A brief history of the foundation of life, distilled to its foundation.

BBC Knowledge Explainer DNA from Territory on Vimeo.

This short history of DNA from the BBC really knocks it out of the park, both artistically and scientifically.

Territory Studio was commissioned to create the video, part of a series of three-minute-ish explainer documentaries. Lead designer and animator Will Samuel explained the process behind it on Vimeo:


We needed to find a graphic style to communicate the beauty and intricacy of DNA. We wanted to create nostalgia; taking the audience back to the days of textbook diagrams and old science documentaries, such as Carl Sagan's COSMOS and IBM’s POWER OF TEN (1977). Using the double helix circular theme as a core design we focused on form, movement and colour to create a consistent flow to the animation, drawing on references from nature, illustrating how DNA is the core to everything around us.

Writer Andrew S. Walsh and molecular biologist Matthew Adams worked together to distill the history of DNA down to the basics, but the result isn't dumbed down. The video takes you from the just-the-facts chemistry on DNA to where research on it might go in the future.

9 Comments

Cool. I like how they mentioned that humans have been performing genetic engineering for thousands of years via selective breeding. That's a fact people sometimes ignore.

I suspect the junk is immunity being loaded into the DNA. Perhaps part of the virus DNA is loaded into the organisms DNA to produce practice cells for resistance. That long history of immunology is then loaded into the DNA in the oldest of plants and creatures. This would also explain, absent real exposures, why we get auto immune disease. Allot of conjecture on my part, but my gut says since we do this in vaccination our bodies probably do this with our DNA.

So god is racist as i understand... if he doesnt let monkeys into paradise cuz of the only 4% difference to humans...

One more proof that Heaven is pure human imagination outcome...

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"...DNA has revealed much of secrets and we still have much to learn...".

Nice video! Evolution is scientifically real. Humans breeding and manipulating DNA is from the farmer to the scientist real.

And the missing link of primate to man is real, with the Sumerian history pointing that humans were created from beings from above and followed by other religions supporting the same idea.

so chimps are the beings from above to bacteria?
cuz theres lots of missing links between those two too...

great, now i wanna see a chimp heaven...

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@vt007
If you're going to reflect ignorant tribe like behavior at least use the correct terms. "speciesist" is the word you are looking for.

Sigh... nonconstructive bias like yours is the reason so many people throughout the world still have preconceived notions about evolutionary theory and an unwillingness to accept it. Its a direct reason why science is still viewed with distrust in many cultures.

Also your idea seems to be that "heaven" and/or equivalents are solely found in monotheist cultures. To this I can only say please research the topic much more. The actual differences of philosophy's, religions and their histories are far fewer than you seem to grasp.

@Steveishness

i seem to know enough to not wanting "some being" watching over my shoulder. I take full responsibility in my actions.
As you can see the more developed country is, the more they understand, the more they can control the less they require a "divine" interventions (you wont dance to make it rain, though so...)
Religion was a great enzyme to organised information distribution in the past, now we have internet, so i do respect Religion for bringing us to where are we now, like i respect canibalisme and sacrifice rituals for population managment in ancient tribes, i just find it a little bit outdated...

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Religion is manmade. Oh, Devine things still can happen, too. And the recording of it by humans is an manmade event, stating the obvious.

Devine as in, somebody smarter than humans, providing extra guidance from above. I do not see that to be so impossible.

ALMA is searching a wide area of the cosmos in detail. Perhaps one day, we will find our Devine answers!

@AnyIcon
"Devine as in, somebody smarter than humans, providing extra guidance from above. I do not see that to be so impossible."

huh, me neither... i have to agree on the possibility that theres some infinite knowledge entity higher by hierarchy to us ^^ (which is much more probable than, white winged humanoids...)

like us who cant grasp the 4th dimention, its totally possible yeah... cant deny that ^^

ps: "Divine" like in not yet discovered/undertood phys/math action.(you know like kids and a magic card trick ^^ just so cute)

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