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The two Chomskys

The US military’s greatest enemy worked in an institution saturated with military funding. How did it shape his thought?

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History of science

The rights of the dead

From the Irish Giant to the Ancient One, is it ever ethical for scientists and museums to study bodies without permission?

Anita Guerrini

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Religion

Hear from blasphemes, sceptics and free-thinkers in this ‘tour of medieval unbelief’

52 minutes

A man dressed in white robes with his face obscured is seen in a cave entrance carved from rock
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Comparative philosophy

Forging philosophy

A 17th-century classic of Ethiopian philosophy might be a fake. Does it matter, or is that just how philosophy works?

Jonathan Egid

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Ecology and environmental sciences

The ancient Hawaiian myth that sparked a modern ecological breakthrough

10 minutes

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Music

‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart

5 minutes

Three motorcyclists are riding on an empty road winding through English moorland beneath a blue sky
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Stories and literature

Citizens

Devon, 1970s: I’m a rector’s son, hanging out with Boz the biker. My life is about to open up – what does it promise for him?

Tim Pears

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Anthropology

A glimpse of the world’s heart

I wanted to visit Colombia’s sacred mountains. But there are some places we cannot go – and some things we cannot know

Nick Hunt

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Art

The irreverent duo who thumbed their noses at the Soviet Union and the US art world

11 minutes

The International Space Station is seen at an angle through a window against the darkness of space
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Space exploration

The skyhook solution

Space junk surrounds Earth, posing a dangerous threat. But there is a way to turn the debris into opportunity

Angelos Alfatzis

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Computing and artificial intelligence

A scientist’s poor eyesight helped fuel a revolution in computer ‘vision’

9 minutes

A close-up shot of one woman holding and comforting another grief-stricken woman
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Ageing and death

Witness the pain

When loved ones are traumatically lost, bereaved families become accidental activists by turning grief into grievance

Chris Bobel

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Thinkers and theories

Henri Bergson on why the existence of things precedes their possibility

3 minutes

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Race and ethnicity

Battling implicit bias

Training is a cheap solution to a hard problem. It is the systems that allow for biased behaviour that need to change

Jeffrey To

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Ethics

Ethics has no foundation

Ethical values can be both objective and knowable – torture really is wrong – yet not need any foundation outside themselves

Andrew Sepielli

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Ageing and death

Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end

4 minutes

A woman in a pink coat and carrying a pink umbrella walks past a protestor carrying a yellow placard appealing to people to use cash
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Economics

Going cashless

It’s not in the interests of the ordinary person but it’s not a conspiracy either. A cashless society is a system run amok

Brett Scott

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Future of technology

Is this the future of space travel? Take a luxury ‘cruise’ across the solar system

6 minutes

Two dark haired twin girls in tartan dresses look through an unglazed window frame
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Metaphysics

Both one and yet distinct

Being a twin (as our author knows) cracks open our ideas of the perfectly bounded self and might liberate us all

Helena de Bres

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Metaphysics

Why mathematical truths exist with or without minds to consider them

8 minutes

A crab is seen on a sandy beach. In the background and out of focus is a woman in a swimsuit
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Philosophy of mind

What is it like to be a crab?

Consciousness science should move past a focus on complex mammalian brains to study the behaviour of ‘simpler’ animals

Kristin Andrews

A yellow orchid flower in a vase is lit by sunlight from a side window in a living room. The background is out of focus
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Psychosis and psychedelics

In the 1960s, psychedelic research was driven underground. Now it’s re-emerging – with lessons for the study of psychosis

Phoebe Friesen

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Fairness and equality

A tragicomic account of how the Los Angeles Police Department blew up a city block

19 minutes

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Metaphysics

Purposeful universe

Neither atheism nor theism adequately explains reality. That is why we must consider the middle ground between the two

Philip Goff

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Stories and literature

A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life

6 minutes