Be Smart
Beavers: The Smartest Things in Fur Pants
Beavers have done more to shape North American landscapes than any animal beside humans. We don't notice them much today because there aren't many left, but before colonization, North America was home to hundreds of millions of these...
TED Talks
TED: Why we're storing billions of seeds | Jonathan Drori
In this brief talk from TED U 2009, Jonathan Drori encourages us to save biodiversity -- one seed at a time. Reminding us that plants support human life, he shares the vision of the Millennium Seed Bank, which has stored over 3 billion...
SciShow
10 Discoveries Made in National Parks
Thanks to The National Trust for Historic Preservation, in partnership with American Express, for sponsoring this video celebrating 100 years of the National Park Service! Now through July 5th, you can help your favorite park win an...
TED Talks
Juliet Brophy: How a new species of ancestors is changing our theory of human evolution
In 2013, a treasure trove of unusual fossils were uncovered in a cave in South Africa, and researchers soon realized: these were the remains of a new species of ancient humans. Paleoanthropologist Juliet Brophy takes us inside the...
Crash Course Kids
Food Webs
Last time we put a Polar Bear in the desert and we still feel bad about that, but there's a lot more going on in ecosystems than just temperature. In fact, there are so many elements in ecosystems, that if just one leaves or gets out of...
SciShow
Invasive Species The Story of Bunny
Hank tells us the story of bunny and planet Wonderful, and the impacts of exotic invasive species on ecosystems while introducing us to a couple interesting individuals.
TED Talks
TED: The real danger lurking in the water | Romulus Whitaker
The gharial and king cobra are two of India's most iconic reptiles, and they're endangered because of polluted waterways. Conservationist Romulus Whitaker shows rare footage of these magnificent animals and urges us to save the rivers...
Crash Course
Old & Odd: Archaea, Bacteria & Protists - CrashCourse Biology
Hank veers away from human anatomy to teach us about the (mostly) single-celled organisms that make up two of the three taxonomic domains of life, and one of the four kingdoms: Archaea, Bacteria, and Protists. They are by far the most...
Bozeman Science
r and K selection
Paul Andersen explains the differences between an r and a K selected species. He starts with a brief description of population growth noting the importance of; r or growth rate, N or number of individuals in the population, and K the...
Crash Course
Natural Selection - Crash Course Biology
Hank guides us through the process of natural selection, the key mechanism of evolution.
Bozeman Science
Population Ecology
In this video Paul Andersen explains how population ecology studies the density, distribution, size, sex ration, and age structure of populations. Intrinsic growth rate and exponential growth calculations are included along with a...
Crash Course
The Sex Lives of Nonvascular Plants: Alternation of Generations - Crash Course Biology
Hank introduces us to nonvascular plants - liverworts, hornworts & mosses - which have bizarre features, kooky habits, and strange sex lives. Nonvascular plants inherited their reproductive cycle from algae, but have perfected it to the...
Be Smart
Why Music Moves Us
How can simple sound waves cause so much emotion? I went from my comfy chair to the streets of Austin to investigate how it might be written into our neuroscience and evolution. Modern neuroscience says our brains may be wired to pick...
Be Smart
The Romantic Lure of Moonlight
Organisms of all shapes and sizes synchronize their behaviors using biological clocks. Some keep pace with the daily rising and setting sun using circadian rhythms. Others use annual cycles or the changing seasons as their cue. But many...
Bozeman Science
Ecosystem Ecology
In this video Paul Andersen explains how ecosystems function. He begins with a description of how life on the planet is ordered from large to small in biomes, ecosystems, communities, population, and individuals. He describes the major...
Be Smart
Why Are The Bees Dying?
Bees, wild and domesticated, are in big trouble. Bee colonies are dying off at alarming rates, and the cause isn't clear. Pesticides, habitat loss, disease, there's a laundry list of likely culprits. We rely on these tiny pollinators for...