Topic: Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a long word that can be a bit tricky to spell. It refers to all living things that form the web of life. Every part of biodiversity is linked to another part. The survival of each species depends on the health and numbers of others. Biodiversity is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces go together to create and support life.

YouTube channel 'Reactions' are getting to the bottom of one of the biggest quandaries in science: Why dogs sniff each other’s butts.

Last year Americans wasted nearly 1 million collective years staring at each others' tailpipes. But there is another species on earth whose population numbers in the trillions, but who doesn't get stuck in traffic...how?

Humans know the surprising prick of a needle, the searing pain of a stubbed toe, and the throbbing of a toothache. We can identify many types of pain and have multiple ways of treating it — but what about other species? How do the animals all around us experience pain?

For the microscopic lab worm life equates to just a few short weeks on Earth. The bowhead whale, on the other hand, can live over two hundred years. Why are these lifespans so different? And what does it really mean to ‘age' anyway?

All mammals share certain characteristics, like warm blood and backbones. But despite their similarities, these creatures also have many biological differences — and one of the most remarkable differences is how they give birth.

Sloths spend most of their time eating, resting, or sleeping; in fact, they descend from their treetops canopies just once a week, for a bathroom break. How are these creatures so low energy?

Are humans nature’s greatest architects? When we look elsewhere in nature, we find some pretty amazing animal architects. It's Ok to be Smart looks at how some of these species have mastered physics to install air conditioning in their homes!

Back-to-back severe bleaching events, caused by warming oceans, have affected two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, new aerial surveys have found. Climate change is not the only challenge – runoff-affected water quality, reef-killing crown of thorns starfish and the destruction of Cyclone Debbie also threaten the reef’s health. Scientists are warning that Australia has little time left to act on climate change and save the world’s largest living structure.

How is biodiversity essential to humans? We couldn't survive without it! Biodiversity supplies food, shelter, medicine and so much more to humans.

You’re stranded in a rainforest, and you’ve eaten a poisonous mushroom. To save your life, you need an antidote excreted by a certain species of frog. Unfortunately, only the female frog produces the antidote. The male and female look identical, but the male frog has a distinctive croak. Derek Abbott shows how to use conditional probability to make sure you lick the right frog and get out alive.

To human eyes, the world at night is a formless canvas of grey. Many nocturnal animals, on the other hand, experience a rich and varied world, bursting with details, shapes, and colors. What is it, then, that separates moths from men? Anna Stöckl uncovers the science behind night vision.

Along with humans, orangutans belong to the Hominidae family tree, which stretches back 14 million years. But it’s not just their striking red hair that makes orangutans unique among our great ape cousins. Lu Gao shares some amazing facts about these incredibly intelligent great apes from Asia.

Is there life beyond Earth? Join NASA's director of planetary science James Green for a survey of the places in our solar system that are most likely to harbour alien life.

"Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold, and Earth is just right," says planetary scientist Dave Brain. But why? In this pleasantly humorous talk, Brain explores the fascinating science behind what it takes for a planet to host life — and why humanity may just be in the right place at the right time when it comes to the timeline of life-sustaining planets.

Patrícia Medici: Although the tapir is one of the world's largest land mammals, the lives of these solitary, nocturnal creatures have remained a mystery. Known as "the living fossil," the very same tapir that roams the forests and grasslands of South America today arrived on the evolutionary scene more than 5 million years ago. Today, threats from poachers, deforestation and pollution, especially in quickly industrialising Brazil, threaten this longevity. In this insightful talk, conservation biologist, tapir expert and TED Fellow Patrícia Medici shares her work with these amazing animals and challenges us with a question: Do we want to be responsible for their extinction?

"A forest is much more than what you see," says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.

About 60 percent of the ocean is a cold, dark region that spans down to 11,000 meters. This zone is known as the deep ocean, and though it seems like an inhospitable and remote corner of the planet, it is actually one of the greatest habitats on Earth. Lidia Lins explores how so many species thrive in this mysterious underwater world.

In this intriguing talk, biologist Ameenah Gurib-Fakim introduces us to rare plant species from isolated islands and regions of Africa. Meet the shape-shifting benjoin; the baume de l'ile plate, which might offer a new treatment for asthma; and the iconic baobab tree, which could hold the key to the future of food. Plus: monkey apples.

