A Beautiful Example of Science for the Masses

Awesome. This is the type of video that got me hooked on biology.

A Sea Biscuit's Life from Bruno Vellutini on Vimeo.

From Bruno's Vimeo page:

This video shows the life cycle of the sea biscuit Clypeaster subdepressus and is part of my master's thesis project at the Biosciences Institute of University of São Paulo.

We collected adults from sand beds of São Sebastião Channel (São Sebastião, SP, Brazil) and induced gamete release (eggs and sperm). We did the fertilization in vitro and followed the embryonic development in the laboratory, under light microscopy. Embryos become swimming larvae, approximately 0.2 mm wide, which we fed with microalgae until metamorphosis. A diminute sea biscuit grows inside the larva. When the minuscule podia and spines are formed the larva sinks and undergoes metamorphosis. The juvenile sea biscuit resorbs the larval tissue and begins to explore its new habitat, between sand grains.

We did the footage in the Marine Biology Center of University of São Paulo (CEBIMar-USP), located in São Sebastião, SP, Brazil, northern shore of State of São Paulo.
usp.br/cbm

You can find more information about this project in the website.
mestrado.organelas.com

Download the soundtrack from the netlabel AEROTONE.
tinyurl.com/MyFirstTrumpet-Frerk

This video is under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa license.
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/br/

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Now that I won't see you in the coffee room I'll have to put my feedback to you here!

ted.com is another place to find great science (and actually everything else..) lectures. Really short videos where people are presenting their best ideas with hopes to pick up funding from the rich dilettantes soaking up the info at the conference.

By Byron Delabarre (not verified) on 24 Nov 2008 #permalink

Byron, that was perfect timing - we're just about to have Veit's last coffee.

Yes, TED talks are great. I was ploughing through them a while back but haven't visited their site in a while. Another good web resource is bloggingheads.tv, they have a weekly Science Saturday video chat between two science journalists and/or researchers.