Ultra-HD Videos Offer Fun, Quirky Take on Science

Contact: Sevda Eris, seris@kqed.org, 415.553.2835

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“This new YouTube series looks like it’s gonna be really cool!”
Joe Hanson, Its Okay to Be Smart

"Subscribe to (Deep Look) on YouTube so you don’t miss a single one!"
Joanne Manaster, Scientific American

“Video About Newt Sex Shows Just How Boring Human Sex Really Is…This video is part of KQED's awesome series Deep Look.” Annalee Newitz, Gizmodo

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“For its season finale, KQED's outstanding science series Deep Look caught up with scientists at UC Berkeley who are studying the flight dynamics of wild hummingbirds.” Robbie Gonzalez, io9

KQED’s new short science video series Deep Look is a hit with audiences and blogs. The series explores big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small and is shot in ultra-HD using macro cinema-tography, microscope video and animations to explore the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Deep Look is produced by KQED’s award winning science team and is presented in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios.

Deep Look is born out of curiosity,” says lead producer Josh Cassidy who is also an Emmy Award–winning cinematographer. “There are amazing things happening in a butterfly's wing, a slug's slimy skin or in a drop of ocean water. You just have to learn how to look for them.”

“The videos can show things at a scale impossible to the naked eye, which provides an entirely new perspective on the world,” says PBS Digital Studios Director of Programming Matt Vree. "That unique perspective is what made us want to collaborate with KQED on the series and what we think makes it so compelling."

Deep Look’s core production team also includes: writing and narration by award-winning KQED Science Radio Reporter Amy Standen, an original score by composer Seth Samuel, editing by Kia Simon and guidance from Series Producer Craig Rosa.

Deep Look’s most popular video — with over 500,000 YouTube views — is about hummingbird flight. The series has over 9,000 YouTube subscribers and is growing. The 12 videos in Deep Look’s premiere collection are:
•What Happens When You Put a Hummingbird in a Wind Tunnel? - Scientists at UC Berkeley used a high-speed camera to film hummingbirds' aerial acrobatics up to 1,000 frames per second. See how neither wind nor rain can stop these tiniest of birds from fueling up.
•Newt Sex: Buff Males! Writhing Females! Cannibalism! - The California newts’ mating ritual is a raucous affair that involves bulked-up males, writhing females and a little cannibalism.
•From Drifter to Dynamo: The Story of Plankton - Where wind and currents converge plankton become part of a grander story… an explosion of vitality that affects all life on Earth, including our own.
•Banana Slugs: Secret of the Slime - California’s banana slugs are coated with a liquid crystal ooze that solves many problems they face in the forest — and maybe some of our own.
•In the Race for Life, Which Human Embryos Make It? - Researchers are unlocking the mysteries of our embryonic clock and helping patients who are struggling to get pregnant.
•How Electric Light Changed the Night - Electric light has fundamentally altered our lives, our bodies and our sleep.
•The Fantastic Fur of Sea Otters - Unlike whales and other ocean mammals, sea otters have no blubber. Yet they're still able to keep warm in the frigid Pacific waters. The secret to their survival? A fur coat like no other.
•What Gives the Morpho Butterfly Its Magnificent Blue? - The wings of a Morpho butterfly are some of the most brilliant structures in nature, and yet they contain no blue pigment — they harness the physics of light at the nanoscale.
•The Hidden Perils of Permafrost - A warming climate threatens to bring dormant bacteria in Arctic permafrost back to life. What does that mean for the rest of us?
•What Gall! The Crazy Cribs of Parasitic Wasps - Plenty of animals build their homes in oak trees. But some very tricky wasps make the tree do all the work, making them build houses for their larvae that are weirder and more flamboyant than the next.
•The Amazing Life of Sand - From mountain boulders to the shells of tiny ocean creatures, follow the journey that sand takes through thousands of years across entire continents to wind up stuck between your toes.
•Pygmy Seahorses: Masters of Camouflage - Biologists at the California Academy of Sciences have successfully bred pygmy seahorses in captivity for the first time. Finally, they're able to study the seahorses' amazing act of camouflage up close.

KQED will roll out a second Deep Look collection of 20 more videos in June 2015.

Deep Look is part of the PBS Digital Studios Channel on YouTube, home to some of the top science programs on the Web. These programs include Idea Channel, It's Okay to Be Smart, Brain Craft, and Space Time, amongst others. In recognition of this robust science lineup, on April 7, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) nominated PBS Digital Studios for a 2015 Webby Award, under the category of best Science and Education network for Online Film and Video.

Support for Deep Look is provided by PBS Digital Studios with additional support from KQED Science funders HopeLab, The David B. Gold Foundation, S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation, The Vadasz Family Foundation, Smart Family Foundation and the members of KQED.

About PBS Digital Studios
PBS has long brought the public original, thought-provoking programming. PBS Digital Studios takes that same mission and applies it to the Internet age. Working with creators from across the web, its network of short-form video series showcases the best of the Internet while also celebrating the best parts of public television.

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About KQED
KQED, an NPR and PBS affiliate based in San Francisco, serves the people of Northern California and beyond with a public-supported alternative to commercial media. Home to the most listened-to public radio station in the nation, one of the highest-rated public television services and an award-winning education program, and as a leader and innovator in interactive media and technology, KQED takes people of all ages on journeys of exploration — exposing them to new people, places and ideas.

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KQED’s New YouTube Series Deep Look A Hit