What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game to rule the Earth? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see the world from a plant's-eye view.

As the world's population grows and the effects of climate change come into sharper relief, we'll have to feed more people using less arable land. Molecular biologist Jill Farrant studies a rare phenomenon that may help: "resurrection plants" — super-resilient plants that seemingly come back from the dead. Could they hold promise for growing food in our coming hotter, drier world?

Antonio Donato Nobre study the interactions between forests and atmosphere. His research revealed that there are real steam rivers running over the Amazon rainforest and carrying moisture to much of the continent. Thanks to these rivers, South America is not a desert like Africa. His research shows the fragility of the forest against a backdrop of climate change and the huge risk we run if we lose it.

In this visually dazzling talk, Jonathan Drori shows the extraordinary ways flowering plants -- over a quarter million species -- have evolved to attract insects to spread their pollen: growing 'landing-strips' to guide the insects in, shining in ultraviolet, building elaborate traps, and even mimicking other insects in heat.

Rachel Sussman shows photographs of the world's oldest continuously living organisms -- from 2,000-year-old brain coral off Tobago's coast to an "underground forest" in South Africa that has lived since before the dawn of agriculture.

Science writer Richard Preston talks about some of the most enormous living beings on the planet, the giant trees of the US Pacific Northwest. Growing from a tiny seed, they support vast ecosystems -- and are still, largely, a mystery.

Plants behave in some oddly intelligent ways: fighting predators, maximizing food opportunities ... But can we think of them as actually having a form of intelligence of their own? Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso presents intriguing evidence.

Every day, we use materials from the earth without thinking, for free. But what if we had to pay for their true value: would it make us more careful about what we use and what we waste? Think of Pavan Sukhdev as nature's banker -- assessing the value of the Earth's assets. Eye-opening charts will make you think differently about the cost of air, water, trees. teebweb.org

At 8,850 meters above sea level, Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, has the highest altitude on the planet. But how did this towering formation get so tall? Michele Koppes peers deep into our planet’s crust, where continental plates collide, to find the answer.

According to the ABC's 7.30 program, an aerial survey of the northern Great Barrier Reef has shown that 95 per cent of the reefs are now severely bleached — far worse than previously thought.

When ultraviolet sunlight hits our skin, it affects each of us differently. Depending on skin color, it’ll take only minutes of exposure to turn one person beetroot-pink, while another requires hours to experience the slightest change. What’s to account for that difference, and how did our skin come to take on so many different hues to begin with? Angela Koine Flynn describes the science of skin colour.

Camels are so well adapted to the desert that it's hard to imagine them living anywhere else. But what if we have them pegged all wrong? What if those big humps, feet and eyes were evolved for a different climate and a different time? In this talk, join Radiolab's Latif Nasser as he tells the surprising story of how a very tiny, very strange fossil upended the way he sees camels, and the world.

Somersaulting manta rays, dashing dolphins, swarming schools of fish and munching sharks inhabit a world beneath the ocean’s surface. Underwater photographer Thomas Peschak visits rare seascapes around the world to reveal these hidden ecosystems. Step into the blue with him in this gorgeous, immersive TED Talk.

If insects suddenly morphed into large beings and decided to wage war on us, there’s no doubt that humans would lose. There are an estimated 10 quintillion individual insects on earth, outnumbering humans by more than a billion to one. So what’s their secret to success? Murry Gans details the reasons behind insect abundance.

You’re stranded in a rainforest, and you’ve eaten a poisonous mushroom. To save your life, you need an antidote excreted by a certain species of frog. Unfortunately, only the female frog produces the antidote. The male and female look identical, but the male frog has a distinctive croak. Derek Abbott shows how to use conditional probability to make sure you lick the right frog and get out alive.

Parts of Death Valley, the driest place in North America, have exploded in a riot of color with a rare “superbloom” of millions of wildflowers January 2016. The unusual spectacle, unofficially dubbed a superbloom, has been triggered by a series of storms in October 2015 due to El Nino conditions. The valley contains the lowest point in North America, as well as snow-covered mountains. Despite the harsh conditions, more than 1,000 species of plants are found in Death Valley, as well as a selection of bats, squirrels, coyotes and desert bighorn sheep.

