The fifth post in our mini-series on science as seen on screen.
Throughout our mini series, we have been considering what makes a great science video. We’ve looked at the history of science on screen, considered how to present science online, and have gathered some top tips on how to make a science video.
Armed with this information, we encourage you to help us in our efforts to judge the best Nature Video. We’ve collated four of our favourites from the Nature Video YouTube channel, selecting them for a variety of reasons, not simply how popular they’ve proved to date.
We invite you to tell us which one deserves the title of Best Nature Video!
And the nominees are…..
The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known scientific computer. Built in Greece around 100 BCE but lost for 2000 years, it was recovered from a shipwreck in 1901. However, it wasn’t until a century later that its purpose was understood: it’s an astronomical clock that determines the positions of celestial bodies with extraordinary precision. In 2010, to celebrate the launch of Digital Science, a new division of Macmillan Publishers that provides technology solutions for researchers, Nature Video and collaborators built a fully-functional replica out of Lego.
This stunning slow motion footage shows how bats use echolocation to find water. We know how bats echolocate to hunt insects, but this is the first study to show how they recognise large, flat objects like ponds. Moreover, by testing young bats that had never encountered a pond or river before, the researchers showed that bats seem to have a built-in ability to recognize these important features of their environment. Read the original research paper here.
A haul of stone tools unearthed from a beach in England hints that humans were living in northern Europe far earlier than we thought – and in a cold climate. The finding suggests that the first Britons were a hardy bunch, able to thrive in Scandinavian-like conditions.
Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman has ditched his trainers and started running barefoot. His research shows that barefoot runners, who tend to land on their fore-foot, generate less impact shock than runners in sports shoes who land heel first. This makes barefoot running comfortable and could minimize running-related injuries. Read more here, and find the original research here.
Please make your vote here….
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Votes will close at 5pm on Monday 28th March