Paris climate talks: The consequences of climate changenature video2024-10-21 | Paris climate talks: The consequences of climate changeThe puzzle of the B******T cellsnature video2022-12-19 | Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole world’s been thinking about how best to fight infection. And two cell types in particular have become immunity celebrities – T and B cells.
But these cells were not always so well understood, in fact their function only came into focus in the 1950s and 1960s, when two researchers working on opposite sides of the world started to piece together the mystery of a previously ignored organ called the thymus.
This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-researchAnt milk: The mysterious fluid that helps them thrivenature video2022-12-16 | For over a hundred years scientists have been putting ants under the microscope - but the ants still managed to keep some secrets. Now researchers have spotted something no-one had noticed before - a kind of 'milk' being secreted by juvenile ants in the pupal stage. The strange fluid is nutritious and experiments showed it seems to be important to the health of the colony.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFHow to vaccinate the world next timenature video2022-12-13 | The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the global economy and claimed millions of lives.
The development of multiple effective vaccines in record-breaking time was a cause for celebration. However, the inequity with which they were shared around the world left many in lower income countries unprotected and likely led to the spread of dangerous new variants throughout our connected world.
In this film, we asked four experts from different sectors how we should prepare to vaccinate the world in a future pandemic.
This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-researchThe worlds oldest DNA: Extinct beasts of ancient Greenlandnature video2022-12-07 | Two million year-old DNA found in frozen soil has been sequenced, revealing a surprising picture of an ancient landscape. Extinct creatures including, unexpectedly, elephant-like mastadons turn out to be among the beasts roaming Greenland. Researcher Eske Willerslev explains how DNA found in the environment can be used to reconstruct the past as so-called 'eDNA' becomes a vital tool for palaeontologists.
Sand is everywhere in cities: it’s in the pillars of skyscrapers, the surfaces of roads and the walls of our homes. But sand — specifically river and beach sand needed for building — is running out, and without it the construction industry faces a crisis.
In this video we explore how a fresh framework for thinking about construction and the economy could help to combat the sand crisis and preserve the value of materials for decades to come. A circular model would mean less sand ending up in landfill, less energy wasted during construction and a more sustainable industry that benefits businesses and the planet.
This economic transformation will require collaboration between industry, government and academia — if we are to sustain our sandcastle cities into the future.
This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-researchThe shape-shifting robo-turtlenature video2022-10-14 | Researchers have created a new amphibious robot, with limbs capable of morphing between flippers and legs. The robot was inspired by turtles and tortoises and uses smart, soft materials to create its adaptable parts. These morphing limbs allow the robot to be more efficient than conventional designs which feature different methods of locomotion for each environment.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe robot boot that learns as you walknature video2022-10-12 | Exoskeletons, devices designed to augment and enhance mobility, are fast becoming a reality, thanks to an explosion in research in recent years.
But one obstacle to widespread adoption is the need for careful calibration. To work best, these devices need to be personalised to their users in a lab, and that’s a problem if you want to produce a tool that can be used quickly and easily ‘out of the box’.
But now a team of researchers at Stanford University have developed an ankle exoskeleton that can adapt its assistance, while being worn by a user.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFPsychedelics and consciousness: Could drugs help quantify our waking state?nature video2022-09-28 | In a recent study, volunteers were given psychedelic drugs and had their brains scanned in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. The scientists conducting the research wanted to gain a better understanding of consciousness and find out what the brain is actually doing when it experiences consciousness.
By disrupting the way the brain perceives and models the world while we’re awake with psychedelic drugs such as DMT, researchers can try to understand how the conscious brain works.
Studying the effects of psychedelics might be key not only to understand how consciousness works, but also to treat some of the problems that can affect our waking lives, with psychedelics being proposed as treatments for depression, anxiety and addiction.
This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research3D printing with dronesnature video2022-09-21 | Researchers have mounted 3D printers onto drones with the aim of creating swarms of robots that could 3D print entire buildings.
The aerial vehicles were specially designed to be able to deposit a cement like material with enough precision to build tall structures. Groups of them together could do the job even faster.
The idea is that 3D printed shelters could be greener than standard construction methods, and drones could be useful in reaching difficult to access areas.