Yes, we might eventually have no bananas. Is it really true? Why are bananas, as we know them, now under the threat of extinction? Can the fate of the Cavendish banana be changed.

About 66 million years ago, a terrible extinction event wiped out the dinosaurs. But it wasn’t the only event of this kind -- extinctions of various severity have occurred throughout the Earth’s history -- and are still happening all around us today. Borths, D'Emic, and Pritchard give a quick history of mass extinctions.

Stellar astronomer and TED Senior Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz works on NASA's Kepler mission, searching for places in the universe that could support life. So it's worth a listen when she asks us to think carefully about Mars. In this short talk, she suggests that we stop dreaming of Mars as a place that we'll eventually move to when we've messed up Earth, and to start thinking of planetary exploration and preservation of the Earth as two sides of the same goal. As she says, "The more you look for planets like Earth, the more you appreciate our own planet."

Reflections from Uyuni is a Time-lapse short film that shows the intrinsic beauty of the salt flat of Uyuni and the province of Potosí in Bolivia. The reflections produced by the water flooding the area in the rainy season, are the main protagonist of Enrique Pacheco´s camera, who invites us to dream with impossible images from another world, where the sky meets the earth forming an infinite mirage. The salt flat of Uyuni with over 10,000km2 is the largest in the world. It is located in the province of Potosi, Bolivia, near the Andes, at an altitude of 3.656m. The Salar serves as a transport route through the Altiplano of Bolivia, but tourism has an increasingly more important role in the area.

On land, animals leave footprints that tell us a lot about their size, form and capabilities. Marine organisms do this too, but these footprints are harder to see since water is translucent. Bioengineer Kakani Katija explains how she uses dyes, lasers and more to make them visible, so that she and her intrepid collaborators can understand more about how sea organisms move.

The microraptor was a four-winged carnivorous dinosaur with iridescent black feathers. But if our information about this dinosaur comes from fossils, how can we be certain about its colour? Len Bloch shows how making sense of the evidence requires careful examination of the fossil and a good understanding of the physics of light and colour.

Octopuses have the ability to solve puzzles, learn through observation, and even use tools – just like humans. But what makes octopus intelligence so amazing is that it comes from a biological structure completely different from ours. Cláudio L. Guerra takes a look inside the amazing octopus brain.

Kristen Marhaver studies corals, tiny creatures the size of a poppyseed that, over hundreds of slow years, create beautiful, life-sustaining ocean structures hundreds of miles long. As she admits, it's easy to get sad about the state of coral reefs; they're in the news lately because of how quickly they're bleaching, dying and turning to slime. But the good news is that we're learning more and more about these amazing marine invertebrates — including how to help them (and help them help us). This biologist and TED Senior Fellow offers a glimpse into the wonderful and mysterious lives of these hard-working and fragile creatures.

Overfishing is the depletion of a stock of fish by too much fishing. Many people don’t know the facts behind the fish we eat. This animation explains the ocean's most solvable problem while reminding us that we all have a role to play in fixing it.

In 1990, The Human Genome Project proposed to sequence the entire human genome over 15 years with $3 billion of public funds. Then, seven years before its scheduled completion, a private company called Celera announced that they could accomplish the same goal in just three years at a fraction of the cost. This video details the history of this race to sequence the human genome.

Coral reefs, you may have heard, are in trouble. Maybe you've even seen images of ghost-white corals, bleached by unprecedentedly high ocean temperatures. Whether those temperatures are due to El Niño or climate change, warm water isn't the only threat to our prettiest underwater organisms: There are also overfishing, ocean acidification, and even overeager snorkelers to consider. What's a coral to do to survive?

Deborah Gordon studies ant colonies in the Arizona desert to understand their complex social system. She asks: How do these chitinous creatures get down to business — and even multitask when they need to — with no language, memory or visible leadership? Her answers could lead to a better understanding of all complex systems, from the brain to the Web. Thanks, ants.

Beverly + Dereck Joubert live in the bush, filming and photographing lions and leopards in their natural habitat. With stunning footage (some never before seen), they discuss their personal relationships with these majestic animals — and their quest to save the big cats from human threats.

Biologist Sheila Patek talks about her work measuring the feeding strike of the mantis shrimp, one of the fastest movements in the animal world, using video cameras recording at 20,000 frames per second.

