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The disappearance of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period posed one of the greatest, long-standing scientific mysteries. This three-act film tells the story of the extraordinary detective work that solved it. Shot on location in Italy, Spain, Texas, Colorado, and North Dakota, the film traces the uncovering of key clues that led to the stunning discovery that an asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago, triggering a mass extinction of animals, plants, and even microorganisms. Each act illustrates the nature and power of the scientific method. Representing a rare instance in which many different disciplines—geology, physics, biology, chemistry, paleontology—contributed to a revolutionary theory, the film is intended for students in all science classes.
Now available for order on DVD!
This series of short films has been crafted to engage students with memorable examples of the evolutionary process in action. Each film takes students on an adventure—from the postglacial lakes in southern Alaska to the deserts of the American Southwest, and from the icy Antarctic to the highlands of East Africa, where fascinating creatures and pioneering scientists reveal how the fittest are made. Produced by award-winning filmmakers, each film illustrates the role of mutation and natural selection in adaptation.
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The Making of the Fittest: Got Lactase? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture
Human babies drink milk; it's the food especially provided for them by their mothers. Various cultures have also added the milk of other mammals to their diet and adults think nothing of downing a glass of cows' milk. But worldwide, only a third of adults can actually digest lactose, the sugar in milk. In this short film we follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, Director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, as he tracks down the genetic changes associated with the ability to digest lactose as adults, tracing the origin of the trait to less than 10,000 years ago, a time when some human populations started domesticating animals, including goats, sheep, and cows. Combining genetics, chemistry, and anthropology, this story provides a compelling example of the co-evolution of human genes and human culture.
14 minutes 51 seconds
Watch Got Lactase? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture (720p HD, 2Mbps)
Download HD version: iTunes (572 MB) or Windows Media (461 MB)
Download SD version: iTunes (185 MB) or Windows Media (118 MB)
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Click here for teacher resources developed for
Got Lactase? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture
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The Making of the Fittest: Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies
After the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, populations of marine stickleback fish became stranded in freshwater lakes dotted throughout the northern Hemisphere in places of natural beauty like Alaska and British Columbia. These remarkable little fish have adapted and thrive, living permanently in a freshwater environment drastically different than the ocean. Stickleback bodies have undergone a dramatic transformation, some populations completely losing long projecting body spines that defend them from large predators. Various scientists, including David Kingsley and Michael Bell, have studied living populations of threespine sticklebacks, identified key genes and genetic switches in the evolution of body transformation, and even documented the evolutionary change over thousands of years by studying a remarkable fossil record from the site of an ancient lake ten million years ago. Watch this film to learn about a species where we can study evolution in action, identify key genes, and peer deep into the evolutionary past.
15 minutes 27 seconds
Watch Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies(720p HD, 2Mbps)
Download HD version: iTunes (579 MB) or Windows Media (479 MB)
Download SD version: iTunes (187 MB) or Windows Media (122 MB)
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This movie is also available on DVD!
Click here for teacher resources developed for
Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies |
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The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation
The rock pocket mouse is a living example of Darwin’s process of natural selection. Not only is evolution happening right now everywhere around us, but adaptive changes can occur in a population with remarkable speed. This speed is essential if you’re a desert mouse living in an environment where a volcanic eruption can reverse selective pressure in nearly an instant. The film features Dr. Michael Nachman, whose work in the field and in the lab has quantified the selective pressure of predators and identified the genes involved in adaptation. In a complete story, from ecosystem to molecules, pocket mice show us how random changes in the genome can take many paths to the same adaptation—a colored coat that hides them from predators.
10 minutes 25 seconds
Watch Natural Selection and Adaptation(720p HD, 2Mbps)
Download HD version: iTunes (409 MB) or Windows Media (323 MB)
Download SD version: iTunes (88 MB) or Windows Media (82 MB)
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This movie is also available on DVD!
Click here for teacher resources developed for
Natural Selection and Adapation |
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The Making of the Fittest: The Birth and Death of Genes
For life to survive, it must adapt and readapt to an ever-changing Earth. The discovery of the Antarctic icefish has provided a stunning example of adaptation in an environment both hostile and abundant, where the birth of new genes and the death of old ones have played crucial roles. Researchers Bill Detrich, Christina Cheng, and Art DeVries have pinpointed the genetic changes that enable icefish to thrive without hemoglobin and red blood cells and to avoid freezing in the icy ocean.
13 minutes 10 seconds
Watch The Birth and Death of Genes(720p HD, 2Mbps)
Download HD version: iTunes (507 MB) or Windows Media (408 MB)
Download SD version: iTunes (112 MB) or Windows Media (104 MB)
Click here for help with viewing and downloading.
This movie is also available on DVD!
Click here for teacher resources developed for
The Birth and Death of Genes |
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The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection in Humans
In some parts of the world, there is an intimate connection between the infectious parasitic disease malaria and the genetic disease sickle cell anemia. A keenly observant young man named Tony Allison, working in East Africa in the 1950s, first noticed the connection and assembled the pieces of the puzzle. His story stands as the first and one of the best understood examples of natural selection, where the selective agent, adaptive mutation, and molecule involved are known—and this is in humans to boot. The protection against malaria by the sickle-cell mutation shows how evolution does not necessarily result in the best solution imaginable but proceeds by whatever means are available.
14 minutes 3 seconds
Watch Natural Selection in Humans (720p HD, 2Mbps)
Download HD version: iTunes (521 MB) or Windows Media (436 MB)
Download SD version: iTunes (119 MB) or Windows Media (111 MB)
Click here for help with viewing and downloading.
This movie is also available on DVD!
Click here for teacher resources developed for
Natural Selection in Humans
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Help with viewing and downloading
HHMI's BioInteractive Short Films
iTunes versions of the movies are M4V files, playable via iTunes on both Mac OS or Windows, and are also playable by iOS devices like Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone/iPod touch.
Windows Media versions of the movies are WMV files, playable with Windows Media Player.
To download the movies:
In Internet Explorer right-click the "Download movie" link and select "Save Target As..."
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In Safari right-click and select "Download Linked File As..."
On the Macintosh, holding the Control key while clicking is the same as right-clicking.
There are also classroom activities available for The Making of the Fittest film series.
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