Recent Videos

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  Life’s Rocky Start – PBS/NOVA (2016)

  July 12, 2020 at 3:33 pm / Evolution, Global Patterns, Nova Documentaries, Video

  Geology and biological evolution of life influence each other tightly. The title of the documentary “Life’s Rocky Start” reflects this relationship superbly. The six stage transformation of our planet from black, gray, blue, red, white to green is a wonderfully concise way of outlining the geological and biological evolution. 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 […]

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  Baby Ground Squirrels Endemic to Anatolia – Hakan Gür (2020)

  July 10, 2020 at 8:09 am / Natural history, Short Observations, Video

  They indeed are Meerkat look-alikes. But no they are not Meerkats. Locally they are known as “Gelengi”. Scientifically, they are the Anatolian ground squirrels (Spermophilus xanthophrymnus). In this short observation you can see 5 juveniles that are reported to be approximately 5-6 weeks old hanging out in their nest entrance. A Turkish research team lead by Dr. Hakan Gür who studies their population dynamics recorded the observation on May 8th 2020 near Ankara. Female ground squirrels mate soon after they […]

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  A Red Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)

  July 7, 2020 at 4:41 pm / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

  It appears like nothing too exciting is going on in this short observation but in reality there’s a lot happening inside that brain of this bird perfectly chilling with the self confidence of a top predator. The confidence is well earned: they are the descendants of dinosaurs. Looking and seeing are two separate actions. In order to “see” a higher order brain function called “attention” is needed. Scientists define the foundation of attention with two concepts called Context Generalization and […]

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  Plants are Cool Too! (All Episodes)

  May 20, 2020 at 10:27 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  The “Plants are Cool Too!” series is supported by the Botanical Society of America (BSA) and hosted by Dr. Chris Martine. Here you will find all episodes of the series in reverse chronological order (last-in-first-out). Ecologists have hypothesized that there has to be a level of disturbance acting pretty regularly on communities. The intensity of disturbance has to be “mild” so that it doesn’t wipe every living thing but clear out some habitable zones for re-colonization by some species that […]

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  Return of the Cicadas – Samuel Orr (2013)

  May 19, 2020 at 12:44 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  Cicadas are Hemipterans (true bugs). The genus Magicicada groups 13-year and 17-year periodical cicada species of eastern North America. The Spring of 2020 corresponds to the emergence of Brood IX of periodical cicadas in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Such emergences are spectacular feats of nature. After living underground feeding with tree roots for 13-years or 17-years (depending on the brood type) the adult insects dig themselves out synchronously in massive numbers to change their exoskeletons, mate and die. […]

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  Mars on Earth – The Guardian (2015)

  May 16, 2020 at 9:07 pm / Cosmological, Human Nature, Video

  As the Mars Curiosity Rover is scouring the planet surface and expanding our knowledge NASA is working on ways to help prepare future colonists using an experimental enclosure called Hi-SEAS which stands for the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. Hi-SEAS is an exploration of Human nature. How will a small group of space travelers cooperate and solve problems external and internal inside a confined habitat? A return mission to the red planet will be long. It will take about […]

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  Rosewood: The Tree that Bleeds – BBC (2020)

  May 16, 2020 at 12:14 pm / BBC documentaries, Human Nature, Video

  The investigative journalism by BBC Africa Eye summarizes the plight of one of the most trafficked species the Rosewood tree. This tree is distinct for when it’s cut it bleeds a blood red sap. The tree belongs to Dalbergia genus nested within the legume family. Dalbergia species can have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, antimicrobial, anti­diarrheal, anti-ulcerogenic, anti-spermicidal, larvicidal and mosquito repellant properties used in traditional medicine.The genus has a wide pantropical distribution, native to the tropical regions of Central and South […]

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  The Ancient Oak Tree that Taught the World a Lesson – BBC (2020)

