Marine scientist and Stanford PhD student Cassandra Brooks narrates a two month long time-lapse view from an ice breaker — a specially-designed ship with “a strengthened hull, an ice-clearing shape, and the power to push through sea ice.”

Cassandra joined the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, to track the phytoplankton bloom and study organic carbon in the waters as the seasons shift from summer to autumn. She’s also exploring the balance between the region’s fishing industry — Antarctic toothfish are caught here and later sold on the market as “Chilean sea bass” — with the conservation of this remote and celebrated ecosystem for scientific study.

via National Geographic’s Ocean Views.

More videos from Antarctica are in the archives. 

Magnifying carbon monoxide (CO) atoms to over 100 million times their actual size, arranging them into a series of 242 still images, and then animating them together, scientists at IBM Research have made the smallest movie ever. Wait, how small is that again?

“If an atom was the size of an orange, then the orange would be the size of the whole planet Earth.”

The movie is called A Boy and His Atom, and it is Guinness World Records verified(!) as the smallest stop-motion film in the world.

You can read more about the project here, you can listen to the sound of moving atoms, and can watch how scientists Susanne Baumann, Andreas Heinrich, Christopher Lutz and Ileana Rau made the movie here:

The future is now.

Thanks, Monika. 

Evolutionary Biologist and Ornithologist Kim Bostwick describes the dance moves and unique sounds of the forest-dwelling Red-capped Manakin. This Central and South America-based bird makes a snapping sound with its wings, and has a unique courtship move that has been compared to The Moonwalk. 

Kim launched the Manakin-focused Singingwings.org, and is the Curator of Birds and Mammals in the Museum of Vertebrates at Cornell University, from where we’ve seen some amazing must-watch bird videos.

h/t Next Draft, which got me googling after it linked to 6 animals that science has discovered can dance, which also features the dance of the peacock spider.

Watch more videos about dance and sound.

Entomologist Dr. Jürgen Otto films the Peacock Spiders of Australia, and they are super fun to watch. Though they are not well documented, there are 20 known species of these small jumping spiders. They have huge eyes, grow to about 5mm, and the males have colorful iridescent flaps that they use to attract females.  

GrrlScientist has written more about Dr. Otto and these unique little creatures, and you can see more photos (and an interview) on 1000 Natural Wonders.

via Bug Girl’s Blog.

Robots have to be able to move, perhaps quickly, on all kinds of terrain — search and rescue missions on remote parts of Earth or explorations on other planets like Mars will require it. So terradynamic researchers at Georgia Tech are creating and testing robots that have different leg shapes, all inspired by animals, to handle movement in a variety of environments. Bonus technology: 3D printing.

Watch this robot with c-shaped legs running super fast on Mars-like sand, and read more about the experiments here or here.

h/t PopSci.