Read the full paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04988-4The geometry of life: When mathematics meets synthetic biologynature video2022-08-11 | Tiling patterns can be found thoughout the natural world - from honeycomb to fish scales. But now researchers have come up with a new way to create patterns in petri dishes using bacteria. By engineering bacterial cells to express uniquely adhesive proteins on their surface, the team could create linear patterns - formed as colonies of cells stuck together when they grew. What's more, by varying the exact proteins expressed and modelling where to place the bacterial cells, they were able to control the resulting geometry - creating a range of complex patterns.
Read more: nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04944-2How starfish embryos become living crystalsnature video2022-07-13 | Physicists have been amazed by the complex system created by simple starfish embryos in a dish of water. For the first time, a multicellular organism has been observed naturally creating a crystalline structure - and one with unexpected properties. This is an area of physics called 'active matter' - and these starfish demonstrate the latest, surprising example.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe pandemics unequal tollnature video2022-06-23 | The pandemic has touched every corner of the globe, but its impacts have not fallen on everybody equally. In this video we are going to delve into the latest data and projections in two fundamental areas - health and wealth. The pandemic has exposed stark inequality, and in some worsened the problem. By laying these impacts bare, scientists hope to better understand the extent of existing disparities, and maybe even seek solutions in the future.
Read more in Nature's inequality special: nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-01647-6/index.htmlA robotic Petri dish: How to grow human cells in a robot shouldernature video2022-05-26 | Human cells grown in the lab could one day be used for a variety of tissue grafts, but these cells need the right kind of environment and stimulation. New research suggests that robot bodies could provide tendon cells with the same kind of stretching and twisting as they would experience in a real human body. It remains to be seen whether using robots to exercise human cells results in a better tissue for transplantation into patients.
Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s44172-022-00004-9Lost beneath the leaves: Lasers reveal an ancient Amazonian civilisationnature video2022-05-25 | Pyramids and canals built by an ancient civilisation have been discovered beneath the forests of the Bolivian Amazon. LiDAR technology allowed archaeologists to see through the canopy to reveal hundreds of previously unknown structures and settlements from the Casarabe culture of 500-1400 AD. In this film archaeologist Heiko Prümers describes his work in a region long thought to be unable to support complex ancient societies.
Read the paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04780-4A new kind of cell divisionnature video2022-04-27 | For hundreds of years there have only been two main types of cell division in animals. But now researchers have identified a new and unexpected kind of cell division that occurs without DNA being replicated.
Discovered in zebrafish skin cells, this newly spotted division, called asynthetic fission, could be a temporary measure used when growth is fast to make sure there's enough skin to go around.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFJumping robot leaps to record heightsnature video2022-04-27 | Roboticists have designed all sorts of jumping robots over the years, and many of them have been inspired by biology. But, as diverse as the natural world is, evolution hasn’t cracked every option.
Now a team of researchers has investigated the differences between biological and mechanical jumpers – and have managed to design a device capable of leaping over 30 metres into the air. This is 3 times the current record for a jumping robot, and they did it with a technique unavailable to the biological world - work multiplication.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFWhy video calls are bad for brainstormingnature video2022-04-27 | Around the world, video meetings have become the new normal – but what impact could this have on our work? Our reporter jumps online to find out how face-to-face conversations differ from their virtual equivalents. According to new research one important skill is impacted by the restrictions of video calls: creativity. But why is idea generation negatively affected? And could other skills actually benefit from virtual communication?
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe lifespan secret: why giraffes live longer than ferretsnature video2022-04-13 | It is well known that Somatic mutations - mutations in our body’s genetic code that accumulate over time - can cause cancer, but their broader role in ageing is less clear
Now a team of researchers have measured the somatic mutation rates of a range of mammals and discovered a striking correlation between mutation rate and lifespan. Lending evidence to the theory that somatic mutations are a cause of ageing rather than a result of it.
