Even after death, this parrot retains its striking plumage. But its feathers and tissue disappear when subjected to flesh-eating beetles for about three weeks, leaving behind a grisly skeleton.
The video, captured by Brian McClave from Site-Eye Films in collaboration with Joanne Cooper from the Natural History Museum at Tring, UK, shows the process often used by museums to prepare a skeleton for their collections. Beetles are best for stripping a bird's flesh since chemical alternatives can eat into bone and change its structure. To speed up decomposition, specimens are usually defeathered before beetles are left to do their work.
This underwater pig feast comes in at number 5 in our best videos of 2012 countdown.
Who knew sea lice were so industrious? This time-lapse shows how they quickly devour a dead pig in an experiment probing how bodies decompose underwater. After four days, the carcass is reduced to bones before shrimp sneak in to dine on the cartilage.
Finding a dead body in the ocean may be gruesome, but for forensic scientists it can also be perplexing. Although the way a body decomposes on land is well understood, little is known about how human remains fare underwater.
Now a pioneering experiment lead by forensic scientist Gail Anderson from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, is using dead pigs as a model for humans to gain insight. In this video, a pig carcass is tracked as it turns to bones in the ocean, capturing the scavengers that visit the body. Sharks are unable to tuck in since it's enclosed (as is the octopus lurking at the end of the video), giving sea lice exclusive access to the remains. They enter orifices in droves to feast on the animal from the inside out and congregate on the cage bars to prevent other arthropods, like shrimp, from getting a bite. "By the end of the fourth day, the sea lice had left and the pigs were reduced to bones," says Anderson.
Shrimp arrive to pick at the skeleton, eventually removing all the cartilage. The team then recovered the bones which, strangely, were jet black for a period of 48 hours. "This is something that has never been seen before," says Lynne Bell, a member of the team. "Colleagues are working to identify the micro-organisms collected close to the bone, which may help to identify the unique chemistry of the change."
The pig carcasses are revealing for the first time how different conditions, for example depth and seasonal changes, affect decomposition in seawater. "We have had a lot of disarticulated feet wash up on our shores in running shoes," says Anderson. "This work is showing the public how crab and shrimp activity can result in severed limbs and that's it's a normal process."
Life-threatening blood clots could now be destroyed more
effectively thanks to smart nanoparticles that deliver drugs directly to an
obstructed vessel. The therapy, developed by Netanel Korin and a team from Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, uses a
biologically-inspired approach to achieve the task.
In this time-lapse, you can watch a blocked mouse artery clear up
in about five minutes after the injection of drug-coated nanoparticles.When a blood vessel narrows, the
resulting high shear stress is a signal for circulating blood platelets to
stick to the wall, forming a clot. Similarly, the therapy is activated by the
shearing strain - but in this case it breaks up a collection of nanoparticles
to allow individual carriers to bind to platelets and deliver clot-busting drugs.
The new approach should be a more effective way of treating
heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary embolisms using a fraction of the current
drug dose. Using current methods, a larger amount is required since drugs
circulate freely without targeting a specific site, which can cause bleeding
Your pretty face wasn't always so pretty: the first
animation of a face forming in the womb reveals how different features morph
The time-lapse, produced for the BBC series Inside the Human
Body, is based on human embryo scans captured
between 1 and 3 months after conception, the period during which a face develops. Virtual
sculptures were created at different stages, then combined by mapping hundreds
of points to corresponding dots on the other models. "It was a nightmare for
structures like the nose and palate, which didn't exist for most of the
animation," says David Barker, the graphics researcher on the production.
"Their formation is a complicated ballet of growth and fusion of moving plates
A close look at the animation reveals that a face forms from
three main features that rotate into place, meeting at the philtrum, the groove above the top lip. The transformation occurs with very precise
timing and delays can result in a cleft lip or palate.
This time-lapse represents a typical day in my life. Unfortunately, the stark objectivity is somewhat disturbing. It reveals how much I slouch and that I barely crack a smile at my desk, which is surprising since I like my job.
The video was recorded using a Microsoft SenseCam produced by Vicon, a wearable camera that automatically snaps a picture about every 30 seconds. The device, first developed as a "black box" recorder to provide photographic evidence after accidents, is now being used to help people with memory difficulties review their day and boost recollection. Healthy devotees are also finding that the all-seeing camera can help them live happier and more fulfilling lives, for example by tracking eating habits to help with weight loss.
I wore a SenseCam for a few weeks to find out what it could do for me. Seeing my day flash before my eyes made me realise how much my memory alters or deletes experiences. To find our more, check out our full-length article, Total recall: Diary of a lifelogger.
Circling the Earth from space, the inhabitants of the International Space Station (ISS) witness spectacular views as they orbit the planet every 91 minutes. Now, a series of time-lapse videos, produced from still images captured at night, reveals bright city lights and stunning auroras.
The first clip begins with a view of the Aurora Borealis over Canada before sweeping over vast areas lit up by artificial lights, which include the cities of Denver, Colorado and Houston, Texas. In a darker night view, where clouds make lights look hazy, Chicago is visible. Next, the ISS swoops over Western Europe and Africa, ending with a stunning view of the Aurora Australis as the space station moves over the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to Australia.
The ISS has been continuously occupied since the first astronauts arrived on November 2, 2000. For over 4000 days, humans have been given this privileged perspective on the world.
After painstakingly arranging a bed of brass nails, physicist Stephen Morris and his graduate student T. Lynn MacDonald of the University of Toronto decided to shake things up. The result is captured in this time-lapse where the perfect crystalline arrangement appears to melt, much like the physical process of crystal liquefaction.
The shaking action is produced by a rectangular plate jostling up and down with increasing force. Buffeted by the motion, the nail bed's crystal-like structure passes through a pattern of less-ordered states. This resembles the phases that a crystal of long molecules undergoes as it heats up.
According to Morris, the parallels are surprising because the shaking only roughly equates to an increase in temperature and the different stages are not equilibrium states.
"Since the nails lose energy on collisions, we must continuously feed energy in via the shaking," Morris said. "So this is a very non-thermodynamic situation, yet we observe more or less the same phases as in liquid crystals."
His group is studying the patterns that arise as non-equilibrium systems change.
This epic time-lapse takes you on a sweeping tour of nature's dynamic beauty, capturing a
blizzard overtaking Monument Valley in Colorado and exquisite views of Yosemite National Park. Created by Henry Jun Wah Lee of Evosia
Studios, it was presented last month at the Jane
Goodall Live event in Los Angeles, where the primatologist appeared on screens to interact with a theatre audience.
Lee's film was chosen for the screening because, like Goodall, his mission is to reconnect viewers with
trying to raise awareness about the beautiful world we live in and the need to
preserve it for future generations," he says. "Just as there are species
of animals that may never again roam this planet in the next few generations,
there are beautiful landscapes and places that may not be around in twenty or
The opening landscape is set
in Ancient Bristlecone
Pine Forest in California, which Lee claims is the most otherworldly place his work has taken him to date.
12,000 feet in the desolate mountains, the sky is so clear you feel swallowed
up by the universe," he explains. "You feel so small and insignificant against
the billions and billions of stars above you."