Jewel of the Earth
This episode of the PBS series Nova begins with a forty-million-year-old bee, beautifully preserved in a pool of golden resin. Flash forward to 2006, when a young boy named David Attenborough was given the amber stone in which the dead bee lived. According to the La Jolla library’s description, “Jewel of the Earth explores the remarkable time capsule of ancient life preserved in this — and countless other — samples of fossilized tree resin, or amber.” Attenborough doubles as the show’s host, who “examines the many subtle secrets that scientists have teased out of insects trapped in amber.” A discussion follows the screening of each entry in this series of documentary films, held on the last Saturday of the month in the library’s Community Room.