The Steller’s sea lions that populate the Alaskan coastline are powerful, playful, and sometimes rowdy creatures who bump and jostle each other on land but acquire a sublime gracefulness in the water. They are also the subject of a strange and tragic mystery: Steller’s sea lions are rapidly disappearing from one of the last great wildlife strongholds of the world, and no one knows why.

Naturalist filmmaker Shane Moore, who has been working in the Alaskan wilderness for much of the past 10 years, brings a sense of urgency and new understanding to this puzzle in A Mystery in Alaska.

As scientists and environmentalists race the clock to find answers, pressure has been growing on Alaska’s fishing industry to suspend most of its pollock fishing, on the suspicion that it is robbing Steller’s sea lions of an important source of food. But new research illustrated in this film shows that a broad combination of factors could be responsible for the sea lions’ plight. Buy the DVD. This film premiered in May 2003.

NATURE investigates the sometimes exasperating efforts of people and wild animals to adapt to each other when their worlds collide in Animals Behaving Badly.

The escalating battle for space on this planet between people and wild animals has grown increasingly one-sided, as humanity asserts its domination. But a few intrepid species are successfully challenging, harassing, and even exploiting us on our own turf.

How people are dealing with these incursions — and what we can learn from them to the benefit of both wildlife and humans — is the amusing and enlightening focus of Animals Behaving Badly. The filmmakers traveled to various parts of the United States and Canada, and as far away as New Zealand and Australia, to show us examples of animals behaving “badly,” and of the varying human reactions.

To order a copy of Animals Behaving Badly, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Animals Behaving Badly was originally posted May 2003.

In 1997, “Under Antarctic Ice” filmmaker Norbert Wu journeyed to Antarctica for the first time on a special grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. government’s leading funder of scientific research on the frozen continent. But the United States isn’t alone in conducting research in Antarctica. Currently, 17 other nations — from Russia and China to Brazil and Uruguay — also operate Antarctic research centers. And each year, thousands of scientists (and even a few filmmakers) get to visit these remarkable laboratories, and conduct studies focused on everything from the world’s climate to the land mass locked beneath the ice.

Antarctica has long been a magnet for scientists due to its size, location, weather, and isolation from the rest of world. It is among the most pristine places on earth, making it a perfect spot to study how pollutants travel through the atmosphere. Sadly, polar researchers have found that even deadly toxins, such as mercury, can travel vast distances and end up in Antarctic snow, plants, and animals. And in the 1980s, they realized that chlorine compounds routinely used in aerosol sprays, air conditioners and other products were carried to Antarctic skies, where they ate a hole in the protective ozone layer, letting in dangerous ultraviolet light. Such studies led directly to an international agreement to reduce the use of ozone-eating compounds.

Today, Antarctica is a key outpost for global warming studies. Cores taken from its thick ice sheet hold tiny air bubbles that have allowed scientists to track the historical buildup of the global warming gas carbon dioxide, formed by burning fossil fuels. In essence, the cores are time capsules that reach back thousands of years, to a time when there was less carbon dioxide in our skies. And the continent’s massive sea ice sheets may act as an early warning system for warming’s arrival: Some scientists say the recent collapse of several major sheets signals the beginning of a potentially dangerous warming period. Water locked in polar ice, for instance, could be released, helping raise sea levels and flood coastal cities.

Antarctica is also among the darkest places on earth, with its inky winters lasting nearly half the year, making it ideal for astronomers. They have built state-of-the-art telescopes that sweep the skies for celestial objects created at the birth of our universe. Antarctica’s location at the bottom of the globe also means it sits at a perfect place to study Earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields, making it a haven for astrophysicists. And in the future, the polar ice may help provide a kind of shield for a deep-buried instrument designed to spot neutrinos, mysterious high-energy particles produced by the exploding stars and other objects. Scientists want to bury the instrument, dubbed “Ice Cube,” so that the ice helps sift out unwanted atomic particles. The ice also holds amazing meteorites, including some that started life as rocks on the surface of Mars.

Marine biologists love Antarctica because its seas are filled with remarkable but poorly understood creatures, from fish and crustaceans that make their own anti-freeze to whales and seals that travel thousands of miles in search of food. And on land, researchers are amazed by the ability of some plants and animals to survive the harsh conditions. There is even a huge underground lake locked thousands of feet beneath the ice, called Lake Vostock, that scientists believe may hold specially adapted life forms found nowhere else on earth. They are trying to design a special probe that could drill and melt its way into the lake and collect water samples without contaminating it with bacteria or pollutants from the outside world.

Scientists also value Antarctica because it is a land without borders. Under an international treaty, Antarctica is open to all, and scientific findings are shared. Many projects are multinational, and a visit to any base is often an experience in multiculturalism, with scientists from around the world sharing common quarters.

Of course, getting there isn’t easy. While many of the bases are perched on the continent’s edge, and can be reached by icebreaking ships in the right season, others are inland, sometimes right at the South Pole itself. In places, travel can require special aircraft equipped with skis, helicopters, and rugged snow buggies that crawl across the ice on tank treads. While traffic may be sparse, the drivers still have to be careful, because you never know when a crevasse may appear before your vehicle and threaten to swallow it whole. And even minor breakdowns can be life-threatening if you aren’t prepared for the weather.

Still, most scientists relish the opportunity to work in Antarctica. A hardy few even stay throughout the winter, spending months in near-total darkness, cut off from supply flights. The scientific rewards, they say, are well worth the sacrifice.

Who can resist the magnetic allure of a baby? The presence of little ones of any species invariably generates instant attention and concern from onlookers. In fact, it seems that both humans and animals are hard-wired to find youngsters adorable. The practical and essential reasons why the very young have an ability to play on our heart strings are explored in Baby Tales.

Baby Tales demonstrates how young animals learn and develop, and examines the role of “cuteness” in helping to forge and solidify bonds between mother and offspring. Many newborns in the animal kingdom are entirely dependent upon their mothers — and sometimes their fathers, as well — for survival. And, especially in the wild, nurturing and protecting the young can require enormous effort, courage, and self-sacrifice. The cuteness of offspring creates a strong visual bond that helps evoke a caring response in parents, which must spend months, if not years, feeding, protecting, and teaching their young to survive on their own.

To order a copy of Baby Tales, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Baby Tales was originally posted March 2001.