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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
A footballer in the Manchester United red strip runs past cheering fans in the stadium
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essay

Sports and games

The moral risks of fandom

Players, coaches and team owners sometimes do terrible things. What, if anything, should their fans do about that?

Jake Wojtowicz & Alfred Archer

A man in tradional long shorts and striped shirt holds a huge heavy stone abvove his head as a crowd looks on
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Values and beliefs

How traditions progress

The colourful Swiss sport of stone putting illuminates Aristotle’s insights into the shortcomings of conservative thought

Daniel Kranzelbinder

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video

Sports and games

A unique project frames college football as an intricately choreographed mass ritual

7 minutes

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video

Making

From log to Go board – the world’s oldest game, made the old-fashioned way

20 minutes

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Sports and games

The brutality and beauty of the West African martial art of ‘dambe’

15 minutes

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Teaching an AI to beat video games still takes human imagination

5 minutes

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video

Sports and games

Bodies, bikes and groovy music propel this stylish classic film from 1965

17 minutes

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video

Personality

Why a journeyman boxer finds contentment in the art of losing

6 minutes

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Love and friendship

Skiing blind is a challenge – but it helps to have a loved one to guide you

20 minutes

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Consciousness and altered states

You need to make friends with pain to run through the Grand Canyon and back

5 minutes

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Animals and humans

Becoming a centaur

The horse is a prey animal, the human a predator. Our shared trust and athleticism is a neurobiological miracle

Janet Jones

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video

Sports and games

After a day’s toil in California’s fields, labourers let loose in street races

9 minutes

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video

Sports and games

You’ve likely never heard of the only woman drafted into the NBA – and that’s fine by her

22 minutes

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Complexity

All stars

Is a great team more than the sum of its players? Complexity science reveals the role of strategy, synergy, swarming and more

Jessica Flack & Cade Massey

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video

Consciousness and altered states

‘It makes sense of everything I am.’ The transcendence of the long-distance swimmer

12 minutes

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Sports and games

Love is a hold’em game

While some keep their cards close to their chest, others try raising the stakes. What can poker teach us about dating?

Suki Finn

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video

Biography and memoir

‘I feel the weight of everyone’: Keeth Smart foiled death to make it to the Olympics

19 minutes

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Film and visual culture

Behold the invisible swoosh and swirl of athletic movement in digital art

2 minutes

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video

Nature and landscape

Experience the thrills – and major chills – of scaling a frozen waterfall

16 minutes

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Sports and games

Invisible tattoos

Many athletes are propelled by childhood trauma to succeed, but it’s a toxic myth that healing the wounds blunts the edge

William D Parham

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video

Sports and games

Grab bags, café raids and booze – how Tour de France cyclists refuelled in the 1960s

3 minutes

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Cognition and intelligence

Concentrate!

The challenge of chess – learning how to hold complexity in mind and still make good decisions – is also the challenge of life

Jonathan Rowson

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video

Sports and games

Watch Charles and Ray Eames put their 1969 spin on one of the world’s oldest toys

8 minutes

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video

Sports and games

Human capital: art, exercise and industry in the streets of Beijing

16 minutes