video
Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
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
video
Evolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes
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
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
video
Biology
A spectacular, close-up look at the starfish with a ‘hands-on’ approach to parenting
5 minutes
video
Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
essay
Genetics
We are not machines
Welcome to the new post-genomic biology: a transformative era in need of fresh metaphors to understand how life works
Philip Ball
video
Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
video
Engineering
For one of nature’s great builders, finding a mate means weaving the perfect nest
4 minutes
essay
Philosophy of mind
Do plants have minds?
In the 1840s, the iconoclastic scientist Gustav Fechner made an inspired case for taking seriously the interior lives of plants
Rachael Petersen
video
Biology
How the world’s richest reds are derived from an innocuous Mexican insect
5 minutes
essay
Biology
Building embryos
For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway
John Wallingford
video
Chemistry
Why do the building blocks of life possess a mysterious symmetry?
12 minutes
essay
Biology
The cell is not a factory
Scientific narratives project social hierarchies onto nature. That’s why we need better metaphors to describe cellular life
Charudatta Navare
essay
Animals and humans
Ant geopolitics
Over the past four centuries quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own
John Whitfield
essay
Genetics
Artists of our own lives
The genome is the starting point for a performance we enact over a lifetime, not a blueprint we’ve got to follow
Richard O Prum
video
Ageing and death
Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end
4 minutes
video
Biology
Explore a bioluminescent world of cellular life via cutting-edge microscopy
27 minutes
video
Biology
In 1886, a US agency set out to record new fruit varieties. The results are wondrous
5 minutes
video
Biology
To understand how an animal sees the world, start with the shape of its pupils
5 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Scientists brought a wild horse back from extinction. But is it truly the same animal?
5 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
The grassroots project that’s restoring an endangered Hawaiian ecosystem
22 minutes
video
Biology
The key to geckos’ unrivalled climbing skills isn’t sticky feet. It’s subatomic
4 minutes