Savage-Rumbaugh's work with bonobo apes, which can understand spoken language and learn tasks by watching, forces the audience to rethink how much of what a species can do is determined by biology — and how much by cultural exposure.

Although the tapir is one of the world's largest land mammals, the lives of these solitary, nocturnal creatures have remained a mystery. Known as "the living fossil," the very same tapir that roams the forests and grasslands of South America today arrived on the evolutionary scene more than 5 million years ago. But threats from poachers, deforestation and pollution, especially in quickly industrializing Brazil, threaten this longevity. In this insightful talk, conservation biologist, tapir expert and TED Fellow Patrícia Medici shares her work with these amazing animals and challenges us with a question: Do we want to be responsible for their extinction?

Cave explorer and geologist Francesco Sauro travels to the hidden continent under our feet, surveying deep, dark places inside the earth that humans have never been able to reach before. In the spectacular tepuis of South America, he finds new minerals and insects that have evolved in isolation, and he uses his knowledge of these alien worlds to train astronauts.

Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz, Robert Redford and Ian Somerhalder all join forces to give nature a voice. Watch the films and take action at http://natureisspeaking.org

Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz, Robert Redford and Ian Somerhalder all join forces to give nature a voice. Watch the films and take action at http://natureisspeaking.org

Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz, Robert Redford and Ian Somerhalder all join forces to give nature a voice. Watch the films and take action at http://natureisspeaking.org

Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz, Robert Redford and Ian Somerhalder all join forces to give nature a voice. Watch the films and take action at http://natureisspeaking.org

Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz, Robert Redford, Ian Somerhalder and Lupita Nyong'o all join forces to give nature a voice. Watch the films and take action at http://natureisspeaking.org

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? George Monbiot explains in this movie remix.

Every day, we use materials from the earth without thinking, for free. But what if we had to pay for their true value: would it make us more careful about what we use and what we waste? Think of Pavan Sukhdev as nature's banker — assessing the value of the Earth's assets. Eye-opening charts will make you think differently about the cost of air, water, trees ...

Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, thus impacting climate change.

If we carry on with chemically intensive agriculture model, it is quite possible that we may affect our pollinating insects to such a degree that we reach a global "pollination crisis". This is the imaginary future we do not want. This future where bees and the biodiversity they help maintain, have finally fallen victim to chemically intensive industrial agriculture. So, here is the question: should we create a new world or save our own? www.robobees.info

If someone asked you where the mass of a tree comes from, what would you say? Have you ever really thought about it as you climbed through tree branches or walked through a forest? Is it the soil the plant is rooted in, the atmosphere above it, what do you think?

All animals communicate. But do they have language? Michele Bishop details the four specific qualities we associate with language and investigates whether or not certain animals utilize some or all of those qualities to communicate.

Long before there were strip malls, skyscrapers, and combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bells, nature had its own architects: all kinds of creatures create all kinds of structures for living, raising offspring, or maybe just the occasional hook-up. Some of the mightiest and most delightfully complex structures ever built have been erected by bugs.

Handfish prefer to walk on their ‘hands’ rather than swim. They are one of the few species that has survived totally unchanged, since dinosaurs walked the earth.

"Save the rainforest” is an environmental slogan as old as time — but Tasso Azevedo catches us up on how the fight is actually going these days. Spurred by the jaw-dropping losses of the 1990s, new laws (and transparent data) are helping slow the rate of deforestation in Brazil. Is it enough? Not yet. He has five ideas about what we should do next. And he asks if the lessons learned in Brazil could be applied to an even bigger problem: global climate change.

In this stunning slideshow, celebrated nature photographer Frans Lanting presents The LIFE Project, a poetic collection of photographs that tell the story of our planet, from its eruptive beginnings to its present diversity. Soundtrack by Philip Glass.In this stunning slideshow, celebrated nature photographer Frans Lanting presents The LIFE Project, a poetic collection of photographs that tell the story of our planet, from its eruptive beginnings to its present diversity. Soundtrack by Philip Glass.In this stunning slideshow, celebrated nature photographer Frans Lanting presents The LIFE Project, a poetic collection of photographs that tell the story of our planet, from its eruptive beginnings to its present diversity. Soundtrack by Philip Glass.