CORRECTION: at 00:09, 01:40 and 06:09 a stylised animated DNA strand is shown. Although not intended to be an accurate depiction of DNA - the strand is shown with the wrong 'handedness'. The DNA should be 'right-handed'.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe AI historian: A new tool to decipher ancient textsnature video2022-03-09 | The origins of ancient inscriptions are often shrouded in mystery. Writing carved into stone millennia ago can be hard to read and is often missing entire sections of the text. Now a neural network, trained on thousands of existing inscriptions, could help historians figure out when and where a piece of writing comes from - as well as fill in missing words and characters.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFp53: Guardian of the Genomenature video2022-03-02 | The tumour-suppressing protein called p53, also known as the guardian of the genome, protects our cells from cellular damage. Under cellular stress, p53 jumps into action, regulating gene expression to control DNA repair, cell division and cell death.
But, p53 malfunction is associated with a vast array of difficult to treat cancers, and these can arise either from mutations in the TP53 gene, or through an overabundance of a regulatory protein that keeps p53 inactive. Unfortunately, there are no catch-all drugs to tackle these types of cancer, but several combination therapies are undergoing research, offering hope for the future.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFSearching for supernovasnature video2022-02-23 | Supernovae are one of the most dramatic events in the cosmos. As a star dies, in the right conditions, it can trigger the biggest explosions ever observed in the Universe and along with it a treasure trove of data. But it is hard to predict where the next boom might come from.
The last supernova to be detected in our galactic neighbourhood was seen in 1987, and since then scientists have been determined to be ready for the next one. In this film we meet the researchers that have set up a supernova early warning system - an international network of neutrino detectors that hopes to bring together the world’s astronomers in search of the next supernova.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFWhy water skitters off sizzling surfaces – and how to stop itnature video2022-01-26 | Water droplets on very hot surfaces bounce and skitter around on a thin cushion of water vapour. This phenomenon is known as the Leidenfrost Effect and it's something that engineers often want to avoid as it makes water-based cooling systems less efficient.
Now, researchers in Hong Kong have put forward a newly designed surface intended to prevent the bouncing and skittering of the Leidenfrost Effect.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFFlying in miniature: Secrets of the featherwing beetlenature video2022-01-19 | Flying is a tricky business, but when you are less than half a millimetre long, things get even tougher. At such tiny scales the physics of flight changes, and yet insects have evolved strategies to fly in miniature. In this Nature video we zoom in on new research which is revealing the never-before-seen flight tactics of a bizarre feather-winged beetle.
Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04303-7Plutos mysterious polygons explainednature video2021-12-17 | Polygonal shapes cover the icy surface of Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia region. The patterns, photographed by NASA’s New Horizons mission, are thought to be the result of slow-moving convection currents in the ice. Now, a new model shows that the driving force behind these currents is likely to be the sublimation of nitrogen ice into gas - an ongoing process on the surface of Sputnik Planitia.
For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFStretchy electronics go wirelessnature video2021-12-14 | Flexible electronics offer a lot of potential benefits to the design of wearable technology, but previous intrinsically stretchable semiconductors haven’t been able to meet the strict requirements for the high-frequency operation needed for many useful applications.
Now a team of researchers have developed a new polymer diode that is stretchable and operates at high enough frequency to unlock wireless operation and power.
Read the paper nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04053-6Rebuilding a retina: The challenge of AMDnature video2021-12-01 | The eye disease called age-related macular degeneration is expected to affect 18 million people worldwide by 2040. The dry form is currently untreatable but a slew of promising therapies could offer ways to lessen the damage.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFBabies with misshapen hearts: single-ventricle defectsnature video2021-11-24 | A healthy heart has four chambers: two atria and two ventricles. However, some babies are born with a misshapen heart. These babies have one normal ventricle and one small or malformed ventricle. Often, they also have a hole between the left and right sides of the heart, allowing deoxygenated blood and oxygenated blood to mix.
Fortunately, these kinds of defects — known as single-ventricle defects or SVDs — are rare. Babies born with an SVD can be treated through a sequence of surgeries, as shown in this animation.
