What is Biodiversity?

This excerpt from the KET Kentucky Life Biodiversity series, offers a brief overview of what we mean when we refer to the biodiversity of a particular area or region.

Think Garden: Plant Families

This video breaks down the scientific classification of living organisms. Learn about the order of classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Also get a closer look at some specific plant families to find out which fruits and vegetables are in the same family.

Think Garden: Cool Crops

This video explores the possibilities of gardening in the cooler temperatures of spring and fall. Learn about which vegetables like cool weather, and techniques to help plants grow in these conditions like raised beds and hoop houses. Also find out why cool crops are ideal for school gardens.

Ancient Farmers of the Amazon

This video segment from Evolution: "Evolutionary Arms Race" tells the story of the leafcutter ant and the fungus it farms -- an example of mutually beneficial symbiosis.

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Animal Defenses

In nature, survival is the name of the game. This video segment explores the world of animal defense and shows that predators don't always have the upper hand.

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Are We Alone?

This video segment adapted from NOVA features a variety of scientific perspectives on the age old question, "Are we alone in the universe?" Animations make vivid the improbability that we could intercept a radio wave signaling extra terrestrial intelligence.

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Becoming a Fossil

This video segment describes how the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy could have been fossilized. Footage courtesy of NOVA: "In Search of Human Origins."

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Biological Invaders

This video segment from Evolution: "Extinction!" shows the impact of invasive species on native ecosystems.

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Carnivorous Plants of Cartwheel Bay

In this video segment from NatureScene, explore Cartwheel Bay, a wetland in South Carolina, and learn about the variety of carnivorous plants native to this unique landform.

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Caves: Extreme Conditions for Life

This video segment adapted from NOVA raises the provocative idea that if life can exist in the most extreme environments on Earth — such as in dark, toxic caves — then perhaps living things can also survive in harsh environments on other planets.

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Chasing Beetles, Finding Darwin

In this video from KQED's QUEST, find out how Darwin's ideas remain as central to scientific exploration as when they were first published 150 years ago.

Chimp Politics

In this video from the PBS series The Human Spark, host Alan Alda and scientist Franz de Waal observe and compare two alpha-male chimpanzees’ different approaches to sharing at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta.

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Climate and Human Evolution

In this video segment adapted from NOVA: "Becoming Human," learn how the analysis of rock layers and ocean sediments supports the theory that rapid climate change may have jump-started human evolution two million years ago.

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Comets Bombard the Early Earth

Visualize how comets carrying chemicals necessary for life could have made their way to Earth billions of years ago in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

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Comets Deliver Amino Acids to Earth

Amino acids, essential ingredients for life, may have been delivered to Earth by comets billions of years ago, as visualized in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

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The Common Genetic Code

Paul Nurse describes his research that showed that humans share some genes with organisms as different from us as simple brewer's yeast. Footage from Secret of Life: "Immortal Thread."

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Common Past, Different Paths

This time-lapse microphotography of developing embryos shows the common ancestry of all vertebrates. Footage from NOVA: "Odyssey of Life."

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Darwin: Reluctant Rebel

This video segment from Evolution: "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," together with interviews with Daniel Dennett and James Moore, depicts Darwin struggling with publicizing his revolutionary theory.

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Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.

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A Day in the Life of a Neanderthal

In this video segment from The Human Spark, host Alan Alda looks at some of the similarities and differences between the Neanderthal way of life and that of modern humans.

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