In the presentation, Nachiketh goes a step further and identifies a few keystone species that can affect entire ecosystems and makes an appeal to the audience to not just practice 3R's but to go over and beyond and do the 4th R - rebuild to protect and preserve all the species on earth. Nachiketh is very passionate about protecting endangered species and makes a case for considering protecting each one of them.

Seventy thousand years ago, our human ancestors were insignificant animals, just minding their own business in a corner of Africa with all the other animals. But now, few would disagree that humans dominate planet Earth; we've spread to every continent, and our actions determine the fate of other animals (and possibly Earth itself). How did we get from there to here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests a surprising reason for the rise of humanity.

Our planet was once populated by megafauna, big top-of-the-food-chain predators that played their part in balancing our ecosystems. When those megafauna disappear, the result is a "trophic cascade," where every part of the ecosystem reacts to the loss. How can we stay in balance? George Monbiot suggests rewilding: putting wolves, lions and other predators back on top -- with surprising results.

Interested in the ever-changing world that surrounds us? Take a look at this video from The Daily Conversation which introduces ten incredible new species of plants and animals discovered in the last year, as chosen by New York’s College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry. It may make you wonder what other species are to come.

Morning glories unfurl their petals like clockwork in the early morning. A closing white waterlily signals that it’s late afternoon. And moon flowers, as their name suggests, only bloom under the night sky. What gives plants this innate sense of time? Dasha Savage investigates how circadian rhythms act as an internal timekeeper for flora and fauna alike.

We’ve heard that bees are disappearing. But what is making bee colonies so vulnerable? Photographer Anand Varma raised bees in his backyard — in front of a camera — to get an up close view. This project, for National Geographic, gives a lyrical glimpse into a beehive, and reveals one of the biggest threats to its health, a mite that preys on baby bees in their first 21 days of life. With incredible footage set to music from Rob Moose and the Magik*Magik Orchestra, Varma shows the problem ... and what’s being done to solve it.

When Jimmy Nelson traveled to Siberia to photograph the Chukchi people, elders told him: "You cannot photograph us. You have to wait, you have to wait until you get to know us, you have to wait until you understand us." In this gorgeously photo-filled talk, join Nelson's quest to understand — the world, other people, himself — by making astonishing portraits of the world's vanishing tribes and cultures.

Every star we see in the sky has at least one planet orbiting it, says astronomer Sara Seager. So what do we know about these exoplanets, and how can we find out more? Seager introduces her favorite set of exoplanets and shows new technology that can help collect information about them — and even help us look for exoplanets with life.

Have you ever wondered what color is? In this first installment of a series on light, Colm Kelleher describes the physics behind colors-- why the colors we see are related to the period of motion and the frequency of waves.

New videography techniques have opened up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex. Marine biologist Tierney Thys teamed with Christian Sardet (CNRS/Tara Oceans), Noé Sardet and Sharif Mirshak to use footage from the Plankton Chronicles project to create a film designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain.

How does evolution really work? Actually, not how some of our common evolutionary metaphors would have us believe. For instance, it's species, not individual organisms, that adapt to produce evolution, and genes don't "want" to be passed on -- a gene can't want anything at all! Alex Gendler sets the record straight on the finer points of evolution.

Every 13 or 17 years, billions of cicadas emerge from the ground to molt, mate and die. Adult cicadas only live a few weeks above ground, but you’d be hard pressed to ignore them -- they are extremely loud! Rose Eveleth explains everything you need to know about these noisy insects, admitting that there’s still some things we just don’t understand.

It's a question that has perplexed everyone from the ancient Greeks to modern scholars. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Take a crack at this curious conundrum.

Pollination: it's vital to life on Earth but largely unseen by the human eye. Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg shows us the intricate world of pollen and pollinators with gorgeous high-speed images from his film "Wings of Life," inspired by the vanishing of one of nature's primary pollinators, the honeybee.

In the deep, dark ocean, many sea creatures make their own light for hunting, mating and self-defense. Bioluminescence expert Edith Widder was one of the first to film this glimmering world. At TED2011, she brings some of her glowing friends onstage, and shows more astonishing footage of glowing undersea life.

Comparative anatomist Joy Reidenberg studies the body structure of many different animals in the hope of adapting their unique qualities for human applications. Her favorite? Whales. In this TEDYouth Talk, Reidenberg explains how these majestic, awe-inspiring mammals "fart with their face" (a process more formally known as echolocation) to send their unique sounds through the water.

