Science
video
Biology
The key to geckos’ unrivalled climbing skills isn’t sticky feet. It’s subatomic
4 minutes
essay
Earth science and climate
Deep warming
Even if we ‘solve’ global warming, we face an older, slower problem. Waste heat could radically alter Earth’s future
Mark Buchanan
video
Technology and the self
Greetings from Green Bank – the small town where modern technology is banned
10 minutes
essay
History of technology
Ingenious librarians
A group of 1970s campus librarians foresaw our world of distributed knowledge and research, and designed search tools for it
Monica Westin
video
Human evolution
Far from frivolous, cuteness is a powerful – and still mysterious – force of nature
6 minutes
essay
Physics
Time is an object
Not a backdrop, an illusion or an emergent phenomenon, time has a physical size that can be measured in laboratories
Sara Walker & Lee Cronin
video
Space exploration
In the search for life, might alien ocean worlds be a better bet than Earth-like planets?
5 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes
video
Biology
A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues
2 minutes
essay
Illness and disease
The war on cancer
Is it time to abandon the century-old idea that cancer is best met with a ‘fight’ from patients and their doctors alike?
Elaine Schattner
video
Architecture
Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
8 minutes
essay
Quantum theory
All is One
The ancient philosophy of monism and the physics of quantum entanglement agree: all that exists is one unified whole
Heinrich Päs
video
Philosophy of mind
We may never settle the ‘free will’ debate, but tapping into it is still worthwhile
32 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
In an ancient English rainforest, John creates charcoal and cultivates growth
12 minutes
video
Information and communication
Mapping data visualisation’s meteoric rise from Victorian London to today
6 minutes
essay
Biology
Octopus time
We humans are forward-facing, gravity-bound plodders. Can the liquid motion of the octopus radicalise our ideas about time?
David Borkenhagen
essay
Beauty and aesthetics
Patterns of the lifeworld
Machine learning theory is shedding new light on how to think about the mysterious and ineffable nature of art
Peli Grietzer
essay
Consciousness and altered states
Animal, vegetable, mineral
Cruel and unscientific, the ‘vegetative state’ diagnosis stems from a hierarchical and bigoted view of all living things
Ben Platts-Mills
video
Space exploration
What are you really seeing when you see magnificent images of space?
5 minutes
essay
History of science
Machina mundi
How medieval thinkers foreshadowed modern physics in investigating the character of machines, devices and forces
Henrik Lagerlund & Sylvain Roudaut
essay
Human evolution
How like the kiwi we are
To understand helpless human babies, our big brains and oddly involved dads, look to the evolution of birds not mammals
Antone Martinho-Truswell
essay
Anthropology
Memories within myth
The stories of oral societies, passed from generation to generation, are more than they seem. They are scientific records
Patrick Nunn
essay
History of ideas
Aristotle on making babies
He was the first great observer of nature. But his theory of human reproduction was deeply sexist – and enduring
Emily Thomas
video
History of science
How an ancient polymath first calculated Earth’s size, as told by Carl Sagan
7 minutes