Skip to content

Free email delivery

Please sign up for email delivery in the subscription area to the right.
No salesman will call, at least not from us. Maybe from someone else.

Through the Lens: Acorn Woodpecker | Cornell Lab of Ornithology

January 20, 2020

The Acorn Woodpecker is a favorite among bird watchers. It has a clown like appearance and the unique habit of storing acorns in a favored tree that is often used by generations of birds. Wildlife Photographer Marie Read shares her experience photographing the behaviors of these lively birds.

A film from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you. The Lab is a member-supported organization; they welcome your membership and support.  [Chuck Almdale]

Molecular Visualizations of DNA | WEHImovies

January 17, 2020
tags:
by

These DNA molecular visualizations were created for the multifaceted ‘DNA’ project, celebrating the 50th anniversary in 2003 of the discovery of the double helix. The ‘DNA’ project includes a five-part documentary series, museum film and ‘DNAi’ online resources for teachers and students.

The dynamics and molecular shapes were based on X-ray crystallographic models and other published scientific data sets. Leading scientists, including many Nobel Laureates, critiqued the animations during their development. Particular effort was made to ensure the relative shapes, sizes and ‘real-time’ dynamics were as accurate as possible.

If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you.   [Chuck Almdale]

The World’s Most Beautiful Bird Songs – Part One | Bird Kind

January 15, 2020
by

Birds are arguably the most talented singers in the natural world. This is a global medley of favourites, including: Pied Butcherbird, Musician Wren, North Island Kokako, Olive Whistler, White-rumped Shama, Eurasian Golden Oriole, Common Nightingale, Slate-colored Solitaire & 10 more. Time: 18:27

Part two will appear here in the not-too-distant future.

This sound/film comes from Bird Kind, about whom we know nothing whatsoever, other than they appreciate a good bird song. You can link to their You Tube channel here. If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you.   [Chuck Almdale]

Mating Dance of the Ostrich | Ze Frank Video

January 12, 2020

Whatever you might have thought it looked like, you didn’t imagine this.

If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you.   [Chuck Almdale]

Amazing Effects of Sleep (And Lack of it) | PBS BrainCraft Video

January 10, 2020

To sleep or not to sleep

In her latest video Vanessa mentions Z, a 24-year-old guy who claims sleep is a habit that can be broken. After 9 days straight of being awake, Z composed the following poem. The researchers said “It is the best evidence we have that offers definite proof of lack of impairment of higher mental functions at the end of the vigil.”

This is taken from page 8 of the study:

On the last day of the experiment Z composed the following verse directed to two of the women who had assisted in the observation during the experiment. The verse, together with his explanation of the first two lines, is as follows :

“F unctions that hamper and gifts that requite
M ust, by their nature in women unite.

 R eckless compounding of accent with flush
A ttacks like a limen, basic in hush
A ttacks in the crystal, survives in the light
R ecoils and assembles ‘twixt mystic and trite.

N ew fashions go leering, old modesties blare
I comin the springtime, their tortoise shell dare :
O ver insistence, and collect what you may

E voke pleasures of night to sustain in the day.
Northward the lust and the yearning conspire
S weet south, how delightful sensed form to attire.”

“The rim is composed of a woven acrostic of the two names. The first couplet sets the general theme, that women and possession are not an unmixed blessing, that the fact that as women they must require things of men that set the men from the progressive work they as men set themselves, that moreover the women might be finer things if the racial needs that lurk in their smiles and frowns, supplenesses and awkwardnesses did not compel them, their own insight lacking, to demands of this delaying sort. The hampering and the functions thus are on several levels of operation, and poetry, to the proper reader conveys much of this, more besides, and epitomizes the fact in addition.”

This is an installment of the PBS – BrainCraft series created by Vanessa Hill. If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you.  [Chuck Almdale]