Biologist Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell has come to one big conclusion from her last twenty years studying elephants -- they're just like us. In this TEDYouth Talk, O'Connell-Rodwell details her work observing these incredible, social animals, examining several individual (and very familiar) characters that play, bond and argue in tight-knit extended families eerily similar to our own.

When you hear the word symmetry, you might think generally of triangles, butterflies, or even ballerinas. But defined scientifically, symmetry is “a transformation that leaves an object unchanged.” Huh? Colm Kelleher unpacks this abstract term and explains how animals' distinct symmetries can tell us more about them -- and ourselves.

The cotton-top tamarin is a very vocal monkey -- the species communicates using a sophisticated language of 38 distinct and grammatically structured calls! Anne Savage teaches a few of these chirps and whistles, taking us through a day in the life of Shakira the tamarin (using sounds pulled from the wild) as Shakira signals to her family, talks to her food and warns against potential predators.

Honeybees are some of nature’s finest mathematicians. Not only can they calculate angles and comprehend the roundness of the earth, these smart insects build and live in one of the most mathematically efficient architectural designs around: the beehive. Zack Patterson and Andy Peterson delve into the very smart geometry behind the honeybee’s home.

Ants have one of the most complex social organizations in the animal kingdom; they live in structured colonies that contain different types of members who perform specific roles. Sound familiar? Deborah M. Gordon explains the way these incredible creatures mate, communicate and source food, shedding light on how their actions can mimic and inform our own behavior.

Coral reef fish, like the yellow tang surgeonfish, begin life in a fascinating and weird way – as tiny floating larvae! These babies are capable of drifting thousands of miles on ocean currents, far from the reefs where they were born. Amy McDermott describes how these tiny trekkers travel across vast oceans, searching for the far-flung reefs they will one day call home.

How do coral reef conservationists balance the environmental needs of the reefs with locals who need the reefs to survive? Joshua Drew draws on the islands of Fiji and their exemplary system of protection, called "connectivity", which also keep the needs of fishermen in mind.

With rapidly rising global temperatures come seasonal changes. As spring comes earlier for some plant species, there are ripple effects throughout the food web. Regina Brinker explains how phenology, or the natural cycles of plants and animals, can be affected by these changes.

Bees have been rapidly and mysteriously disappearing from rural areas, with grave implications for agriculture. But bees seem to flourish in urban environments -- and cities need their help, too. Noah Wilson-Rich suggests that urban beekeeping might play a role in revitalizing both a city and a species.

Frogs (and amphibians in general) are in danger -- worldwide, nearly one-third of the world's amphibian species are on the verge of extinction. And yet, frogs contribute to our well-being in many important ways. Kerry M. Kriger describes why frogs are in trouble and how you can help save them.

Everyone hates mosquitos. Besides the annoying buzzing and biting, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria kill over a million people each year (plus horses, dogs and cats). And over the past 100 million years, they've gotten good at their job -- sucking up to three times their weight in blood, totally undetected. So shouldn't we just get rid of them? Rose Eveleth shares why scientists aren't sure.

As benign as it may look up close, the tiny seaweed Caulerpa taxifolia can wreak quite a bit of havoc on coastal ecosystems. This super algae is very adaptable; it also grows fast and spreads easily. Eric Noel Muñoz gives the details of this plant’s incredible invasion, shedding light on the risks of introducing invasive species into new ecosystems.

Most of us have only ever eaten cranberries as juice or that jiggly sauce we extract from a can at holiday time. But long before they're processed into these foods, fresh cranberries take special work to grow and harvest. Nicole Jolly and the "How Does it Grow?" team take us underwater and high overhead to learn all about this native American fruit.

While comets were historically thought to be ill omens of war and famine, recent science has revealed that these celestial wonders actually contain amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth. Justin Dowd explores the implications of this magnificent discovery.

The human eye is an amazing mechanism, able to detect anywhere from a few photons to a few quadrillion, or switch focus from the screen in front of you to the distant horizon in a third of a second. How did these complex structures evolve? Joshua Harvey details the 500 million year story of the human eye.

