Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Coral Bleaching
What is coral bleaching? Tackle a trendy topic with a narrated animation. Through a combination of video and illustration, the narrator introduces viewers to a coral reef, then goes inside a coral polyp to show its symbiotic relationship...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Day the Mesozoic Died
Solve the ultimate who dunnit mystery: the death of the dinosaurs. Viewers watch an engaging video that describes how the asteroid impact hypothesis came to fruition and the evidence supporting it. The video also explains how life...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Great Transitions: The Origin of Tetrapods
The featured movie focuses on the ancestry of our four-footed friends. Find the fundamental pattern of their limbs and vertebrae in fossils of fish. After viewing, biology learners can enjoy interactive websites to zoom in on the...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Great Discoveries in Science: The Double Helix
Take a trip with Watson and Crick as they struggle to determine the structure of the DNA molecule. In this beautiful documentary, biology students learn the history of this revolutionary discovery, and even hear from James Watson...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Origin of Species: The Making of a Theory
The heartbreaking story of Alfred Wallace's loss of collected evidence opens this documentary about the development of the theory of evolution. You will find supportive resources to use with the movie in your biology class.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree
Different islands in the Caribbean have very similar species of anole lizards, which each have their own place in the ecosystem. Researchers did several studies to determine whether the anoles evolved into the different species then...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Making of the Fittest: The Birth and Death of Genes
After watching an engaging 13-minute video about the colorless blood of icefish, future ichthyologists examine icefish blood and non-icefish blood (blood samples are simulated with Karo syrup mixtures) to determine advantages of...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection in Humans
Sickle cell disease only occurs when both parents contribute the trait, and mostly in those of African descent. Where did it come from? How did it evolve? Tony Allison, a molecular biologist, noticed a connection between sickle cell and...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Making of the Fittest: Got Lactase? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture
Got milk? Only two cultures have had it long enough to develop the tolerance of lactose as an adult. Learn how the responsible genes evolved along with the cultures that have been consuming milk. This rich film is supplied with a few...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Day the Mesozoic Died
A dynamic, three-part feature explores what caused mass extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. Computer animations, interviews, and on-site footage from around the world divulge evidence that it was the K-T...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation
The pocket mouse can be light brown like the sands of the desert, or dark brown like the volcanic lava flows that are interspersed throughout New Mexico's Valley of Fire. It seems that predators have weeded out light colored mice in this...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
p53
Regulatory genes play very important roles in cell development. An animated video shows pupils an example of a regulatory gene and how p53 initiates transcription of a gene. The parts of a gene that control regulation are briefly...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Intracellular Infection by Salmonella
Bacteria are pesky little organisms that can often easily infect us. But how? Salmonella bacteria literally gets under our skin. Viewers see how the dangerous bacteria protects itself from defense mechanisms inside the cell.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
VEGF
Have you ever wondered what causes tumors to grow? VEGF is a very important factor because it is a hormone that causes blood vessels to grow and is triggered by cancer cells to increase blood supply to a tumor. Viewers learn about the...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Using p53 to Fight Cancer
Curing cancer with ... another virus? Chemotherapy and radiation are not the only ways to treat cancer. Now, there is a unique treatment involving infecting cells with viruses. Viewers discover why the innovative treatment does not...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
X Inactivation
Have you ever wondered why calico cats have such a colorful coat? The process of X inactivation is an interesting phenomenon in females that drives the physical appearance of individuals. Viewers of an intriguing video connect knowledge...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Tri Nucleotide Repeat
Mutations often lead to genetic disorders. The tri-nucleotide repeat leads to an expansion of DNA thanks to errors in the process of DNA replication. Using the informative video, scholars identify genetic disorders related to this error...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
MECP2
How do cells control which genes they express? The animation describes a specific example of how, after interaction with proteins, gene expression turns off. Scholars learn about the role of histone proteins and chromatin in the process...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Mismatch Repair
What does a cell do when DNA is not copied correctly? An informative video shows budding scientists an example of a mismatch mutation during DNA replication. Viewers learn that to prevent a mutation from occurring, cells have mechanisms...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Proteasome
How do cells get rid of worn out proteins? Using a short video clip, viewers learn about the role of ubiquitin in flagging worn-out proteins and see how the proteasome degrades flagged proteins.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Angiogenesis
How do cancer cells grow? With the right resources, the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells into tumors sometimes happens rapidly. The cancer then metastasizes to other areas of the body. The informative video helps scholars discover...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Chargaff's Ratio
How do we know the structure of DNA? Learn about Chargaff's rule and how scientists first discovered the structure of DNA. Using an informative video, young scientists identify how the arrangement of complementary nitrogen bases affects...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Paired DNA Strands
What happens when you untwist and unzip DNA? View the fascinating process and learn about the pieces that make up DNA in an informative video. It highlights the base pairing and sequencing rules within each strand.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Coding Sequences in DNA
The purpose of 75% of the human genome letters is still unknown. Is it unnecessary information or does it have a key to important information in human genetics? The lesson animation is a visual reference to the massive amount of...