Witness what one commenter calls “a comically absurd amount of tumbleweeds” as they blow across a desert road. The gathering of spiny skeletal balls was captured on a phone cam by Tim Tower while he was driving in Owyhee County, Idaho in 2014. He writes, “This was just after a ‘snow’ plow made a path down the center of the road.” Suspenseful music completes the moment.
Touch-me-not Balsam pods explode without warning when they're ready to disperse their seeds. The seed pods also happen to be the Netted Carpet Moth larva's favorite food. So what happens when this hungry caterpillar e...
Powered by changes in humidity—curling when dry and straightening when wet—this Erodium cicutarium seed (or more specifically, an achene) will bury itself by slowly drilling into the ground. This time lapse video by p...
When we think of a desolate plain or a foreboding frontier town in the wild west, we might think of the iconic tumbleweed rolling through the scene. Or they might roll through as a joke. But for people who live in dry...
See a kidney bean plant germinate, spreading its roots and sprouting up and up with its undulating green leaves, in this time-lapse by YouTuber GPhase. Each shot is captured 9 minutes 36 seconds apart at 30 frames per...
Endemic to the Namib Desert, shovel-snouted lizards (Meroles anchietae) have learned how to survive in extreme conditions. They are fast, able to run at over 91.5 cm/3 feet per second. When they rest, they must carefu...
Who might you find drinking from a water bucket in the desert heat of southwest Texas? John Wells of The Field Lab, an experiment in sustainable off-the-grid living, found bees, birds, chickens, and other animal faces...
Brass wire and liquid plastic flutter open and close like flowers in time lapse, driven by motorized mechanisms within the wooden scaffolding below. Bequeath These Seeds was created by kinetic sculptor Casey Curran fo...
Giant sequoias, the planet's largest trees and among the oldest living things on Earth—many of the largest are over 3,000 years old—depend on fire to help them reproduce. Learn how a destructive force is necessary for...
Death Valley is the driest place in the United States and is known as the hottest place on Earth (though there are places that are hotter). On top of that, average rainfall is less than 2 inches (5 cm). How can a plac...
On the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault protects around 865,000 seed samples from all over the world. Most of those seeds are of staple crops. "There are nearly 160,000 samples of wheat,...
Search & enjoy 4,000+ smart & super-cool, “not-made-for-kids, but perfect for them” videos in the classroom or together at home, curated by Rion Nakaya with her 8 & 10 year olds. Click play and start a conversation.
