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A close up picture of hands playing a silver brass flute with a shallow depth of field such that the foreground fingers and keys are more in focus
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To the tune of dystonia

One day, my hand stopped speaking to my brain. As a doctor and flute player, I had to understand this strange affliction

An older man stands proudly in front of his house near Leipzig, east Germany after reunification in 1990. A German flag hangs from a ground floor window.
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Economic history

Deservingness

In post-communist eastern and central Europe, history is intensely personal and economics is saturated with moral feeling

Till Hilmar

EXCLUSIVE
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Nature and landscape

Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece

6 minutes

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Nations and empires

Dream of the Russian tropics

Imperial Russia had little access to the bountiful tropics that other empires enjoyed. So it created its own in the Caucasus

Oleksandr Polianichev

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Design and fashion

The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays

14 minutes

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Physics

A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet

9 minutes

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Stories and literature

Vergil’s secret message

Long derided as mere coincidences, acrostics in ancient poetry are finally being taken seriously – with astonishing results

Julia Hejduk

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Architecture

Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China

16 minutes

Rubens painting Venus and Cupid reimagined with Venus on the left gazing in a mirror at her mastectomized breast. A cherub like Cupid to the right holds the mirror
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Illness and disease

More than pink

The culture around breast cancer is full of positivity and femininity. But it comes at the expense of the marginalised

Philippa Hetherington

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Spirituality

Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan

6 minutes

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Work

Freedom at work

There is always a demand for more jobs. But what makes a job good? For that, Immanuel Kant has an answer

Tyler Re

Two Asian film actors are fighting kung-fu style on the beach dressed in 1970s style casual clothes
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Film and visual culture

Fighting kung fu

From chopsocky films to disco earworms, Asian caricatures have proliferated since the 1970s. Can Hollywood kick the habit?

Stephanie Wong

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Thinkers and theories

Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged

14 minutes

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Philosophy of language

Quantum poetics

How Borges and Heisenberg converged on the notion that language both enables and interferes with our grasp of reality

William Egginton

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Animals and humans

An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’

5 minutes

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Human rights and justice

Beyond obscenity

A century after the trial against ‘Ulysses’, we must revisit the civil liberties arguments of its defender, Morris Ernst

Brett Gary

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Mathematics

How a curious question about colouring maps changed mathematics forever

9 minutes

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Archaeology

The secret life of Druids

The Greeks and Romans portrayed these elusive priests as bogeymen who bathed in their victims’ blood. Who were they really?

Miranda Aldhouse-Green

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Meaning and the good life

The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor

16 minutes

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Quantum theory

We are not empty

The concept of the atomic void is one of the most repeated mistakes in popular science. Molecules are packed with stuff

Mario Barbatti

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Cities

The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith

18 minutes

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Thinkers and theories

Why seek self-realisation?

In the face of climate crisis it might seem myopic but philosophers from Spinoza to Næss argue it is the only way forward

Helen De Cruz

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Art

Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form

14 minutes

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Film and visual culture

Exposed

Slum photography was at the heart of progressive campaigns against urban poverty. And it was a weapon against poor people

Sadie Levy Gale

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Mood and emotion

When grief doesn’t end

Suffering the sudden death of a loved person leaves some survivors stuck in grief. Can they win their lives back – and how?

Martin W Angler

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