Surgeons are also developing a pioneering technique to start treatment from within the womb, in the hope of saving even more lives.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe final hours: Nature reporters reflect on COP26nature video2021-11-12 | The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow is almost over, and as tense negotiations continue into the night, the Nature team take a moment to reflect on their experiences of this crucial conference. What struck them, what have they learned, and what should we look out for in the final text?Your COP26 questions answered: Is it too late?nature video2021-11-12 | The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow is a pivotal moment for action on climate change and Nature reporters have travelled to the conference to find answer to your most pressing science questions. In this video, we ask one simple question - is it too late? Scientists are divided, so we dive into the pledges to date in search of clarity.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFYour COP26 questions answered: Modelling a planetary patientnature video2021-11-11 | The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow is a pivotal moment for action on climate change and Nature reporters have travelled to the conference to find answer to your most pressing science questions. In this video, we compare climate modelling to clinical trials and ask, what if we thought of a warming Earth as if it were a sick patient?
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFYour COP26 questions answered: carbon capturenature video2021-11-09 | The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow is a pivotal moment for action on climate change and Nature reporters have travelled to the conference to find answer to your most pressing science questions. In this video, the focus is on carbon capture and storage.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFWhale-cams reveal how much they really eatnature video2021-11-03 | Tagging whales with cameras and sensors has allowed researchers to calculate how much food these huge creatures are consuming. It’s the most accurate estimate yet and reveals an even more significant impact of whales on ocean ecosystems than was previously known.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFWhen Vikings lived in North Americanature video2021-10-21 | An animated tale of giant solar storms, ancient sagas and the latest radiocarbon dating technology.
The Norse sagas tell tale of an epic voyage to an unknown land to the West of Greenland. Now, scientists have used a clever combination of tree rings, carbon dating and ancient solar storms to reveal that Vikings lived in North America exactly 1000 years ago.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFCancer in nanocolour: a new type of microscope slidenature video2021-10-06 | Pathologists often use tissue samples and microscopy to help diagnose diseases like cancer. But distinguishing different cells often require several stages of staining. Now researchers are presenting a new type of microscope slide which uses nanotechnology to change the perceived colour of cells without staining them. They say that this could help diagnose diseases like cancer.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFSpinning seeds inspire floating electronics - and monitor the atmospherenature video2021-09-22 | Spinning seeds falling from trees have inspired tiny electronic devices that float through the air. These 'circuit chips with wings' fall slowly and stably and can carry a whole host of electronic components such as sensors and antennae for wireless communication. They can be manufactured in large numbers and dropped from a height to allow high-resolution data collection over a wide area.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFInsulin and islets: understanding diabetesnature video2021-09-01 | Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are characterized by increased blood glucose levels. They affect almost half a billion people around the globe, and this number is projected to rise as we reach the middle of the century.
In most individuals, blood glucose levels are kept within a healthy range by a hormone called insulin, which is secreted by the pancreas, but this fine-tuned regulation can go wrong in type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
In this animation, we lay out our current understanding of these diseases and explore active areas of research that aim to restore the body's blood glucose control.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFCan CRISPR cure Sickle-cell Disease?nature video2021-08-25 | Sickle-cell disease is one of the most common genetic conditions worldwide, with more than 6 million people living with the disease. Three-quarters of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, where childhood mortality due to sickle cell remains high.
Previously, the only curative treatment was a stem-cell transplant, but new trials are investigating the potential of CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing as a tool to cure this chronic condition.
One such trial has already achieved exciting results. For people around the world who are living with sickle cell, these trials could offer hope that long-term cures are just over the horizon.
This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research/.The smart chain mail fabric that can stiffen on demandnature video2021-08-11 | Researchers have developed a new kind of material with adjustable and reversible properties. This new smart fabric is 3D printed with interlinked particles, like chain mail. Applying pressure jams the particles together and the fabric becomes stiff and solid until the pressure is released. This unusual property could be useful for reusable casts and other medical applications.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFIs this the worlds oldest animal fossil?nature video2021-07-28 | A possible sponge fossil dating back 890 million years could be the oldest animal ever discovered. Not all researchers are convinced that the markings left in the rock were made by an animal but, if they were, the new find could give us an insight into the evolution of the first animals.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe artificial pancreas: a bridge to a curenature video2021-07-02 | Tight control of blood glucose levels is vital for people with diabetes to lead healthy lives. But this challenge is no small undertaking, requiring careful monitoring of the diet and blood glucose levels, and regular insulin injections. One solution might be the development of the artificial pancreas; a device that monitors blood glucose levels and administers insulin automatically, but they are not yet widely available. Dr Helen Murphy, Clinical Professor in Medicine at Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, UK, takes us through her work with such devices – could they represent a bridge to a cure for people with diabetes?
