2013 Entries

Eyevolution (2:53 minutes)
Filmmaker: Emma Goodman
Affiliation: University of Auckland
Team members: Lucy Goodman, Philip Turnbull

‘Eyevolution’ looks beyond the traditional short-sighted approaches to myopia to explain how the convergent evolution of the human and squid eye could help scientists understand human visual disorders: https://vimeo.com/67390729.

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Darwin’s Theories (3:17 minutes)
Filmmaker: Celia Secades
Affiliation: Elesapiens

Charles Darwin formulated the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, but what is Natural Selection exactly and how does it work? What is the evolution of species about? Find out! http://player.vimeo.com/video/54371788.

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Evolutionary Ecology of Flower Polymorphism (3:00 minutes)
Filmmaker: Luis Navarro
Affiliation: Vigo University, Spain
Team members: Ian Esfendodon, Sabela Sempedro Pereira

This video explains heterostyly: a floral polymorphism that attracted Darwin´s attention so much so that he devoted a book to its study: https://vimeo.com/62261759

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The Making of the Fittest: Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies (2:21 minutes)
Filmmaker: Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Learn about a species where we can study evolution in action, identify key genes, and peer deep into the evolutionary past:
http://media.hhmi.org/fittest/Evolving_Switches_Evolving_Bodies.html.  For more videos and animations from HHMI, please visit www.biointeractive.org.

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Why Do Slave Ants Kill Slavemakers? (3:39 minutes)
Filmmaker: Pleuni Pennings
Affiliation: Stanford University

This video explores research on slavemaking ants and their hosts (slaves). Host ants can be captured by the slavemaker ants, and these captured ants (slaves) normally work for the slavemaker queen. But recently, it was found that they sometimes kill slavemakers: https://vimeo.com/64925155.

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Ordinary, Extraordinary Junco (Outro): What We Can Learn (3:00 minutes)
Filmmaker: Jonathan Atwell
Affiliation: Indiana University
Team members: Steve Burns, Ellen Ketterson, Joseph Toth, Elie Abraham, Yael Ksander

This video previews junco research of the future and reinforces the broad range of important scientific findings that have emerged from studying a little backyard bird.  The complete film and educator resources are available free online at www.juncoproject.org: https://vimeo.com/61317504.

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The Genetics of Altruism (2:59 minutes)
Filmmaker: Alexander Bates
Affiliation: University College London
Team members: Ruairi Roberts, Alberto Lazari, Melania Muscas, Dionysios Giannoukos

This video briefly summarizes different approaches to the problem of how altruism could have evolved in so many species across the world, from slime molds to primates: https://vimeo.com/66959172.

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Allopatric Speciation (1:24 minutes)
Filmmaker: Sarah Danser
Affiliation: University of Colorado, Boulder

This playful hand-drawn animation briefly describes the process of Allopatric Speciation: https://vimeo.com/66924376.

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BONUS VIDEO! 

This year, in addition to the submissions from “professional” scientists, we were pleased to receive some terrific videos from high school students.  We chose to screen this one at the 2013 NESCent Evolution Film Festival in Snowbird, and it was a huge hit.  Without further ado, we present…

Bears vs. Bill (2:36 minutes)
Filmmakers: Ashwini Manjunatha
Affiliation: Acton-Boxborough Regional High School
Team members: Emma Hardimon, Rachel Malloy

In an epic struggle for survival, the bears of Greenland face off against their deadly foe, Bill the Killer: https://vimeo.com/62516069.

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