Life Science: Animals

Air Bag Design
Using automobile crash test footage, this video segment adapted from NOVA shows some of the challenges in designing the air bag.

Animal Hearing
Students explore how sound is created, the importance of hearing in certain environments and some environmental causes of hearing loss.

Antarctica: Sea Ice
This video segment adapted from NOVA uses microwave images to reveal how sea ice doubles the size of Antarctica each winter. Rare footage shows how sea ice crushed the famous ship Endurance in 1914.

Beavers
This video segment explores the world of the beaver, including the biology of the species and, more importantly, its ability to transform an ecosystem for its own benefit.

Build a Steroid
In this interactive activity from NOVA, learn about the molecular structure of steroids. See the intermediate molecules that are part of the pathway for synthesizing cortisone from diosgenin.

Creepy Crawlies
This interactive feature from the NOVA: "Odyssey of Life" Web site explores the often unwitting relationship we share with the billions of organisms that reside in our bodies and in our homes.

Decomposers
Without the work of decomposers, living organisms would eventually use up all the raw materials in the environment, and dead organisms and wastes would pile up. This video segment from Interactive NOVA: "Earth" describes the role of decomposers as the Earth's great recyclers.

Deep-Sea Vents and Life's Origins
Deep-sea vents are home to life forms that do not rely on the Sun's energy. They depend instead on energy from volcanoes on the ocean floor. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes that life on Earth may have begun in this extreme environment.

Duck Development
This video segment from NOVA: "The Shape of Things" follows the growth of a duck embryo, from a single fertilized egg cell to a complex, hatching duckling.

Energy Flow in the Coral Reef Ecosystem
This video segment, adapted from NOVA, describes the energy flow in a coral reef, including its food web.

Finding Lucy
This Evolution video segment depicts the landmark hominid fossil finds by Don Johanson and his team in Ethiopia.

Genetic Modification
This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" looks at the potential created by understanding the human genome.

Genetic Variation
This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" explores the genetic similarities and differences among organisms.

Global Warming: Beyond Fossil Fuels
Martin Hoffert, professor of physics at New York University, discusses global warming and alternative energies in this interview from the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site.

The Grand Canyon: Evidence of Earth's Past
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a fossil found among the Grand Canyon's rock layers reveals the existence of a shallow sea that once covered most of western North America.

How Cancer Grows
Follow the growth of a carcinoma from initial mutation to widespread metastasis in this feature from the NOVA: "Cancer Warrior" Web site.

Human Chromosome 2
In this video segment adapted from NOVA: "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial," learn how modern genetics and molecular biology offer compelling support for evolution. The video features an interview with biologist Ken Miller.

Illuminating Photosynthesis
This interactive feature from the NOVA: "Methuselah Tree" Web site details the process of photosynthesis and its role in the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle.

Laetoli Footprints
This Evolution video segment describes how the famous track fossils known as the Laetoli footprints might have been formed and what they can reveal about the creatures who left them.

Mammals Get Their Chance
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations of an asteroid hitting Earth are used to illustrate this widely accepted theory of dinosaur extinction and the resulting conditions that favored mammals.

Masters of Disguise
In the face of danger, what's a spineless animal to do? This video segment introduces the concept of camouflage -- how animals achieve it and how this form of disguise benefits both predators and prey. Footage from NOVA: "Animal Impostors."

Migration of the Monarch
This video segment from NOVA: "The Mystery of Animal Pathfinders" explores the migratorial exploits of monarch butterflies.

More Than an Image
This video segment explores how humans perceive the world through vision. Footage from NOVA: "Mystery of the Senses: Vision."

Nature vs. Nurture Revisited
Which dictates our existence -- our genetic makeup or the environment we grow up in? Kevin Davies offers an update on this long-standing debate, from the NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" Web site.

Night Vision
This interactive feature from the NOVA "Leopards of the Night" Web site highlights the nighttime habits and abilities of a wide range of nocturnal creatures.

Oil Spill: Exxon Valdez, 1989
This video segment adapted from NOVA follows the clean-up effort after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska. Also featured is a marsh where an oil spill occurred 20 years earlier; analysis suggests that environmental damage may last for decades.

Organic Farming: Conserving Top Soil
Against the backdrop of the devastating 1930's Dust Bowl, this video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA profiles an organic farmer and the techniques he uses to conserve topsoil.

The Reproductive Role of Flowers
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn about the critical role of flowers in seed plant reproductive biology.

RNAi Discovered
In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, learn how RNAi, a mechanism that has evolved in cells to prevent viral infection, was discovered and how it works.

Scent of an Alewife
This video segment from NOVA: "Sea Behind the Dunes" tracks the return of spawning alewife fish from the open ocean back to the freshwater streams and ponds where they were born.

Sea Turtles
This video segment from Interactive NOVA: "Animal Pathfinders" describes the life history of the sea turtle.

The Sense of Taste
This video segment explores the sense of taste in humans -- why we have it, and what happens when we lose it. Footage from NOVA: "Mystery of the Senses: Taste."

Sound Waves Underwater: The Loch Ness Monster
This video segment, adapted from NOVA follows a team of enthusiasts and scientists who attempt to find a trace of the Loch Ness monster by scouring the lake with sonar.

Super Salmon
This video segment from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "Harvest of Fear" explores genetic modification of salmon and possible consequences.

Synthesizing a Steroid
This video segment, adapted from NOVA, tells the story of chemist Percy Julian's quest to make progesterone from a plant steroid, an important medical advancement of the 1940s.