Who doesn’t love a good duck penis? Carl Zimmer has written about them for The New York Times and The Loom. Ed Yong has written about them. So have I. In fact, duck penises are what won me a signed copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks signed by Rebecca Skloot at Science Online 2010. So I feel like I owe them something in exchange. That’s why I donated money to research that will be measuring the explosive erection of the duck. And you can too.

As part of the #SciFund Challenge, a crowdfunding initiative for science research, ecologist Patty Brennan and biomechanics expert Diane Kelly are seeking funding for “Force of Duck: Measuring Explosive Erection.” There are three days left for the #SciFund Challenge, so go make their holidays a little brighter and help fund this fascinating research!

A small collection of songs that I’ve been rocking out to for DNA day…

Tonight at 8pm ET/PT, National Geographic premieres what is undoubtably the best nature miniseries event of the year: Great Migrations.

EPIC.

AMAZING.

BREATHTAKING.

HEARTBREAKING.

INSPIRATIONAL.

These are just a few of the words I would use to describe Great Migrations. The seven-part miniseries is split into two categories: the stories, and the stories behind the stories.  The first four hours are your typical nature documentary- following various migratory species on their journeys, and narrated by Alec Baldwin.  The final three hours are a behind the scenes look at the science and filmmaking of Great Migrations, culminating with a symphonic migratory journey.  [More on the behind-the-scenes coming in a follow-up post.]

The stories told range from the tiny army ant to the massive sperm whale, and take you from Patagonia to the Arctic circle, and everywhere in between.  One minute you are in the frigid waters off the north coast of Russia, and the next you are in the dry, blazing heat of the Sahel.  The migrations are Darwinian in the extreme, and illustrate many of the perils and hardships these migratory species face-whether it is a old predator in their natural environment, or a new, more foreign danger- Man.  Some scenes are not for the faint of heart, and I will highly recommend a box of tissues during next Sunday’s “Feast or Famine”.  You. will. need. it.

The people involved with Great Migrations went on their own migratory journey- traveling 420,000 miles in over 20 countries on all seven continents, working in temperatures ranging from subzero to more than 120°F.  The filmmakers went to extraordinary lengths to capture rarely-seen behaviors and animals, including the white-eared kob, thought to have been wiped out in the 20 years of violent unrest in Sudan.  These creatures haven’t been filmed in decades, and Nat Geo had the first film crew on the ground in Sudan in 25 years.

“Great Migrations has thus far been the most ambitious undertaking in National Geographic Channel history,” said Steve Burns, EVP, Content, National Geographic Channel. “We assembled a team of the best wildlife cinematographers in the business and gave them the most advanced technology in existence to capture these incredible stories of survival with life-and-death drama unfolding in every shot.”

The series is the first National Geographic wildlife film shot entirely in Blue-Ray native format (1080p), and features the widespread use of Phantom HD super slow-motion camera system, shooting up to 1,000 frames per second in true HD.  The clips that this technology provides are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, with my highlighting a very pissed mother zebra chasing down a naive cheetah cub.

If you don’t believe me as to how incredible this series is, just check out the trailer below.  And then clear your schedule for tonight.

This may be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while, and is just another reason that I wish I lived in the UK and had access to BBC.  Here are some of the best clips from “Walk on the Wild Side”, a show on BBC One that consisted of overdubbing voiceovers to natural history videos.

Hell hath cometh to the Gulf of Mexico.  These scenes from a flyover of the Gulf oil spill are reminiscent of some horrible end-of-days film, or a war zone.  And right now, the Gulf is a war zone.  Every day, its inhabitants fight for their lives, as they get coated in oil.  On his flyover of the oil spill, Hurricane Creek Keeper John Wathen saw at least 100 Dolphins in the oil, some dying, and a sperm whale covered in oil all around it’s blow hole.

You may want to grab your box of tissues for this one.