San Antonio College Library

Southern Africa's Namib Desert - at first glance, a barren and lifeless setting. Looking closely at the desert floor, however, we see black and multicolored patches adorning the landscape. Regions in Asia and North America present a comparable picture, and indeed, even in the Arctic and Antarctic, the Earth's frigid deserts, such deposits appear everywhere. How can these sensitive organisms survive in extremely dry and cold climates? What state would...

Planet Earth is teeming with life. Help your students make sense of it all by starting them at the bottom of the biosphere-home to bacteria, microbes, fungi, and insects. Organization and Diversity defines key terms, classifies the kingdoms and domains of life, outlines the Linnean hierarchical system, contrasts evolutionary taxonomy with cladistic analysis, and provides powerful DNA evidence supporting the unity of life. Also, the fascinating contributions...

Why are one third of amphibian species threatened by extinction? Hosted by CBC news anchor Kelly Crowe, this program summarizes the major reasons for the near-disappearance of hundreds of types of frogs, toads, and salamanders across the world. Dr. David Green, professor of biology at McGill University, and Toronto Zoo curator Bob Johnson explain one cause for the mass destruction of frogs-the chytrid fungus, which infects their skin, eventually causing...

After direct habitat destruction, nonnative species introduced by humans to new areas pose the largest threat to global biodiversity. This program looks at how scientists and conservationists are coping with a number of these critical situations, such as on Seychelles, where rats have caused 200 years of devastation; on Scotland's Outer Hebrides, where hedgehogs were released to control garden slugs; and in New York City, where Asian longhorn beetles...

In the animal kingdom, there's no shortage of creepy, bizarre creatures who crawl on this planet. They range from horned lizards, who shoot blood from their eyes in self-defense to creatures that raise their offspring in the carcasses of dead animals. Some creatures are so bizarre they defy imagination. Komodo dragons use a sixth sense, a 'smell-o-vision' from the roof of their mouth, to seek out prey and cannibal black widow spiders sense movement...

Why do most eukaryotes reproduce sexually and not asexually? While most people ascribe this to pleasure, science does not. At least 1.3 billion years before animals developed neurons capable of assessing pleasure, single-celled protists were already engaged in sexual practices. The leading explanation is that sexual reproduction accelerates adaptation by producing new combinations of genes, yet exactly how sex is maintained remains a mystery. British...

Dive deep into the realm of creepy aquatic creatures to uncover the world's most bizarre water-dwelling tenants. Among them, a fish with a transparent head shows off everything it's got. Hermaphrodite flatworms battle to determine which among them will be male or female. A master-of-disguise octopus camouflages itself as a rock, a plant and even as a snake, to capture prey or elude pursuit. A lizard literally walks on water, while a fish "walks" on...

What does genetic diversity mean, and what is its relationship to evolution? This video answers that intriguing question as it summarizes the theory of natural selection and describes the process of trait inheritance. Advances stemming from the Human Genome Project-an ever-deepening understanding of life on Earth, improvements in disease detection and treatment, and applications of genomics to agriculture, the environment, and forensic science-are...

This program begins high in the mountains of Iceland and ends at the coral reefs of the Maldives in an exploration of aquatic biomes that includes mountain streams, wetlands and swamps, coral reefs, and deep ocean. Along the way, viewers discover South America's Pantanal, the world's greatest wetland, and the Sundarbans - an immense mangrove swamp at the mouth of the Ganges in Bangladesh. Finally, sailing far out into the deep ocean, the video explains...

This program travels to the savannas of Kenya, the grasslands of Australia, and the Cerrado of Brazil to study the remarkable interaction of plants and animals in the grassland biome. Viewers learn about an ecosystem built around the acacia tree, and the role of rhinos in making the savanna fit for antelope in East Africa. In the Cerrado, the video reveals how maned wolves get by on a low nitrogen diet with the help of a fruit called the wolf apple....