We really love this video, The Secret Life of Plankton, from TEDEd. Marine biologist and science educator Tierney Thys and a team of scientists and film makers (Noé Sardet and Sharif Mirshak from Parafilms in Montreal) created this phenomenal six minute film about microscopic organisms using some excellent storytelling and new videography techniques (dark field optics and macro lenses or microscopes equipped with HD SLR cameras).
Tierney is also a TED speaker, having previously studied the Mola mola, a super-unique giant ocean sunfish that weighs over 2.5 tons and eats jellyfish. It’s a phenomenal looking creature. You can watch Tierney talk passionately about the Molas, the water, and her work as a Marine Biologist in a video at NationalGeographic.com. Highly recommended.
For a great set of plankton images, there is molecular geneticist Richard R Kirby’s book, Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves, featured at Scientific American.
Watch these next: How Life Begins in the Deep Ocean and Animated Life: Seeing the Invisible.
Thanks, Achim Brauweiler.
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