How did the periodic table of elements revolutionize our understanding of the world? What scientists contributed to the table we have today? Eric Rosado discusses the key people and discoveries that have molded our understanding of chemistry today.

When you think of natural history museums, you might picture exhibits filled with ancient lifeless things, like dinosaurs or meteorites. But behind that educational exterior, there are hidden laboratories where scientific breakthroughs are made. Joshua Drew gives a breakdown of some of the hidden worlds within these museums.

You may have heard the expression that dogs ‘see with their noses.’ But these creature’s amazing nasal architecture actually reveals a whole world beyond what we can see. Alexandra Horowitz illustrates how the dog’s nose can smell the past, the future and even things that can’t be seen at all.

Stand by for an animated exploration of the famous Fermi Paradox. Given the vast number of planets in the universe, many much older than Earth, why haven't we yet seen obvious signs of alien life? The potential answers to this question are numerous and intriguing, alarming and hopeful.

The fact that no one knows the answer to this question is what makes it exciting. The story of physics has been one of an ever-expanding understanding of the sheer scale of reality, to the point where physicists are now postulating that there may be far more universes than just our own. Chris Anderson explores the thrilling implications of this idea.

In the first of a new TED-Ed series designed to catalyze curiosity, TED Curator Chris Anderson shares his boyhood obsession with quirky questions that seem to have no answers.

Once it's created, plastic (almost) never dies. While in 12th grade Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao went in search of a new bacteria to biodegrade plastic — specifically by breaking down phthalates, a harmful plasticizer. They found an answer surprisingly close to home.

Nearly one third of our food ends up in the trash can. There is hope, however, in the form of worms, which naturally convert organic waste into fertilizer. Matthew Ross details the steps we can all take to vermicompost at home -- and why it makes good business sense to do so.

The seventh black rhino population established by the WWF Black Rhino Range Expansion Project, was recently released after an epic 1500 kilometre trip across the country. 19 of the critically endangered animals were moved from the Eastern Cape to a new location in Limpopo province.

Plants have a hard time finding mates -- their inability to get up and move around tends to inhibit them. Luckily for plants, bees and other pollinator species (including butterflies, moths and birds) help matchmake these lonely plants in exchange for food. Fernanda S. Valdovinos explains how these intricate pollination networks work and how it can all change from one season to the next.

“The ocean is so acidic that it is dissolving the shells of our baby oysters,” says Diani Taylor of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Washington. She and her cousin Brittany are fifth-generation oyster farmers, and are grappling with ocean waters that are more acidic and corrosive than their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers knew. This “ocean acidification” is one planetary response to humans’ burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide that is absorbed by the oceans. According to the National Climate Assessment, oceans currently absorb about a quarter of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, leading to ocean acidification that will alter marine ecosystems in dramatic yet uncertain ways.

"Slow" marine animals show their secret life under high magnification. Corals and sponges are very mobile creatures, but their motion is only detectable at different time scales compared to ours and requires time lapses to be seen. These animals build coral reefs and play crucial roles in the biosphere, yet we know almost nothing about their daily lives.

How could you not want to help these amazing creatures?

The Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) uses the knowledge and practice of Indigenous cultures to protect biodiversity. Through experiences passed down from generations, this video explores how the treaty works and what they do to help preserve Australian biodiversity.

We see nature everywhere, everyday. But what happens if all the carbon and fossil fuels that we create, are slowly picking off the wonderful things we see everyday? Take a walk through this video and see what our carbon footprint is doing to this world.

Ever thought about the consequences of using too much of our natural resources for trivial things? Take a look at what happens if we abuse our power over the environment.

Explore under the sea and discover the variety of ecosystems that make up our marine biology. From the monstrous whales to the colourful coral reefs, the oceans biodiversity is a vast collection of beauty that roams the seas.

A series of species and environments that interact with one another to form what we call biodiversity. The Vancouver Film School have produced this short video to explain the three categories of biodiversity and how we, the human species connect with it.

Have you ever wondered what biodiversity is? Find out what it is and how you can help conserve biodiversity.

Experience the beauty of Mt. Everest at night in time-lapse.

Where millions of tons of plastic kill ocean life and poison food chains, Boyan sees opportunities to combat this. While researching ocean plastics during school holidays, he performed analysis on various fundamental topics (including particle sizes, plastic/plankton separation and the amount of plastic in the oceans), leading up to the first realistic concept for cleaning up the world's oceans.

