The Kid Should See This.
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There's just so much science, nature, music, art, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them...
But we don't underestimate kids around here.
Kid-friendly not-made-for-kids videos for all! Collected by Rion Nakaya and her three four year old co-curator.
Tip Jar: Curating this blog takes work! If you like the videos on this site, please support the science education projects that we've picked on DonorsChoose.org.
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Don’t adjust your sound as this video has none, but wow, does it have a picture! This is a deepstaria enigmatica, a deep-sea jellyfish that was caught by a remotely operated underwater camera about 5000 feet (1500 m) down. Wikipedia places them “in Antarctic and near-Antarctic seas” and puts their size at “approx. 60 cm” (or almost 2 feet) wide. Impressive, nature. Impressive.
via io9.
From photographer Joel Sartore’s Biodiversity Project, a video to promote his book Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species, which beautifully showcases species that are in danger of disappearing in America, and some that “have come back from the brink.”
Advice from Joel about helping animals? Start by:
…visiting and patronizing your local zoo. Zoos and aquariums are vitally important to conservation today. Not only do they fund and manage captive breeding programs, but they are increasingly involved in conservation of habitat in the wild. Find an accredited zoo or aquarium in your area here.
Last but not least, learn more about your favorite animal. A simple web search will likely lead you to the organizations working on its conservation. Support them. And share what you know with your friends and family. The more people who are informed and who care, the better.
There is also a pretty funny video from behind the scenes of his shoot:
h/t NYT’s LENS.
From the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI):
By all accounts, jellyfish are creatures that kill people, eat microbes, grow to tens of meters, filter phytoplankton, take over ecosystems, and live forever. Because of the immense diversity of gelatinous plankton, jelly-like creatures can individually have each of these properties. However this way of looking at them both overstates and underestimates their true diversity. Taxonomically, they are far more varied than a handful of exemplars that are used to represent jellyfish or especially the so-called “true” jellyfish. Ecologically, they are even more adaptable than one would expect by looking only at the conspicuous bloom forming families and species that draw most of the attention. In reality, the most abundant and diverse gelatinous groups in the ocean are not the ones that anyone ever sees.
via ScienceDump.
Discovered by a Washington, D.C., lawyer in search of antique furniture, this is truly a Cabinet of Wonders, for inside is the 1700-specimen personal collection of 19th Century British naturalist, field biologist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace.
From the Washington Post:
There are butterflies and beetles, moths and shells. There’s a small bird. Flies. Bees. Praying mantises. Tarantulas. Seedpods. A hornet’s nest… “I think it’s a fabulous thing,” said David Grimaldi, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “I think it’s a national treasure, actually.”
via Science Dump.
Have the kids seen the Barreleye Fish? — No, those aren’t the eyes… those are its nose or smell organs. The eyes are those two large green orb-ish things inside of its transparent head. It’s about 6 inches long and was discovered around 2,000 feet deep off of the coast of central California by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).
The green lens atop each of the fish’s eyes filters out what little sunlight makes it down from the surface, allowing the fish to focus on the bioluminescence of small jellies or other prey passing overhead. Then the eyes rotate forward to follow the prey, allowing the fish to home in on its meal.
It took from 1939 to 2004 before scientists were able to find a living example of this fish…. 65 years!
via UWImaging.
That is a Sacoglossan Sea Slug, found in French Polynesia. It is one of the many kinds of life documented over a 24 hour period in one cubic foot underwater by photographer David Liittschwager.
National Geographic has a great (flash) interactive photo gallery, including videos(!), of the five ecosystems that David explored and documented: forest in Central Park, a coral reef in French Polynesia, a Costa Rican tropical cloud forest, South African mountain fynbos (a collection of plants that are mainly shrubs), and a fresh water river in Tennessee.
via Raul.
