Videos

The Paris climate talks are nearly upon us, and the world’s nations are gathering to hammer out a deal. But how do you get an agreement that everyone will sign up to?

This article was reproduced with permission and was first published on November 23, 2015. It is a Nature Video production.

All it takes is a magnet and knowing where to look.

In his West London workshop, Michael Wright builds ancient mechanisms. In this Nature Video, we see his latest contraption, the sphere of Archimedes. Based on little more than ancient Greek texts, Wright has built this speculative machine to model the movements of the planets. 

This article was reproduced with permission and was first published on September 25, 2015. It is a Nature Video production.

Nature Video finds out how to levitate objects using sound waves. Scientists can float objects in mid-air, using just the power of sound. Now, using ultrasonic speakers, they can levitate things with more control than ever before, moving small objects in three dimensions even with the whole array turned upside down. They have also developed virtual ‘holograms’ to visualise how the shapes made by the sound waves can ‘grab’ objects.

This article was reproduced with permission and was first published on Oct 27, 2015. It is a Nature Video production.

Radioastronomer Robert Wilson recalls a pair of pigeons who almost thwarted the discovery of cosmic background radiation. Wilson’s discovery—“the echo of the big bang”—earned him a share of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.

This is the story of the evolution of life on earth during one photon’s journey across the universe. Told by Saul Perlmutter who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.

How to break a fundamental law of physics and win a Nobel Prize to boot. Stefan Hell explains super-resolved fluorescence microscopy for which he shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

From jellyfish to ants, all life is beautiful in the eyes of Elizabeth Blackburn, co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She talks about her fascination with living things and the discovery of telomerase and telomeres.

Recorded at the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and produced with support from Mars, Inc.

A hammock turns out to be the perfect place to contemplate spacetime, especially if you happen to have some coconuts

Researchers were surprised to find that cyclists rode faster while taking on easy mental tasks.

—Karen Hopkin, Eliene Augenbraun

One species of ant turns out to have a lot in common with blue cheese and rotting coconuts.

Photo courtesy: Antweb.org 

Shoe-related dangers lurk underfoot. The rate of high heel–related injuries doubled over a 10-year period, and most of those injuries happened in a place you might not expect.