Who's Biggest? ~ Comparing Marine Creatures!

Who's biggest? See here...

Bird Migration ~ Seasonal Flight in Americas!

Audubon spotlights a full season of bird migrations visualized!

"A new animation from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology tracks 118 species along their journeys across the Americas."

Farm & Red Moon ~ Docu on Animals as Food...

Interesting to see ML alum David Tames and colleague Audrey Kali Kickstarting their documentary film Farm and Red Moon...

"A passionate vegan, while exploring the personal quandaries surrounding harvesting of animals for food, becomes a conflicted omnivore."

Inventing Honeyflow ~ Inspired Bee-friendly Hive!

Cedar Anderson and his Dad Stuart have invented the beekeeper's dream hive -- the Flow -- which splits the honeycombs apart in a way harmless to the bees but releasing the honey easily! Didn't happen overnight, though, and here's Cedar telling their story... And here you get close-up view of what's going on when the beekeeper turnkeys the Flow...

Big Cat Scanner ~ Leibniz's Zoological Imaging!

MissC spots the Big Cat Scan -- a Toshiba Aquilon CX CT-scanner -- at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research... Let's hope the anaesthesia doesn't wear off prematurely;-)

Flow Hive ~ Brilliant New Beekeeper Tech!

The latest buzz in beekeeping is the Flow Hive on Indiegogo now!

Dogs On the Inside ~ Transforming Prisoners...

Neatorama's Lisa Marcus shares about Dogs and Prisoners Learning Valuable Lessons from Each Other in a documentary film called Dogs On the Inside...

"Filmed in a Massachusetts prison, follows the story of stray dogs in the community who were rescued and placed with prisoners at a minimum security prison. Before their rescues, the dogs were likely on a path to be euthanized in shelters. The goal of the program is for the prisoners to develop empathy and loving feelings toward the dogs, who in turn learn to trust humans in spite of any troubled histories they may have suffered. It seems to be situation benefiting both the dogs and the inmates."

Mosquitos ~ Imaging Natural Hypodermic Hazards

Jumbo-Gardeners ~ Elephants in the Rainforest

BBC's Power of Nature spotlights the role of elephants in gardening the rainforest, spreading seeds, boosting biodiversity, and more!

Farm for the Future ~ Sustainable Growth...

UD spots Rebecca Hosking's docu A Farm for the Future exploring...

"How to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future."

Tentacles ~ Collecting Cephalopods for Exhibit!

TheKid spots Dr Stephanie Bush at MBARI collecting cephalopods!

Maggot Feed ~ Insects Next Link in Food Chain!-)

The BBC's Nic Fleming investigates How insects could feed the food industry of tomorrow...

"Millions of maggots squirm over blackened pieces of fruit and bloody lumps of fetid flesh. A pungent stench of festering decay hovers over giant vats of writhing, feasting larvae. It's more than enough to put most people off their lunch. Yet these juvenile flies could soon be just one step in the food chain away from your dinner plate."

Mmm, sounds tasty!

Whale Power ~ Enhancing Oceanic Abundance;-)

The BBC Power of Nature series spotlights Why whale poo is good for the oceans... and us!

"Oceans envelop three-quarters of our planet’s surface. The survival of three billion people depends on their incredible bounty. Only now are we discovering how the ocean’s largest inhabitants are helping to enhance this. [...] When phytoplankton use up all the nutrients in the water, this vital growth goes into decline. But nature provides an unexpected lifeline, in the form of whale excrement. Whales excrete near the surface, releasing huge amounts of nutrients."

Amazing Octopi ~ Clever, Camo, Flexi, Tasty;-)

GeekPress spots escaping octopus! They're really amazing!

Ant Architects ~ Cool Properties & Capabilities...

Ants are collective creators of remarkable homes and temporary structures. To explore this further, check out when a fire ant colony is filled with molten aluminum and the cast is dug up and cleansed... See more lovely example casts at Anthill Art! Fire ant groups also demonstrate remarkable hydrophobic properties... This means they can self-configure into massive rafts... Curiously enough, as a collective they also behave like a fluid... A different species creates a giant ant hill which is here filled with concrete and excavated... To get a better sense of how ants live and organize, here's the investigative BBC show, Planet Ant ~ Life Inside The Colony of Central American leafcutter ants... Maybe that whets your appetite for the BBC's Ant Attack! And NatGeo's City of Ants too...

Slow Life ~ Stoupin's Micro Timelapse of Sealife!

io9's George Dvorsky spots Slow Life timelapse by Daniel Stoupin...

"Corals and sponges are surprisingly mobile creatures, but their agonizingly slow movements are difficult to detect with the human eye. Now, using 150,000 photographs [here's] stunning macro timelapse [where] these subtle movements can be seen"

Blowfly Flight Motor ~ In Vivo Microtomo Imaging!

Thanks to io9's George Dvorsky for spotting new PLOS Biology research article In Vivo Time-Resolved Microtomography Reveals the Mechanics of the Blowfly Flight Motor...

"Here we present the results of a synchrotron-based study performing micrometre-resolution, time-resolved microtomography on the 145 Hz wingbeat of blowflies. These data represent the first four-dimensional visualizations of an organism's internal movements on sub-millisecond and micrometre scales. This technique allows us to visualize and measure the three-dimensional movements of five of the largest steering muscles, and to place these in the context of the deforming thoracic mechanism that the muscles actuate. Our visualizations show that the steering muscles operate through a diverse range of nonlinear mechanisms, revealing several unexpected features that could not have been identified using any other technique."

Amazing work by the researchers, including Simon Walker, Daniel Schwyn, Rajmund Mokso, Martina Wicklein, Tonya Müller, Michael Doube, Marco Stampanoni, Holger Krapp, Graham Taylor! Here's the experimental setup...

BeetleCopter ~ Burrard-Lucas Shoots Serengeti

Thanks to The Kid Should See This for spotting nature photographer (and crafter of Camptraptions including the original BeetleCam) Will Burrard-Lucas's BeetleCopter in the Serengeti...

Slo-Mo Goshawk ~ BBC Spots Animal Extremes!

C spots BBC's Goshawk Flies Through Tiny Spaces in Slo-Mo!

Cat Tracking ~ BBC's Secret Life Exploration!

BBC's Secret Life of Cats follows 50 pussies in small British village!