Watch a salamander grow from fertilization to hatching

A timelapse of sprouting seeds

Germination is the process where an organism sprouts from a seed or spore. This timelapse captures the process in an inspiring, two-minute video so you can see the whole story of the seed quickly.

Follow an IVF procedure from lab to transplant

What happens once eggs are harvested from an ovary? How does an embryo form within a petri dish? This detailed video offers a glimpse of the transformations eggs experience as women age, and how sperm are injected into eggs in some forms of IVF treatment.

'Artificial embryos': The hidden steps in forming a spine

Somitogenesis is the process by which segmented body structures like vertebrae form in embryos. While the process is well understood in animals like mice or zebrafish it is difficult to study in humans. But now, researchers have created a model of somitogenesis, using pluripotent stem cells, called an axioloid.

How the heart achieves its first beat

Scientists observed zebrafish embryos as they grew and isolated the several-second-long initial heartbeats to better understand this crucial moment in every heart's life. The zebrafish's heart starts beating 20 hours into their existence. Each heart cell activates electrically at random, without rhythm. As these cells mature, they become more sensitive to electrical charges; as they all fire, a rhythm is established and a pulse is born.

Scientists first observed a sperm and an egg uniting in 1876

Throughout human history, scholars and researchers have speculated on the origin of human reproduction. It wasn't until the late-19th century that the physical process of egg fertilization via sperm cells was observed (in sea urchins), forming the basis for modern fertility research.

View the fluorescently stained internal structures of a tardigrade

The photograph won the Olympus Global Life Science Light Microscopy Americas regional award in 2019. Using chemicals from biofluorescent organisms, the image illuminates internal structures with multiple hues in an otherwise mostly colorless organism.

Fetal development, week by week

Gestation is the period of time between conception and birth when a baby grows inside the mother's womb. Changes occur constantly over the course of these 40 weeks. At week 17, for instance, the skeleton of a fetus begins changing from soft...

The secret lives of cells

Cutting-edge microscopy has revealed previously unseen interactions of biological molecules within their cellular environment, enabling scientists to observe and analyze the molecules in a holistic view. This podcast explains the minute advancements made over the last few decades in observing cells, revealing how scientists have come and what the future holds for the field.

Watch insects and animal pollinators in slow motion

Louie Schwartzberg's "Moving Art" series showcases slow-motion footage of oceans, forests, deserts, flowers, and more. In this excerpt, organisms such as bats, monarch butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are shown interacting with one another and with flowering plants.

Can butterflies remember being caterpillars?

All holomatabolous insects like butterflies, bees, and moths undergo complete metamorphosis via a pupal stage. Inside the pupa, the insect breaks down into a goop of the basic elements of life like amino acids and proteins, out of which the adult stage of the insect grows. Despite this radical transformation, scientists theorize some of these insects retain what they call memories of their pre-pupa stage. Watch this video to learn more.

Using artificial wombs to improve preterm infant health outcomes

Researchers at a hospital in the US have successfully used artificial wombs to care for preterm lambs and are now looking at the possibility of human trials. This nine-minute video includes interviews with the researchers and explains the reasoning...

Watch a time-lapse of hard coral growth, which forms coral reefs

Over several weeks in an aquarium, these staghorn coral polyps grew and produced new polyps as they deposited calcium carbonate, which forms the basis of coral reefs. At the 0:28 mark, you can see coral growth healing a damaged branch.

What a tiny marine worm can tell us about our brains

Meet the amphioxus, a small eel-like animal that has a lot to teach us about brain evolution. The genetic roots of our brains can be seen in these unusual creatures. This three-minute educational video focuses on the evolutionary history of the human brain through these odd little critters with a 500-million-year-old history.

Watch animations of the creation and excavation of dinosaur tracks

The discovery of a dinosaur trackway in the UK emerged from a controlled explosion that removed limestone from an Oxfordshire quarry. The footprints provide unique insights into dinosaur behavior and movement, with marine fossils suggesting a lagoon-like environment.

Some female tardigrades reabsorb their eggs if no male fertilizes them

The eggs are laid in skin that has detached after molting. These species undergo sexual reproduction, but others reproduce asexually, with females producing clones from unfertilized eggs. Some hermaphrodite species have both male and female reproductive organs and can self-fertilize.

Learn how to build your own vivarium

Creating a self-contained habitat for plants and microscopic animals requires a careful balance of organisms that maintain a cycle of water, nutrients, and other chemicals throughout. Bottlenecks in these cycles are mitigated through careful construction, such as incorporating a drainage layer to effectively manage water.

See February 2026's best science images, including raining iguanas.

The love lives of pygmy seahorses

Inch-long pygmy seahorses live fascinating lives in the Coral Triangle of Southeast Asia, where the tiny sea creatures thrive. They are one of the few species in the world where the male carries its progeny to term, in this case, after receiving an egg from the female, who keeps busy checking in on her two male mates, one of whom is always pregnant. Dive into the marine romance in this fascinating essay.

Dive into the ocean's hottest water to explore hydrothermal vents

What can live at temperatures of 700 degrees Fahrenheit under skull crushing pressure with zero sunlight? Meet the animals living in the most extreme conditions on Earth in this four-minute video.

How microchips are made

Our increasingly electronic world depends on tiny devices called microchips to function. It takes half a year to create one, which is approximately the size of a fingernail. Engineering them is a highly involved process that starts with silicon-rich sand and eventually turns into billions of transistors packed into one small area. Watch this video to understand the complex feat of creating microchips and how they’re relevant to our daily life.

Watch an animation of Arctic sea ice grow to its maximum

Each year, Arctic sea ice freezes over millions of square miles amid colder temperatures. This 1-minute animation depicts that process using data from the winter of 2022-23.

The halting of human bone growth helps manage heat produced from metabolism

While fish, amphibians and reptiles get bigger throughout their lives until they die, their slower metabolisms allow their bodies to regulate the resulting smaller temperature increases. In humans, hormones triggered during puberty harden growth plates, ending bone lengthening.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Photographer finds 120-year-old time capsule, develops the photos

Photographer Mathieu Stern found a century-old time capsule in his family home containing a little girl’s mementos and two glass plate negatives. He used Cyanotype to develop the photographs, unveiling images of the child’s pets. Stern documented the process in a video on YouTube and Instagram, showcasing the final prints of the animals.

Video and still images are combined with sonar data to create seafloor maps

Sonar works by sending thousands of sound pulses per second towards the seafloor, capturing the strength and timing of the returning echo. This data can accurately reveal depth, seafloor texture, and the presence of fish habitats to millimeter resolutions.

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.