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Science

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

To understand how an animal sees the world, start with the shape of its pupils

5 minutes

EXCLUSIVE
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The environment

Tree-sit with activists as they fight industrial logging from 100 feet above the ground

25 minutes

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Animals and humans

Scientists brought a wild horse back from extinction. But is it truly the same animal?

5 minutes

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Ecology and environmental sciences

The grassroots project that’s restoring an endangered Hawaiian ecosystem

22 minutes

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Thinkers and theories

Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?

13 minutes

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Architecture

Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world

8 minutes

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Ecology and environmental sciences

In an ancient English rainforest, John creates charcoal and cultivates growth

12 minutes

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Environmental history

Disturbance

How atomic doomsday experiments, fuelled by Cold War fears, shaped then shook ecologists’ faith in self-healing nature

Laura J Martin

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Biology

The idea that life on Earth originated elsewhere is not as far out as it seems

6 minutes

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Biology

Flicker through the eclectic beauty and biological diversity of 2,400 leaves

3 minutes

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Nature and landscape

Home and the birdsong

In the dark, sylvan villages of medieval England, people named places after the birds that filled the night with music

Michael J Warren

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Knowledge

Yes, the Inuit have dozens of words for snow – but what does each one mean exactly?

6 minutes

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Oceans and water

Tomorrow’s corals

A warming planet and acid oceans will radically transform marine ecosystems. How will our beloved reefs survive?

Klaus M Stiefel & James D Reimer

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Deep time

Mutual entrapment

As Neolithic people transformed prehistoric forests, they stumbled into an ecological trap. Domestication goes both ways

Mette Løvschal

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future

7 minutes

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus

4 minutes

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Anthropology

Keeping our options open

Frantic human activity has reduced both cultural and biological diversity. Now we must protect the dwindling alternatives

Thomas Hylland Eriksen

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The environment

Photographs of rainforests dissolving in acid strike a beautiful note of warning

10 minutes

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Experience the dazzling displays that fireflies create when humans are far away

5 minutes

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Ecology and environmental sciences

To renew Yosemite, California should embrace a once-outlawed Indigenous practice

6 minutes

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Biology

In the jungle of Suriname, Maria Sibylla Merian discovered insect metamorphosis

4 minutes

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Earth science and climate

The Antarctic paradox

The most protected place on Earth has become one of the most threatened – and threatening. Can its problems be solved?

Alejandra Mancilla & Peder Roberts

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Earth science and climate

A new Earth rises

How did the planet replace the nation-state to become the prime political object of the 21st century?

Erik Isberg

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Pyrocene Park

Fire is a planetary feature, not a biotic bug. What can we learn from Yosemite’s experiment to restore natural fire?

Stephen J Pyne