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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science

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A man in yellow shorts floating on his back in a swimming pool, with dark lane markings and reflections in the water.

essay

History of science

Forwards, not back

Medicine aims to return bodies to the state they were in before illness. But there’s a better way of thinking about health

Kate MacCord & Jane Maienschein

A DNA double helix with overlapping images: lined pages, the printed pages of an old book, and a painted portrait of a woman that is the Mona Lisa, all on a black background.

video

Computing and artificial intelligence

The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?

12 minutes

Vintage advertising poster for ‘Cocaine Toothache Drops’ featuring two children playing happily, building a house from sticks, in front of a house with a wooden fence.

essay

Subcultures

An undulating thrill

Once lauded as a wonder of the age, cocaine soon became the object of profound anxieties. What happened?

Douglas Small

Close-up photo of butterfly wing scales in shades of orange, pink, white and black arranged in a mosaic-like pattern.

video

Biology

Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings

3 minutes

Black and white photo of a vintage race car numbered 6 speeding past blurred spectators emphasising motion and early motor racing.

essay

History of science

Clock time contra lived time

Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein fundamentally disagreed about the nature of time and how it can be measured. Who was right?

Evan Thompson

A digital painting of abstract shapes and lines featuring colourful spheres with light trails against a wavy background.

essay

Physics

Chasing ghost particles

Without the neutrino, the Universe might be an empty void. But this inscrutable particle isn’t giving up its secrets easily

Corey S Powell

A man and a woman smiling with their hands on the shoulders of a Neanderthal figure with long hair and a beard but in modern clothes.

video

Genetics

Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals

22 minutes

A kingfisher underwater catching a fish amid rising bubbles.

essay

Complexity

Problem-solving matter

Life is starting to look a lot less like an outcome of chemistry and physics, and more like a computational process

David C Krakauer & Chris Kempes

Fresco fragment with geometric borders framing curved shapes representing waves crashing upon the shore, partially damaged.

essay

Nature and landscape

Laughing shores

Sailors, exiles, merchants and philosophers: how the ancient Greeks played with language to express a seaborne imagination

Giordano Lipari

Illustration of a dodo bird with grey feathers, brown beak, and stubby wings, standing on a grassy, sandy ground.

video

Evolution

How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution

60 minutes

Black and white photo of four people in sunglasses standing on a terrace overlooking the sea with a hilly coastline in the background.

essay

Metaphysics

Desperate remedies

In order to make headway on knotty metaphysical problems, philosophers should look to the methods used by scientists

Nina Emery

A silhouetted figure walking with a dog through a dimly lit tunnel, contrasting with bright concrete walls in the foreground.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Targeted

For those who hear voices, the ‘broken brain’ explanation is harmful. Psychiatry must embrace new meaning-making frameworks

Justin Garson

Silhouette of a person walking through a spray of water at sunset with cars and buildings in the background.

essay

Neuroscience

The melting brain

It’s not just the planet and not just our health – the impact of a warming climate extends deep into our cortical fissures

Clayton Page Aldern

A man playing a piano in a dark room with animated planets and stars floating around him, illuminated by soft light.

video

Physics

The rhythms of a star system inspire a pianist’s transfixing performance

5 minutes

Close-up of a person’s hand using a smartphone in a dimly lit room with blurred lights in the background. The phone screen shows the text ‘How can I help you today?’ and a text input field.

essay

Computing and artificial intelligence

Mere imitation

Generative AI has lately set off public euphoria: the machines have learned to think! But just how intelligent is AI?

Deepak P

Five differently coloured triangular wax crayon bars standing upright on a white surface.

video

Art

Watch as Japan’s surplus trees are transformed into forest-tinted crayons

4 minutes

Person in a wheelchair with a laptop, wearing a monitoring cap, and a doctor in a lab coat standing nearby in a clinical setting.

essay

Illness and disease

Empowering patient research

For far too long, medicine has ignored the valuable insights that patients have into their own diseases. It is time to listen

Charlotte Blease & Joanne Hunt

Silhouette of baobab trees against a vibrant orange sunset with the sun peeking through the branches of the largest tree.

essay

Biology

Seeing plants anew

The stunningly complex behaviour of plants has led to a new way of thinking about our world: plant philosophy

Stella Sandford

Close-up of a hand gracefully resting on a naked woman’s torso, soft lighting accentuating the skin’s smooth texture against a dark background.

essay

Sex and sexuality

Sexual sensation

What makes touch on some parts of the body erotic but not others? Cutting-edge biologists are arriving at new answers

David J Linden

Close-up of a white sea star larvae against a black background.

video

Biology

A spectacular, close-up look at the starfish with a ‘hands-on’ approach to parenting

5 minutes

Newborn baby being held by a person wearing blue gloves, with another masked individual looking at the baby in a medical setting.

essay

Human reproduction

Baby talk

When babies are born, they cry in the accent of their mother tongue: how does language begin in the womb?

Darshana Narayanan

A person with a prosthetic leg stands in a room filled with plastic-wrapped prosthetics and limbs, showcasing orthopaedic supplies.

video

Technology and the self

A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg

11 minutes

Black and white snowy mountain scene with vehicles, overlaid by a large smear of vivid blue paint in the upper right area.

video

Knowledge

An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place

4 minutes

Two beetles with translucent wings flying against a pink background.

video

Biology

Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short

9 minutes