Essay/Cultures & Languages Talking gibberish The study of languages has long been prone to nonsense. Why is linguistics such a magnet for dilettantes and crackpots? Gaston Dorren
Idea/History of Science Why religion is not going away and science will not destroy it Peter Harrison
Essay/Data & Information The bit bomb It took a polymath to pin down the true nature of ‘information’. His answer was both a revelation and a return Rob Goodman & Jimmy Soni
Essay/Physics Operation: neutrino How the neutrino went from ghost particle to vital physics tool – a tale of bombs, espionage and subtle flavours David Kaiser
Video/History of Science In 1938, a fish thought extinct for 65 million years resurfaced, nearly unchanged 7 minutes
Essay/Cultures & Languages Is linguistics a science? Much of linguistic theory is so abstract and dependent on theoretical apparatus that it might be impossible to explain Arika Okrent
Video/Physics If life feels out of balance, don’t worry – there’s always symmetry below the surface 4 minutes
Video/Gender & Sexuality Meet the lucky little organ that is uniquely dedicated to pleasure 3 minutes
Essay/Quantum Theory Quantum common sense Despite its confounding reputation, quantum mechanics both guides and helps explain human intuition Philip Ball
Essay/Epidemiology Who names diseases? Swine Flu, Naples Soldier, Ebola. Disease names express fear, create stigma and distract attention. Can they be improved? Laura Spinney
Video/Evolution Watch as the whale becomes itself: slowly, slowly, from land to sea, through deep time 10 minutes
Essay/History of Science The cosmology of Poe Drawing on intuition, Edgar Allan Poe offered some remarkably prescient ideas about the universe in his poem 'Eureka' Paul Halpern
Idea/Automation & Robotics Science has outgrown the human mind and its limited capacities Ahmed Alkhateeb
Video/Knowledge Models are always imperfect, and the ones we choose greatly shape our experience 3 minutes
Video/History of Technology Breakthroughs, quackery and strange beauty: the afterlife of outmoded medical devices 5 minutes
Essay/Physics Minding matter The closer you look, the more the materialist position in physics appears to rest on shaky metaphysical ground Adam Frank
Video/History of Science ‘I could not but wonder at it’: history’s first glimpses into the microbial world 7 minutes
Essay/Physics This granular life That the world is not solid but made up of tiny particles is a very ancient insight. Is it humanity’s greatest idea? Carlo Rovelli
Idea/History of Science The missing fossils matter as much as the ones we have found Adrian Currie & Derek Turner
Essay/Education Child’s play The authoritative statement of scientific method derives from a surprising place — early 20th-century child psychology Henry Cowles
Video/History of Science Energy is like children’s toys: often hiding out of sight, but never actually lost 3 minutes