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For over 70 years, no one had seen the oblong rocksnail. Declared extinct in 2000, the species was considered to be another native Alabaman mollusk gone and forgotten. But one day in the spring of 2011, biology grad student Nathan Whelan picked up a tiny rock and got a big surprise.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Photos by Shutterstock, Thomas Tarpley, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, Nathan Whelan, Boris Datnow, Alabama Power, Annals of Lyceum, Wild Side TV, Paul Johnson, Masood Lohar, Bermuda Conservation Services, Jefferson County Environmental Services

Electric eels zap fish and other underwater prey, but what would make them leap out of the water and shock an animal like a horse? Nineteenth-century naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt first described eels emerging from the water to attack horses, and now Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University uses some unique props to reveal shocking insights about the behavior.

CREDITS
Produced by Emily Driscoll
Filmed by Jeff Nash
Narration by Luke Groskin
Alexander von Humboldt voiced by Eric Kuhl
Music by Audio Network
Additional Video by Kenneth Catania Lab
Photos and Images by Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Otto Roth, Robert Schomburgk, Shutterstock, Alexander von Humboldt, Friederich Georg Weitsch

Thanks to
Kenneth Catania, Luke Groskin, Eric Kuhl, David Salisbury

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Produced by Luke Groskin. Wine and location provided by Corkbuzz. Music by Audio Network
Additional photos and footage provided by Finger Lakes Wine Program/James Monahan, Shutterstock, Patricia Lynch, Tom Mack, Christina Sookdhis, Bodegas Delea a Marca, and Gironde Tourism
From smoky to citrusy to peppery, the unique flavor profiles of wines are scrutinized and celebrated perhaps more than any other beverage. In the first episode of our wine science series, Dr. Gavin Sacks of Cornell University's Viticulture and Enology Program, details the chemical composition of wine and explains why you detect the faintest aromas of oak, flowers, or green pepper in your glass.

Photographer Roman Vishniac is perhaps best-known for documenting Jewish communities in Eastern Europe before World War II, but he also was a science buff. In the 1950s-1970s, with funding from the Educational Testing Service, the National Science Foundation and others, he made educational science films, featuring footage he shot through his microscope. Vishniac was a pioneer of cinemicroscopy (as he called it). The craft has changed with digital photography, says Dutch photographer Wim van Egmond, who has won numerous awards for his photomicrographs. van Egmond explains some of the techniques he uses to capture the micro-world in action

Many parents know the feeling of needing a moment's peace from their children, and the easiest way to achieve that is to distract them with a smart phone. But what if instead of mindlessly playing Candy Crush, kids could play an arcade-style game integrating biology and technology? Working out of Genspace — the citizen science hotspot in Brooklyn — biologist Oliver Medvedik and computer programmer Keith Comito discuss how they developed a kit where live single-celled organisms play a game called the BioArcade.
Produced by Katie Free and Sylvia Tippman
Music by Audio Network, Ellie Kid, Kevin Mcleod
Special thanks to Kevin Comito, Oliver Medvedik, Nurit Bar-Shai

Deep in an abandoned gold mine in rural South Dakota, a team of physicists are hunting for astrophysical treasure. Their rare and elusive quarry is dark matter, a theoretical particle which has never been seen or directly detected. Yet its gravitational effect on distant galaxies hints at its existence and provides ample evidence to fuel the experiments and aspirations of scientists at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Insulated by 4,850 feet of rock, the researchers have constructed the world's most sensitive particle detector, known as the Large Underground Xenon Experiment, or "LUX." Their goal is to use this complex device to capture an epiphanous event: the interaction between dark matter and atoms inside a chilled tank of liquid xenon. If they're successful, the researchers may not only solve some of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics but affirm their faith in the nature of dark matter.

"4850 Feet Below" was produced with generous support from the John Templeton Foundation.

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Winter weather means more than sledding and snowmen. Next snowstorm, grab a magnifying glass and try snowflake hunting. Bullet rosettes, stellar plates and capped columns are just a few of the varieties of snow crystal you can find in your backyard. Kenneth Libbrecht, physicist at Caltech and snowflake expert, shares secrets of the snowflake.

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Cuttlefish change the patterns on their body for courtship rituals, when they eat a snack, and most famously when they want to blend in. How they change their skin patterns may tell us something about how they see the world, says Duke biologist Sarah Zylinski. Her work suggests that when cuttlefish see incomplete shapes, they fill in the visual blanks -- much like humans do. Can't get enough saltwater camouflage? Watch: "Where's The Octopus?"
photographs, footage: sarah zylinski, archival: archive.org, produced by flora lichtman

Find out more about the projects featured in the video:
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An air purifier filled with spider webs, a toilet insert that filters estrogen, a cactus-like water harvester—these were just a few of the ambitious and creative ideas presented at the first Biodesign Challenge, which took place on June 23, 2016. Held at the Museum of Modern Art, the gathering presented the work of 9 teams of students who designed a concept, product, or material that was biologically-inspired. The challenge—which scientists pitched and judged—gave students the unique opportunity to work with researchers to apply scientific principles to their particular field of design.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional video and stills provided by:
"Bioesters" - FIT
Tessa Callaghan, Gian Cui, Aleksandra Gosiewski,
Aaron Nesser, Theanne Schiros, Asta Skocir
"Liver Clear" - RPI
Amanda Harrold, Kathleen McDermott, Jacob Steiner
and Perrine Papillaud
"Dewpoint" - SAIC
Bailey Beatt, Maurice Hampton, Jackie Huang, and Sam Scheib

"Mutua" - SCI-ARC
Mun Yi Cheng, Caleb Fisher, Fangyuan Hu, Brendan Ho,
Ryan Odom, Anthony Stoffella & Xiangtia Sun

"Stabilimentum" - UPenn
Mónica Butler, Jiwon Woo
Charged web footage from Oxford University

BASE stands for the objects the practitioners of the sport jump from: buildings, antennas, spans, earth. Wingsuits are sometimes involved; parachutes, always. Luke Hively, who has racked up 2500 skydives and more than 150 BASE jumps, wondered about the physics of wingsuits. Physicists Leif Ristroph and David Hu weigh in. We wondered about the brain science of jumping off cliffs, and asked neuroscientist Chess Stetson about why time seems to slow down when we're scared.