  May 14, 2020 at 1:39 pm / BBC documentaries, Natural history, Video

  The Turner’s oak is a hybrid of the European oak (Quercus robur) and the Mediterranean holm oak (Quercus ilex). It is a prime example of a hybrid that exhibits blended characteristics of its progenitors: a semi-evergreen tree. Grown out in the open field for centuries, this tree experienced no competition from others and developed a dome shaped canopy. The tree was grown at the Holloway Down Nursery of Spencer Turner, Leyton, Essex, UK. In 1783, it caught the attention of […]

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  How The Coronavirus Attacks Your Lungs | KQED / Deep Look (2020)

  May 7, 2020 at 8:58 am / Human Nature, Molecular Nature, PBS Nature

  DEEP LOOK is a ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. In this special episode they are doing a vital job by disseminating reliable information on SARS-CoV-2 virus which leads to COVID-19 respiratory disease. The BBC Documentary The Hidden Life of the Cell has done a wonderful job of providing a visual story telling by animating series of events leading to an Adenovirus infection. You can also see how different coronaviruses […]

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  Mediterranean Stony Corals (Phyllangia americana mouchezii) – Mert Gökalp (2018)

  May 6, 2020 at 9:56 pm / Natural history, Short Observations, Video

  When we talk about corals we always conjure up the iconic image of highly fragile tropical reef-building symbiotic organisms in crystal clear shallow waters. The stony corals living in cold waters are striking in this matter. They show that this symbiotic relationship between the two evolutionarily distant partner organisms can break down (coral bleaching) or never evolve when conditions are less than optimal. The Mediterranean is a rather nutrient poor sea with low productivity. Lacking a photosynthetic partner stony corals […]

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  Structure of a Spliceosome: Molecular Framework for Understanding Pre-mRNA Splicing – Beauty of Science

  May 2, 2020 at 8:48 am / Molecular Nature

  One Gene-One Peptide Hypothesis was a bold statement proposed by Edward Tatum and George Beadle in 1941 heralding the nascent field of molecular genetics. The proposal was long before we knew anything about the nature and structure of the DNA. It was rather vague how a gene encoded a protein. The Central Dogma of biology was coined by Francis Crick in late 1950s but the intermediate molecule known as the messenger RNA was identified (?) in 1960 by Arthur Pardee, […]

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  ATP Synthase in Action – HarvardX / BioVisions

  April 27, 2020 at 3:09 pm / Molecular Nature, Video

  ATP is a universal energy storing molecule in biological systems. How does life generate ATP from ADP? Similarly, how does life consume it on an industrial scale in membrane bound systems such as mitochondria and chloroplasts? ATP synthase (or ATPase depending on which catalytic direction you look at it) enzyme is a hugely interesting molecular structure. Yes it most certainly is a bi-directional turbine. It is one of the few rotatory molecular structures life has evolved such as the flagella […]

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  Electron Transport Chain – HarvardX / BioVisions (2013)

  April 27, 2020 at 9:14 am / Evolution, Molecular Nature

  Understanding molecular nature of life is not easy without informative scientific visualizations. Distillation of this rich body of information generated over decades or even century long research into a visual medium can be key to grasp complexities of subcellular structures. Take the Central Dogma of biology for instance. The Central Dogma animation distills more than half a century of intense laboratory research that started with Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling’s extraordinarily historic X-ray diffraction photograph in 1952. Photo 51 was […]

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  Eye of the Pangolin – Pangolin.Africa (2019)

  April 2, 2020 at 11:21 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  The etymological origin of the name pangolin comes from the Malay word pengguling. It means “one who rolls up”. The animal has at least eight species with a wide geographical distribution ranging from Africa to Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia including Malayan Archipelago and Indonesia. Unfortunately we know very little about this highly elusive animal and its existence is under threat. Scaly anteaters are quite unusual among mammals since their skin is covered by large and overlapping keratinized scales hugely […]

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  How Coronaviruses Get into Cells – Tom Goddard (2020) / ChimeraX

  February 20, 2020 at 11:45 am / Molecular Nature, Video

  Tom Goddard is the developer of a fantastically successful free molecular visualization program ChimeraX in the University of California at San Francisco with support from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Here in this augmented reality projection, he explains how coronaviruses manage to enter cells of the host and take over the machinery which spark a viral infection. He takes a peek at the HIV packing structure and delves into […]

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