling. The first and the main video was produced by the Ribosome Studio commissioned by of the Applied Sciences/ZHAW Life Sciences Pharmaceutical […]

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  Into Peru in Search of Plants – NYBG (2018)

  October 22, 2022 at 12:20 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video

  Dr. Fabian Michelangeli is a curator at the New York Botanical Garden. Here in this short documentary, we see snaphots of phases of an expedition he organized to the Yanachaga–Chemillén National Park located in the cloud forests of Peru located in search of plants that help us better understand the state of global biodiversity, climate change, and other factors that contribute to far-reaching conservation efforts. The Andes mountain range of South America is a geological marvel that initiated the speciation […]

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  Exploring the Amazon – Kew Botanic Gardens (2016)

  October 20, 2022 at 1:33 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video

  This short documentary outlines a joint expedition to the Parc Amazonien de Guyane organized by CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), the French Foreign Legion and Kew Botanic Gardens. The area could be rather hostile to scientists where illegal gold mines are in operation in remote and unexpected places along French Guiana-Brazil border. As the prominent tropical biologist Stephen Hubbell described in the foreword of his book Neutral Theory of Biodiversity the state of tropical biology is still resembling […]

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  The Passionate Wait

  October 6, 2022 at 12:23 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  This short documentary highlights events before the opening of the passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) flowers. Drought conditions during the summer of 2011 increased the activity of many insects and spiders around the extrafloral nectaries of the plant. The water budget of the plants is strongest early in the morning. Flowers do not open until the middle of the day. At first, passion flower is generous especially to the ants in the morning providing ample volume of nectar. Ants provide protection to […]

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  Acid Attack

  September 22, 2022 at 10:22 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  Nectar is an effective concoction for establishment and maintenance of plant-animal interactions. Using nectar, plants can build a community of allies for defense and even manipulate the behavior of pollinators. We are accustomed to nectaries found in flowers. Plants however, have evolved nectaries in other locations in their above-ground parts including the base of the flowers and petioles. These are called extrafloral nectaries. The sugary reward coming from the extrafloral nectaries invites ants to defend them. Here we can see […]

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  NatureDocumentaries.org Showcase

  August 26, 2022 at 9:51 am / NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

  This is a playlist of a subset of minimally edited footage showcased in Short Observations category of NatureDocumentaries.org. Most observations have been registered in the iNaturalist global biodiversity database. You can find links to some of the individual observations that have been detailed in a post from the list below. Short Observations category aims to bring out the beauty of mostly overlooked casual observations with an unofficial motto “Let’s heal the world with daily dosage of natural history… An extended […]

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  Prominent Features of Leaf-footed Stinkbugs

  August 5, 2022 at 8:18 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video

  The leaf-footed stinkbugs have quite a few eye-catching body features including highly specialized mouthparts, offensive and defensive adaptations. This is an order of insects on which evolutionary pressures are visibly active shaping their morphologies. The evolutionary trade-offs underpinning these structures are an active research subject by biologists. Here, three characteristic body parts in leaf-footed stink bugs are highlighted: The labium, the pronotum and the components of the hind leg (femur and tibia). Entomologically, the femur and the tibia are the […]

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  Stalking Seal on the Spring Ice – Quentin Brown & Asen Balıkçı (1968)

  June 7, 2022 at 7:58 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

  Diverse ways of sustenance on the frontiers of the world fascinate us about Human adaptability and effective resource use. Stalking for seals on sea ice is one of the best documented hunting technique which employs quite exceptional behavioral deception tactics. The hunter uses a cognitive ability called “theory of mind” to overcome behavioral tripwires for prey to escape. The hunter projects the world from the view point of the prey and adjusts own behavior to a successful intercept. The hunter […]

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  Newtok | The Water is Rising / Patagonia Films (2022)

  June 7, 2022 at 11:27 am / Global Patterns, Human Nature, Video

  Human induced climate change is creating fast coastal landscape changes and during that process turn many indigenous communities into climate refugees. Co-directed by Michael Kirby Smith and Andrew Burton, Newtok | The Water is Rising highlights demise of a population. Rising sea levels threaten Newtok, Alaska. The Arctic permafrost is melting at an increasing rate. Due to Polar Amplification the speed of climatic change in the Arctic is rather fast. To keep their culture and community intact, the Yup’ik residents […]

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  Cancer Immunotherapy – Nature Reviews Genetics

  May 7, 2022 at 3:50 pm / Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Video

  Cancer touches almost everybody’s life. Here in this playlist you can watch a comprehensive summary about molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in cancer biology. Based on this knowledge, various new approaches for treatment is now on the agenda. Some have already showed considerable success. Advances in cancer therapy comes from a number of cutting edge studies and projects including genomics, antibody research and metabolic understanding of cancer cells. The Cancer Genome Atlas project has been revolutionary in understanding the genomic […]

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  Popped Secret: The Mysterious Origin of Corn – Nathan Dappen & Neil Losin – HHMI (2015)

  May 1, 2022 at 10:02 am / Evolution, Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Video

  Domestication of plants and animals is a key transformation in recent Human evolutionary history leading to sedentary farming societies. Domestication of Maize particularly followed a different trajectory from the agricultural crops of the old world. This HHMI documentary tells how the ancestral wild grass called Teosinte was domesticated to evolve into Maize. In the old world, most domesticated grasses had a surprisingly similar “first step” that paved the way towards agriculture. In old world grasses including rice, wheat, barley and […]

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