Blog Archives

Untangling the Brain – Nature Video

Another great video from the NatureVideoChannel, posted just in time for the end of the IB Biology course for our HL students.

For more brain resources, head over to the main topic page (E5 The Human Brain).

Also check out the excellent resources from the NewScientist: The Human Brain

3D Brain App: It's Free!

PBS has a great site called The Secret Life of the Brain (with 3D animation), and there’s Slate’s special issue on The Brain.

If you have an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad, get this cool free app: 3dBrain.

 

California Academy of Sciences Channel

Here’s a good YouTube channel from California Academy of Sciences: Science in Action with over 100 videos covering a diverse range of topics. To tie into GRade 12’s Neurobiology and Behaviour unit, here’s a clip on intelligent crows!

There are also loads of interviews, science news stories and general interestingness. Check it out!

Attenborough on Darwin: The Tree of Life

This is on my shopping list for sure – and one of those rare occasions I miss British TV. Attenborough kicks the Year of Darwin off with his new documentary, The Tree of Life. Sadly the BBC iPlayer thingy is only available in the UK, though I’m sure some will know how to fool it – if you hurry there are a few days left to download it!

Here’s the man himself (Attenborough, not Darwin – that would be cool) in an interview with Nature magazine:

And if you’re up for an interesting quick read, here are the Top Ten Myths of Darwin from The Rough Guide to Evolution blog.

Nature’s YouTube Channel (and some others)

On the heels of the NewScientist YouTube channel we have the offering from Nature. Where NewScientist provides a news-style clip of current Science headlines, Nature’s YouTube channel takes the approach of a video background to articles published in their journal. So far they have ten videos, though they provide useful background to articles such as the Antikythera mechanism, whale evolution and this one on sequencing the platypus genome:

It’s an encouraging trend to see these journals reach out into internet video publishing – cheap, easy and a great starting place for students getting involved in science. Let’s hope Nature can keep their channel going longer than ScientificAmerican, who started strongly but seem to have given up.

Of course, the bees knees of YouTube channels so far are NationalGeographic, with 847 videos to date. Here’s a gratuitous Great White clip:

JoVE

JoVE

Another great channel (though not on YouTube) is the Journal of Visualised Experiments – actually publishing scientific research papers as videos. A good idea, and some really effective videos – especially for letting us see what is going on in the experiment or operation.  Unfortunately, their videos can’t be embedded, so get yourself on over there and have  a look.

Now comes the question of citing online videos in your work – and here is the answer! (pdf)

Other ‘tube’ resources worth a look are DNAtube and TeacherTube.

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