John Rubin Productions, Inc.

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John Rubin Productions, Inc.

John Rubin Productions, Inc. (JRP) is a Peabody and multiple Emmy award-winning documentary producti Based in Cambridge, MA, JRP was founded in October 2002.

JRP focuses on documentary production in science, natural history, and history. John Rubin's Emmy and Peabody Award-winning work with groups such as National Geographic and PBS have put JRP on the map as a significant player in the realm of non-fiction film.

08/21/2021

A new short talk by Nancy.

Nancy Kanwisher, PhD talks about her research on the fusiform face area (FFA) and how the science has progressed since her article was published in The Journ...

07/01/2021

Natalie's take on Joyce Poole's elephant "ethogram"--a compendium of elephant behavior enlivened with video and audio clips. Behaviors range from the bass notes of a call meaning "let's go" to females straddling a bush while making an expression linked to nursing (a workshop for future mothers?). I've had the pleasure of meeting Joyce on a number of occasions.

From tens of thousands of hours of observation, scientists have compiled a detailed library of African elephant behavior.

06/24/2021

Dated to 24,000 years ago and seemingly lifeless, rotifers dug up in Siberian permafrost have been revived. Famously hardy tardigrades can recover after 30 years of deep freeze, but 40,000-year-old roundworms in ice have sprung back. Mechanisms for long survival in extreme conditions are unknown.

The hardy animals were pulled from the permafrost in Siberia, giving scientists the opportunity to study how they survive extreme conditions.

06/17/2021

A fine portrait of the nonagenarian space physicist Margaret Kivelson. She designed the magnetometer on the Galileo mission to Jupiter. On a flyby of the moon Europa in January 2000, her instrument provided the first definitive evidence of a liquid-water ocean on another world. Kivelson is still going strong: she’s co-Investigator on the Europa Clipper mission to be launched next year.

For forty years, the physicist at U.C.L.A. has been uncovering the outer solar system’s secrets. Few scientists know more about the mysteries of Jupiter and its icy moons.

06/10/2021

Great reporting by John Oliver on the corrupt and deceptive world of “sponsored content” on local tv stations. As a bonus, it’s funny—stick to the end to see an entirely bogus medical product they concocted and paid to promote on a Utah station.

John Oliver explains why the integrity of local news is so important, how sponsored content could damage that integrity, and why the Venus Veil is so much mo...

05/20/2021

New CT scans of a fossil of a giant pterosaur reveal how the creatures handled huge torques on their long necks when carrying hefty prey. Doctoral student Cariad Williams discovered a novel helical system of bones connecting the neural tube with vertebrae. Her team's analysis shows that 50 struts nearly doubled the weight that the creature could carry in its mouth. I've been found of pterosaurs since my film for Nat Geo, "Sky Monsters."

These pterosaurs had wingspans as long as 33 feet, and scans of fossilized remains reveal a surprise in their anatomy.

05/06/2021

The hoopoe is a beguiling bird with a nose-catching behavior. After laying cerulean eggs, females paint them with a bacteria-packed vile-smelling secretion from the base of their tails. It's a living antibiotic paste that helps hatchling survival. Males are connoisseurs of the practice, bringing more food to mates with more thoroughly smeared (hence less colorful) eggs.

Female hoopoes will paint their eggs with a brownish goo, in a bid for greater male attention.

04/29/2021

I wasn't aware of this thrilling creation. The Nebra sky disk may be the oldest representation of the cosmos recovered by archaeologists. It was dug up in Germany in 1999, sold in the black market, then recovered in 2002. An acrimonious dispute rages about its age (3600 years old versus a thousand years younger).

The Nebra sky disk, which has been called the oldest known depiction of astronomical phenomena, is a “very emotional object.”

04/24/2021

Reports of the first highly effective malaria vaccine (>75%). The trial, of an Oxford vaccine, took place in Burkina Faso. This is a huge big deal, and I'm puzzled it wasn't frontpage news.

Vaccine developed by scientists at Jenner Institute, Oxford, shows up to 77% efficacy in trial over 12 months

04/23/2021

Hurricane Maria (2017) was rough on the rhesus monkeys of Cayo Santiago, just off Puerto Rico. Although few adults died, most of the island's vegetation was stripped away, increasing competition for shade and food. A new study led by Camille Testard (U PA), found that after the disaster, the monkeys pulled together, grooming more often and sitting closer together. I had the privilege of filming cognitive psychological experiments on monkeys on Cayo Santiago for my first Nat Geo film, Animal Minds.

Amid the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria, rhesus macaques sought support from each other to endure hard times.

04/16/2021

This highly worthwhile biography of Oliver Sacks is now streaming on PBS. The film is directed by Ric Burns. Tangled Bank Studios played an executive-producing and outreach role.

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life explores the life and work of the legendary neurologist and storyteller, as he shares intimate details of his battles with drug addiction, homophobia, and a medical establishment that accepted his work only decades after the fact.

04/08/2021

A thrilling image of a lionfish larva off Florida, one of a collection of exceptional "blackwater" photographs. Every image is worth viewing.

Divers practicing blackwater photography are helping marine scientists gain new insights into fish larvae.

Address

21 Flagg Street
Cambridge, MA
02138

Telephone

(617) 661-7669

Website

http://www.johnrubin.com/

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