So you want to jam like a rock star, but you don't want to shell out for an electric guitar? Make one yourself. Sound artist Ranjit Bhatnagar explains the art of a DIY instrument he calls a "junk guitar." You can piece one together using little more than a plank of wood, some wire, a magnet and a guitar string. Forget the air guitar solos. Plug in. Rock out.

Carve first, scoop later--that's just one of the tips from Maniac Pumpkin Carvers Marc and Chris. Based in Brooklyn, these professional illustrators switch to the medium of pumpkin during October. They carve hundreds of pumpkins each fall, which go for a few hundred bucks and rarely end up on stoops. They gave us some tips for how to bring our pumpkins to the next level this Halloween.

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Neuroscientist Gregory Berns wanted to know what his his dog was thinking. But unlike many behaviorists who conduct elaborate experiments to get clues about the inner life of canines, Dr. Berns decided to take a more direct route. He trained dogs to go into an MRI scanners in order to figure out what they’re thinking.

Produced by Chelsea Fiske and Brandon Swanson

Music by Audio Network

Additional Images Provided by Greg Berns, The Pavlovian
Laboratory of the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic,
Javier DeFelipe, Frontiers Media SA, NASA, and Pond5

Special Thanks to Ryann Meisenhelder, Jennie Wainer
and Shannon Kulnis

A mystery of the animal kingdom: How do owls turn their heads 270 degrees without damaging their blood vessels? At last an answer, published this week in Science, as the winning poster in the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. Fabian de Kok-Mercado, of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Philippe Gailloud, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, dissected and X-rayed owls to discover how the birds do the twist.

Visit the Great Lakes Distillery in Milwaukee, WI to find out how spirits are made. Plus, the science of spirit making with a NYU chemist. (SciFri does not suggest trying this at home.)

For most people, getting stuck in a traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike is a grueling lesson in futility. But if you're Simon Garnier of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, you often view it as an opportunity to examine our collective behavior and ponder how we became so inefficient compared to other species. Having studied the expansive food trails of army ants and the seemingly mindless exploration of slime mold, Garnier hopes to model the systems of their behavior in order to understand how and why relatively simple organisms organize themselves so dynamically.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Video Provided by:
Sean McCann, Matthew Lutz, Simon Garnier, Aladin Casino (C.C. 3.0), Phy Chip (C.C. 2.0), Un Poco Del Choco (C.C. 3.0),
Jeff Gerber PD (C.C. 3.0), Vimeo User Implicate Order (C.C. 3.0), Murray Gans (C.C. 3.0)
S.P Sullivan (C.C. 3.0)

Ancient human teeth can tell us a lot. Hidden inside each set are clues about their owner's behavior and ancestry plus hints about what really made up the paleo diet. Shara Bailey, associate professor of anthropology at New York University, reads the topography of teeth to better understand the origins and lineages of humans. You can even test your own teeth to see if you have the same bumps and grooves as your ancestors.

Produced and Narrated by Emily V. Driscoll
Filmed by Jeff Nash

Music by Audio Network
Additional Video by POND5
Images by


©2015 Kaifu et al,Lee Roger Berger research team, Peter Brown, Elsevier
Cicero Moraes (Arc-Team) et alii, Daniele Panetta, CNR Institute Physiology
Margherita Mussi, Patrizia Gioia, Fabio Negrino, Thilo Parg
Rosino, Wellcome Images

Thanks to Cara Biega and James Devitt

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Although it's well known that seahorses and their cousins the pipefish are the only vertebrates where males become pregnant, researchers have only begun to understand how this unique adaptation works. By studying the behavior of these charismatic fishes and sampling the RNA within the male's pouch, biologist Tony Wilson and his lab at Brooklyn College have found that seahorse pregnancy may have a deeper genetic link to other forms of pregnancy than previously thought.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Video by
Tony Wilson, Pond5, SeahorseConservancy.org , Randy Perry (C.C. BY 2.0), Elaine Blum, Shutterstock, Horsepower the Movie (CC. BY 2.0)

Special thanks to
Natalie Cash, Jeff Morey, Tony Wilson, Sunny Scobell,
and Frieda Sutton

From the SciFri Archive: This toilet floats. It's an outhouse and sewage-treatment plant in one, processing human waste through a "constructed wetlands." Adam Katzman, the inventor and builder of the toilet-boat, says it's meant to be more inspirational than practical. "Poop and Paddle" demonstrates how sewage and rainwater can be converted to cattails and clean water.

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Have you ever noticed that it's easier to walk without spilling a foamy beer versus walking around with regular cup of coffee? Have you ever wondered why? To solve this everyday physics phenomenon, a team of fluid mechanics researchers at Princeton University's Complex Fluids Lab investigate the anti-sloshing abilities of foam.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Footage Provided by Alban Sauret, Emilie Dressaire, Francois Boulogne, Howard Stone, Jean Cappello
Dusty Wobbls (C.C. 3.0), and Jake Millie (C.C. 3.0)