DVD BBC Life On Earth Disc 1: The Infinite Variety (1979)

BBC Life On Earth Disc 1: The Infinite Variety (1979)

David Attenborough travels back through time to find the earliest evidence of life on this planet and traces its development in the oceans of the world into a myriad of simple forms and ultimately the great reefs of coral. They were the first signs to be visible from space indicating that life had started on Planet Earth.

Peter's DVD rating: 4.0 stars

A young David Attenborough summarizes fellow Englishman Charles Darwin's revolutionary ideas to explain the diversity of life on earth by natural selection: evolution. Some of the material is a little dated. For example, he says that birds "have been here much longer" than mammals, and calls Green Algae "plants". Most biologists today recognize that birds evolved later than mammals, and put Green Algae in the Protista kingdom, if not in a kingdom of their own. Also the DNA replication animation does not show Okazaki fragments. A visual highlight of this episode is the eerie interference light formed from the beating cilia of Comb Jellies. I believe this series of DVDs is available only in Region 2 PAL format; I bought my copy in London, at Harrod's.

05:10	Galapagos: Flightless Cormorant	05:35	Marine Iguana	06:25	Galapagos Tortoise
13:20	Grand Canyon: Fossil lizard tracks	15:00	Fossil worm trails	18:30	Lake Superior: Fossil algae filaments in churt
22:40	Life begins: DNA	26:00	Yellowstone: Cyanobacteria release Oxygen and excrete lime, forming stromatolites (Shark Bay, Australia:)	29:30	Protists: Euglena ?
32:40	Conjugating Paramecium ?	33:00	Sexual reproduction: Eggs and Sperm	34:30	Ciliates
35:40	Volvox	36:10	Sponges	38:35	Comb Jelly
40:30	Jellyfish medusa	41:30	Jellyfish polyp budding off a medusa	44:45	Jellyfish fossil in sandstone (Flinders Ranges, Australia)
46:15	Portuguese Man-of-War	48:45	Sea Pen	49:15	Dead Man's Fingers : a soft coral
50:00	Green Algae in corals.

05:10 Flightless Cormorant	05:35 Marine Iguana	06:25 Galapagos Tortoise
13:20 Fossil lizard tracks	15:00 Fossil worm trails	18:30 Fossil algae filaments
22:40 DNA	26:00 Cyanobacteria release Oxygen	26:00 stromatolites
29:30 Euglena ?	32:40 Paramecium ?	33:00 Eggs and Sperm
34:30 Ciliates	35:40 Volvox	36:10 Sponges
38:35 Comb Jelly	40:30 Jellyfish medusa	41:30 Jellyfish polyp
44:45 Jellyfish fossil	46:15 Portuguese Man-of-War	48:45 Sea Pen
49:15 Dead Man's Fingers	50:00 Green Algae


Index	Jan 19, 2006	Peter Chen