L.I.F.E. is about people across Australia, just like you, getting involved with Landcare in their everyday lives. For more information, visit www.landcarelife.com.au

Empowered by our partnership with indigenous people, The Pachamama Alliance inspires and galvanizes the human family to generate a critical mass of conscious commitment to a thriving, just and sustainable way of life on Earth.

With vibrant video clips captured by submarines, David Gallo takes us to some of Earth's darkest, most violent, toxic and beautiful habitats, the valleys and volcanic ridges of the oceans' depths, where life is bizarre, resilient and shockingly abundant.

Project GreenBag is the sustainable, eco-friendly alternative to plastic bags. 100% organic cotton, biodegradable, affordable, and made in San Francisco California.

"Made on Earth" is the result of many photography expeditions over the past two years. Spain, Iceland, Estonia and USA were the main destinations.

Life Is Born is part of the award winning, best-selling feature film "All.I.Can."

Some of the popular locations in Rio De Janeiro with amazing views. As you watch the video see if you can follow the links as you are taken on a tour of the city.

Life Is Born is part of the award winning, best-selling feature film "All.I.Can."

The last remaining blue whale comes eye to eye with its only enemy; mankind.

"Made on Earth" is the result of many photography expeditions. Spain, Iceland, Estonia and USA were the main destinations.

Here are the night timelapse shots mostly from cottages of the Swiss Alpine Club. Locations are: Diavolezza, Glecksteinhütte (Grindelwald), Carschina, Arosa, Glärnisch, Vrenelis Gärtli.

Unchopping a Tree, part of Maya Lin's last memorial entitled What is Missing?, debuted at COP15 during the Support REDD+ events sponsored by the Coalition for Rainforest Nations.

In areas such as Borneo and Sumatra, rich in biodiversity, deforestation can be catastrophic. Endangered species including orang-utans, tigers, elephants and rhinos are losing critical habitats, pushing them toward extinction.

The Kimberley region is coming under threat of major industrialization through Gas plant, mining, and offshore drilling operations. The current Western Australian government in it's wisdom is poised to compulsorily acquire tracks of land along this coastline, against the wishes of the traditional owners, to set up a gas hub to feed the worlds requirements for gas.

This was filmed between June and October 2011in Alice Springs.

The imagery seen here was shot on the grounds of Kata Tjuta in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. The park covers an expanse 1326 square kilometres and is located 440 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs, in Australia's central region.

Journey to the Abyss is an adventure into the ocean's depths. Discover hydrothermal vents and some of the remarkable creatures that inhabit these deep waters, some more than 3km below sea level.

A unique look at our natural world and the 'threads' that connect everything.

A compilation of timelapses taken during a month in Iceland.

We are totally dependent on our oceans. But, we're damaging them on a scale unimaginable to most people. Destructive fishing, polluting industries and climate change are threatening the survival of whole marine ecosystems, as species are driven towards extinction as their habitats are destroyed.

A story about the most environmentally polluting industrial project in the world, the Alberta Tar Sands, and the children who had the audacity to stand up against it.

Ocean Ark Alliance is a global Not-For-Profit organisation delivering open access marine science and educational reference resources.

Cheetahs are the fastest runners on the planet. Combining the resources of National Geographic and the Cincinnati Zoo, and drawing on the skills of an incredible crew, we documented these amazing cats in a way that’s never been done before.

A compilation of Phantom HD footage shot in Ecuador, Dominica Island, Victoria Island and San Francisco for the PBS film Magic in the Air.

How do we save the most diverse habitats in our oceans? Coral reefs could become extinct by 2050 due to pollution and climate change. This nature video was released just ahead of the landmark Copenhagen summit on climate change in order to draw attention to the plight of these fragile ecosystems. Sadly, the summit ended in failure – and the future of our reefs is still at risk.

Beautiful images from the Great Barrier Reef.

Where Is ‘Away?’: Solving Plastic Pollution in 4-minutes, is the fourth short movie in professional surfer, Kyle Thiermann’s Surfing For Change series. It tracks a plastic bag that Kyle uses in his hometown of Santa Cruz California, all the way to the north shore of Oahu, demonstrating both the destruction and solutions along the way.