It should come as no surprise that spiders constantly monitor their webs, for both potential mates and potential meals: food and sex are two of nature’s most fundamental drives. However, the means by which they distinguish between the two types of visitor – tuning their webs and interpreting the subsequent vibrations – is a secret that scientists have only recently unravelled. You can learn more on NPR’s website.
Producer: Adam Cole
Website: NPR’s Skunk Bear
videoMathematics
After centuries of trying, we’ve yet to arrive at a perfect way to map colour
20 minutes
videoEcology and environmental sciences
Join endangered whooping cranes on their perilous migratory path over North America
6 minutes
videoEnvironmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes
videoNature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
videoAnimals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
videoEarth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
videoBiology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
videoAnimals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes