Award Winners

The long-running Deep Look series, created by KQED San Francisco and distributed by PBS Digital Studios, takes viewers into the world of the very small, where organisms like honeypot ants, acorn barnacles and giant water bugs thrive and reproduce. The filmmakers explore unusual creatures doing unusual things at the edge of the visible world, like the honeypot ants who turn their biggest sisters into engorged jugs of nectar to help feed the ant colony. Or the male water bugs whose fatherhood chores include carrying fertilized eggs on their backs, bringing them to the water’s surface regularly…

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s engaging segment told how Mas Subramanian and his team at Oregon State University discovered a new shade of blue. Director Jes Burns, with editor Dan Evans and videographers Brandon Swanson and Stephani Gordon, recounted the history of YInMn Blue’s discovery and development. The new color was first created when a graduate student on Subramanian’s team heated manganese oxide for an unrelated experiment. The surprising result was a vibrant new shade of blue that is extremely stable and uniquely suited for commercial use. “I was blown away by the new blue,” said…

As part of a new series by Vox.com for Netflix, Joss Fong and her colleagues explored not only the science but also the ethical implications of the much-discussed CRISPR technique for snipping and editing DNA. Scientists have focused on the potential the tool has for helping to treat or cure human disease. But it also could be used to do germline editing involving sperm, eggs or embryos, allowing changes that would be passed on to future generations. Such changes could ultimately affect human evolution. There also is an important debate on whether DNA editing will go beyond medical therapy to…