Northern Arizona University’s Con Slobodchikoff, Ph.D., and his student-teams have been studying the alarm calls of Gunnison’s prairie dogs for over 30 years. The result: the prairie dog language has been somewhat decoded. Yes, we know what they’re saying when they yip and squeak!

From The Atlantic: 

The animals have word-like phonemes, combining those into sentence-like calls. They have social chatter. They can distinguish between types of predators that are nearby — dogs, coyotes, humans — and seem to have developed warnings that specify the predators’ species and size and color. 

This video is a win-win because you get to watch prairie dogs (and their predators), all while learning about how we observe, analyze, and test to find out more about their sophisticated animal language. Be sure to read the interview with Slobodchikoff for more information…

This week, the 5 year old discovered the science videos of Bite Sci-zed’s Alex Dainis, starting with this one: Echinoderm Show & Tell. When he immediately asked for more, we watched The Gas Laws, Dishes and Membranes and Why Red Blood Cells Look Like Donuts, above.

We’ve talked about red blood cells (and white blood cells) before, so some of this sounded familiar. And while some information is targeted towards older kids, the use of everyday objects and drawings provided enough familiarity to start our conversation…

Related watching: The Circulatory System, The Bloodmobile and BBC Knowledge Explainer DNA. Plus more videos about the body.

And the next time you have a donut, you’ll know how to make a red blood cell. Go forth, do science.

We were just watching how wind (and so many other things) can get going with the spin of the Earth, now let’s go deeper and find out more about what wind is with PBS’ Dr. Joe Hanson of It’s Okay To Be Smart.

Then watch a surprising amount of videos about spinning and wind in the archives.

(via jtotheizzoe)

What on Earth is spin? And why is it so special? In this TEDEducation video, educator Brian Jones explains how this dynamic affects our lives in all sorts of ways.

“How energetic can a severed tail be?” We’re about to find out: This is the Red-Tailed Vanzosaur, a lizard with stripes and brilliantly colored tail. Dr. Jonny Miller, UK biologist based in Paraguay, South America, demonstrates the vanzosaur’s simple survival skills in the video above, and continues to blog about his adventures in the field at planetparaguay.com. 

Previously from Dr. Miller: the common potoo.