Want to see the biggest ant collection in the world? Welcome to ant central! In the latest installment of Science Friday's Desktop Diaries series, ecologist Edward O. Wilson takes us on a tour of his office, located in Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Wilson, who has studied ants for 60 years and has won two Pulitzer prizes for his writing, shows off Harvard's ant collection (the largest in the world with about a million specimens), plays a backwoods fiddle and explains how he looks to Darwin (a bobble head doll, in this case) for encouragement.

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By looking at a face for less than a second, we can judge someone’s age, gender, race, emotional state and even their trustworthiness. High-speed scanning and perception experiments by social neurologist Dr. Jon Freeman have revealed our brain’s ability to generate character assessments in less than blink of an eye. These first impressions can linger in our brains and influence our real-world interactions.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
MRI Stand-in by Sarah Lewin
Footage ands Stills Provided by Dr. Jon Freeman, Shutterstock, Warren Goldswain, Glasgow Unfamiliar Face Database, Bruce Gionet (C.C. 3.0), Nina Paley (C.C. 3.0), Kim Cramer (C.C. 3.0), “Brain Optic Nerve Impulses,” Produced by Purdue University Calumet senior engineering students supervised by Professors Bin Chen, Ph.D, and Ge Jin Ph.D, with support of the university’s Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation. Full video is available at: http://webs.purduecal.edu/civs/brain-visualization

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Foraging for a meal isn't just a relic of our paleolithic past - it's a growing trend in the local food movement. Guided by professional forager and author, Tama Matsuoka Wong, Science Friday toured western New Jersey's meadows and forested trails to discover the native plants and invasive weeds that are used as culinary delicacies.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills by Shala Simbek, Anneli Salo, Tom Woodward, Shutterstock, Waterpenny.net

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.

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

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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With their pungent aromas and vibrant blooms, orchids lure insects, green-thumbs, and romantics alike. Marc Hachadourian, the New York Botanical Garden's curator of orchids, describes some of the deceptive methods orchids use to manipulate species into becoming their pollinators.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional stills and video by
Jean Claessens ( https://www.youtube.com/channe....l/UCpcZkcloEtFnOhX8f
Shutterstock, Thomas Williams, Lisa Spink, Esculapio,Orquídeas del Perú, Orchi (C.C. 3.0) , Eric Hunt , Nicolas J. Vereecken (C.C. 3.0) , Gaspar R Avila / Alamy Stock Photo, Ong Poh Teck (Forest Research Institute Malaysia)

Typographer and illustrator Craig Ward heard an urban legend that "using the handrails on the subway is like shaking hands with 100 people." He decided to test that theory by sampling the bacteria on subway lines around New York City and photographing his findings. The results were striking and unconventional "portraits" of NYC commuters.

Produced by Emily V. Driscoll. Filmed by Jeff Nash. Music by Audio Network

Additional Photography © Tasha Sturm, The Mason Lab
The Wall Street Journal and Martin Burch, Chris Canipe,
Madeline Farbman, Rachel Feierman and Robert Lee Hotz

Thanks to Christopher Mason, Craig Ward and Weill Cornell Medical College

Tucked into the midtown Manhattan headquarters of the General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen of the City of New York, is the John M. Mossman Lock Collection. The locks and assorted items, most which were collected and donated to the museum by Mossman, show the evolution of bank and vault lock technology through the 19th and 20th centuries. The current curator of the locks, John Erroll, describes the collection and its significance.

For USGS wildlife biologist Karyn Rode, tracking and tranquilizing polar bears from a helicopter are just the first thrilling steps in her research. After acquiring various samples from sleeping bears, Dr. Rode's unique understanding of what they eat and how quickly they metabolize nutrients allows her to determine the condition of each bear. Working with a team of scientists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service for nearly a decade, Dr. Rode's monitoring of polar bear health has helped reveal how well populations are adapting to the rapidly warming Arctic. 
A film by Science Friday
Produced in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Produced by Emily V. Driscoll and Luke Groskin
Directed by Luke Groskin
Filmed by  Christian Baker, Luke Groskin, and Ryan Hawk
Edited by Sarah Galloway
Animations by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Color by Irving Harvey
Additional Photos and Video by
USGS, USFWS, NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio/C. Starr, Shutterstock, Pond5,  Oxford Scientific, and Pascale Otis (C.C. BY 3.0)

Project Advisors:Laura A. Helft, Laura Bonetta, Dennis W.C. Liu and Sean B. Carroll - Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Special Thanks to Karyn Rode, Michelle St. Martin,  Johnathan Larabee, The Staff of Red Dog Mine's Port Facility, Jenny Shalant,  Jessica BrunettoChristian Skotte, Danielle Dana, Ariel Zych, and Jennifer Fenwick
Science Friday/HHMI © 2016

Cool high speed video reveals why flies are so hard to swat.