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFWhy leaky pipes can be better for moving waternature video2021-06-30 | Researchers have taken inspiration from trees and developed a system for moving water around that depends on capillary action and surface tension. They 3D printed tiny open-faced cells that can expose a large surface area of water to the surrounding gas - which could be useful for things like cooling or gas exchange systems.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFDiabetes in sub-Saharan Africanature video2021-06-25 | It is estimated that over 19 million adults in Africa have diabetes, an enormous problem that Professor Jean Claude Mbanya, Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology at the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon, understands all too well. Here he takes us through the unique challenges and pitfalls of treating patients with diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFHow quantum mechanics help birds find their waynature video2021-06-23 | Some birds can sense Earth's magnetic field, using it to navigate. But precisely how they do this has long remained a mystery. Now, researchers have confirmed that a protein found in bird eyes displays a quantum mechanical phenomenon which makes it sensitive to magnetic fields. The researchers suggest this mechanism could be behind birds’ magnetoreception abilities.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFThe Discovery of Insulinnature video2021-06-18 | Nearly 100 years since insulin was first used in the treatment of diabetes, Professor Chantal Mathieu, Professor of Medicine at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, takes us through the history, development and future of this life saving drug.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFChina and the UK: Making an international collaboration worknature video2021-06-16 | Working with colleagues on the other side of the world can mean a lot of challenges. There are differences in language, in time zone, in culture, even in the practise of doing science. But scientific collaborations, such as the one between Heather Viles’s team at University of Oxford in the UK and Qinglin Guo’s team at Dunhuang Academy in China, can also provide a wealth of benefits. In this documentary, the two teams reflect on making this ambitious project work and how other teams could do the same.
CORRECTION: This video includes a misspelling of Professor Qinglin Guo's first name at 0:44. We apologise for the error.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFCancer, ageing, and the importance of the tumour microenvironmentnature video2021-06-01 | Professor Ashani Weeraratna has been studying the cancer microenvironment in her lab for the past 17 years. Taking into account that the tissues in our bodies change as we age is important when researching cancer biology. She hopes that gaining a better understanding of how the growth of cancer cells is affected by their direct cellular ‘neighbourhood’, especially when we age, could be key to developing better treatments for patients with cancer.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFHow to tackle global inequities in cancernature video2021-06-01 | Cancer can affect everybody, but not equally. Certain people, whether because of their gender, race, education or socio-economic status see worse outcomes from cancer. Access to cancer screening can differ, as well as the quality of patients’ lives after treatment. Our knowledge of biological aspects is also increasing. Professor Sulma Mohammed’s research looks at ways to understand and tackle these cancer health inequities, with a focus on sub-saharan Africa.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFHawaii’s surprise volcanic eruption: Lessons from Kilauea 2018nature video2021-05-19 | In 2018, Hawaii's most active volcano took scientists by surprise. Lava started spewing out not from the summit, but 50km away on the lower slopes of the volcano. This unexpected eruption destroyed farmland, roads and over 700 homes. Since then, volcanologists have been piecing together the events that triggered it.
Using GPS trackers, high-speed cameras, chemical analysis and more, researchers have learnt what happens when volcanic craters collapse and how magma can move not just vertically but horizontally underneath a volcano. These insights help us to understand other similar volcanoes in Iceland, Italy and La Reunion. The hope is that next time Kilauea or one of these other volcanoes erupts, we will be better prepared.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFHow origami is inspiring new kinds of emergency sheltersnature video2021-04-21 | Engineers have come up with a way of designing structures based on the ancient art of origami. The structures can be put up with by inflation, fold up flat for storage and transport, and can be made of strong, rigid materials. One hope is that these structures could be deployed in disaster zones for use as emergency shelters.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVFFlying a helicopter on Mars: NASA’s Ingenuitynature video2021-04-20 | 290 million kilometers away NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has taken the first step towards a new type of space exploration.
Hovering 3 meters above the Martian surface before rotating 90 degrees and safely landing - this was the first powered flight on another planet.
In this video we explore the challenges of this achievement and ask what it means for the future of space exploration.
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF