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How airborne microbes ride clouds, hop continents and even make it rain
Everywhere that scientists look, they seem to be finding creatures clinging to life in increasingly remote environments – from Antarctic ice to boiling hydrothermal vents at the bottom of oceans. However, biologists have only recently begun paying close attention to one of the planet’s most fascinating venues for life: the sky. A collaboration between the US filmmaker Flora Lichtman and the California Academy of Sciences’ digital publication bioGraphic, the short film Life in the Clouds examines the complex and utterly fascinating ecosystems far above our heads.
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Ecology and environmental sciences
GPS tracking reveals stunning insights into the patterns of migratory birds
6 minutes
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Space exploration
The rarely told story of the fruit flies, primates and canines that preceded us in space
12 minutes
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Neuroscience
This intricate map of a fruit fly brain could signal a revolution in neuroscience
2 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?
12 minutes
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Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
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Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
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Evolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes
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Physics
The rhythms of a star system inspire a pianist’s transfixing performance
5 minutes
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Art
Watch as Japan’s surplus trees are transformed into forest-tinted crayons
4 minutes