Search Results for "evolutionary biology"

Christian girl Rachel Whitaker goes off to college for her freshman year and begins to be influenced by her popular biology professor Marcus Kaman, who teaches that evolution is the answer to the origins of life. When Rachel’s father senses something amiss with his daughter, he begins to examine the situation and what he discovers catches him completely off-guard. Now very concerned about Rachel drifting away from her Christian faith, he sets out to do something about it.

Three million years ago, camels roamed through Greenland’s endless forests and our ancestors lived in the trees. It all came to an end with the Ice Ages. What died and what survived, as natural selection shaped the evolutionary tree during this epochal shift from hot to cold? Until now, scientists have known less about the natural world before the Ice Age than they did about the age of dinosaurs, which ended 64 million years ago. A new discovery is set to reveal this lost world, species by species. Led by Danish gene-hunter Eske Willerslev, a team of scientists for the first time in history is sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age. The picture that emerges is of a hot planet, when forests blanketed the Arctic and carbon levels matched those in our atmosphere today. Is this a portrait of our own climate future?

They have no roots, no seeds, no flowers, but mosses show immense survival capacities and can suspend their biological activity for long periods. Today, researchers are exploring the exceptional resistance of these archaic organisms. British ecologists have even resurrected a "zombie" moss that has been trapped in the permafrost for 1,500 years. Associated with decay and disliked in Europe, mosses are deified in Japan. With 25,000 species worldwide, bryophytes - their scientific name - are the seat of real ecosystems, and can develop in inhospitable landscapes, through an extravagant reproduction cycle.

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Richard Dawkins in a 1980's television special based on his book The Blind Watchmaker.

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What if science could reverse the aging process? Follow the researchers as they decipher these mechanisms, with the promise of finding the elixir of youth so you can live longer, healthier lives!

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You find fungi in Antarctica and in nuclear reactors. They live inside your lungs and your skin is covered with them. Fungi are the most under appreciated and unexplained organisms, yet they could cure you from smallpox and turn cardboard boxes into forests. They could even transform Mars into Eden. There are vastly more fungi species than plants and each and every one of them play a crucial role in life’s support systems. Join us on a journey into the mysterious world of Fungi to witness their beauty, unravel their mysteries and discover how this secret kingdom is essential to life on Earth, and may in fact hold the key to our future.

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„The Fabulous Insects – Ants“ shows the diversity, beauty and exciting strategies of ants in their respective habitats. Whether in the tropics of South America or in the native climes of Europe - the world of ants is full of surprises. The biomass of ants and humans in the world is about the same. Next to us, ants are probably the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Whether rainforest, savannah, forests or moors - ants populate every terrestrial habitat. You can observe particularly exciting natural history not only in the distant tropics, but also in densly populated Central Europe.

In a search for clues about size, the documentary shows why the sun and planets are so large, why insects have shrunk in the course of evolution and how tall trees can actually grow. Fantastic thought experiments are visualized: animals grow many times their normal size and a man is shrunk to the size of an insect. The results of the unnatural reversal of size ratios have incredible consequences. What are the advantages and disadvantages? "Size matters" is a scientific documentary narrated with fictional scenes. Parallel worlds are created in which size appears in a completely new light, often in a different way than previously known. Modern, astonishing CGI sequences support internationally recognized scientists on a journey to both ends of the size scale and help to understand the world in its dimensions.