Eight days after the full moon, scientists from the University of Hawaii’s Cnidarian Venom Lab comb Waikiki beach collecting deadly tourists to bring back to their lab. They'll use these box jellyfish specimens to study their venom and help generate a chemical blocker to mitigate the fatal effects of the jelly’s sting. . Killing more humans per year than sharks, the box jellyfish is one of the deadliest creatures on earth. Dr. Angel Yanagihara and her Cnidarian Venom Lab have shown that . the widely accepted treatment combo of urine and ice can make the sting worse.

Produced by Chelsea Fiske and Brandon Swanson
Music by Audio Network
Additional Images Provided by Dr. Angel Yanagihara, University of Hawaii,
Pond5, A/V Geeks, Thi-Huong Nguyen et al. (C.C. BY 4.0), Georgia K.
Atkin-Smith et al. (C.C. BY 4.0), M. Grundner et al. (C.C. BY 4.0)
Special Thanks to Raechel Kadler, Kiki Hurwitz, Christie Wilcox

Lightning -- one of the great unsolved mysteries.

Back in 2012, Raul Oaida, 18-years-old, attached a LEGO shuttle, a video camera and a GPS tracker, to a huge helium balloon and sent them into space. Oaida says flight time was just about three hours and the shuttle reached an altitude of 115,000 feet before heading back to Earth. According to Oaida, designing the spacecraft wasn't so hard (compared to the jet engine he designed and built before this) but getting a flight clearance was.
Video from Raul Oaida, additional editing by Flora Lichtman, music by SYNTHAR

Edith Widder has been exploring the deep sea for thirty years. When she descended for the first time, she turned off the lights of her submersible hoping to see marine organisms that make light--bioluminescent animals. Widder says she wasn't prepared for the light show she encountered and has been building tools to document bioluminescence ever since.

We stopped in at Columbia University for a quick fMRI.

The horn of a Japanese rhinoceros beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus) can grow to be two-thirds the length of the rest of its body. And size matters. The male beetles use their horns to battle over feeding sites, where they also get access to female beetles. The longer the horn, the more reproductive success. So what limits horn-size? And why do some beetles have big horns and others puny ones? Biologists Doug Emlen and Erin McCullough of The University of Montana are looking into it.

Catfish attacking pigeons, water traveling uphill, a blue whale barrel roll -- it's amazing what you can find in the "supplemental materials" section of the scientific journals. We're taking a stroll down memory lane for a look at the year's best moments in science cinema. What were your favorite science videos of 2012?

Support Deep Look on Patreon!! https://www.patreon.com/deeplook

Scientists have used a high-speed camera to film hummingbirds' aerial acrobatics at 1000 frames per second. They can see, frame by frame, how neither wind nor rain stop these tiniest of birds from fueling up.

DEEP LOOK: a new ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Get a new perspective on our place in the universe and meet extraordinary new friends. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small.

How do hummingbirds eat?

With spring in full bloom, hummingbirds can be spotted flitting from flower to flower and lapping up the sugary nectar inside. These tiniest of birds have the highest metabolism of any warm-blooded animal, requiring them to consume their own body weight in nectar each day to survive.

By comparison, if a 150-pound human had the metabolism of a hummingbird, he or she would need to consume the caloric equivalent of more than 300 hamburgers a day.

But it's not just an extreme appetite that sets hummingbirds apart from other birds. These avian acrobats are the only birds that can fly sideways, backwards and hover for long stretches of time. In fact, hovering is essential to hummingbirds' survival since they have to keep their long, thin beaks as steady as a surgeon's scalpel while probing flowers for nectar.

How do Hummingbirds fly?

Hummingbirds don't just hover to feed when the weather is nice. They have to keep hovering and feeding even if it's windy or raining, a remarkable feat considering most of these birds weigh less than a nickel.

More great Deep Look episodes:

Newt Sex: Buff Males! Writhing Females! Cannibalism!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m37QR_4XNY

Pygmy Seahorses: Masters of Camouflage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CtGoqz3ww

Banana Slugs: Secret of the Slime
https://youtu.be/mHvCQSGanJg

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See also another great video from the PBS Digital Studios!

Where Do Birds Go In Winter? - It's Okay to be Smart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds2XFvSQzBg

Read the extended article on how hummingbirds hover at KQED Science:

http://blogs.kqed.org/science/....2015/03/31/what-happ

SUBSCRIBE: http://goo.gl/8NwXqt

KQED Science: http://kqed.org/science

Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Deep Look is a project of KQED Science, which is supported by HopeLab, The David B. Gold Foundation; S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation; The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation; The Vadasz Family Foundation; Smart Family Foundation and the members of KQED.
#deeplook #hummingbirds #wings

LIVE TV PERFORMANCE ON THE OXFORD ROAD SHOW NOVEMBER 1982