Via jtotheizzoe, watch Return of the Cicadas by Samuel Orr, a beautifully shot film that shows the insect’s unique 17-year life cycle in detail.

With soil temperatures along the East Coast now above the mid-60’s, the Brood II cicadas are up and chirping! Check out WNYC/Radiolab’s real-time Cicada Tracker map to see where they have been observed:

The video above is a jaw-droppingly superb look at the rise of the magicicada from its underground lair, their mass ascent to the trees, their monstrous metamorphosis into adults, and their brief mission to avoid being eaten and reproduce…

More cicada stuff:

• Why do these periodic cicadas only pop up ever 13 or 17 years (depending ont he exact brood)? I was a guest on New Hampshire public radio to talk about the evolutionary advantage of prime numbers and enormous populations. 
• Illustrated cicada emergence in GIF form!
• Time-lapse video of a Brood XIX cicada emerging

If any of you on the East Coast have photos or video of abandoned shells, climbing juveniles, or chirping adults, I’d love to see them! Tweet me or email them to itsokaytobesmart at gmail dot com.

Sir David Attenborough with cicadas and so many insect videos(!) in the archives.

From medicalschool, watch this time lapse clip of how bacteria reproduce by dividing into two every 20 minutes. 

Bacteria are microscopic single-cell organisms that are found in the air, inside and on our bodies, in the dirt, and everywhere in nature. There are both harmful and beneficial kinds. Some cause diseases, while others help our bodies function. For example, there are more than 400 types of bacteria live in the human digestive system. There are also kinds that are used to make medicines, and others that make foods like cheese and yogurt. (Might anyone know what kind of bacteria this is?)

More mentions of bacteria are in these videos.

How fun is this AsapScience video written, directed and performed by Mitchell Moffit? Based on the famous can can piece from Orphée aux enfers by Jacques Offenbach, The NEW Periodic Table Song makes it fun to sing all of the elements… in order! Find it on iTunes or Bandcamp, and if you need help with the lyrics, you can find them in the video notes.

Of course, this video is an excellent addition to a long line of elements songs. They Might Be Giants’ Meet The Elements is one of our favorites, and of course there’s Tom Lehrer’s classic.

via Daily of the Day.

Watch singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer perform The Elements live from Copenhagen in 1967. Set to the melody, ”I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General“ from Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, it challenges the speed at which you can recite all of the elements known in the early-1960s.

Read more about Tom Lehrer here, buy The Elements on Amazon, or watch Daniel Radcliffe sing it on the Graham Norton Show.

How does a virus invade your body? With the help of medical animator David Bolinsky, Robert Krulwich explain step-by-step in this NPR video from 2009. There’s also more to read at Krulwich Wonders.

Another NPR favorite: Catching Up with the Flu. Or watch more videos about how bodies work.