video
Sports and games
Young Palestinians find fleeting moments of freedom at a West Bank skate park
13 minutes
essay
History of science
The light beyond sight
Only a tiny sliver of the Universe’s light can be seen by human eyes. But today we’re catching glimpses of the invisible
Corey S Powell
video
History of science
Meet the Quaker pacifist who shattered British science’s highest glass ceilings
14 minutes
essay
Human rights and justice
Levelling the world
Gerrard Winstanley led a small band of radicals whose vision of justice encompassed the globe and continues to inspire
Rowan Wilson
essay
Human evolution
The other Homo sapiens
We are just one branch of a diverse human family tree. Aside from Neanderthals, who were they – and why did we replace them?
Nick Longrich
video
Illness and disease
Humanity eradicated smallpox 45 years ago. It’s a story worth remembering
25 minutes
essay
Art
Out of the fog
It’s a ‘failed painting’ that obscures the profound power of German Romanticism. Why do we love the ‘Wanderer’ so much?
Gianluca Didino
video
Nature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes
essay
Ethics
Moral refuge
You can believe in border control yet protect those fleeing to safety. So what is our ethical obligation to refugees?
Bradley Hillier-Smith
essay
Cities
Cars beneath the ground
The explosion of automobiles shaped cities and lives. But an enduring problem remains: where to put them when they’re parked
Alfie Robinson
video
Social psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes
video
Gender
A catchy tune explains the world’s ‘isms’ – according to your mum doing the laundry
5 minutes
essay
Religion
Demonology
By turns benign and malign, powerful and vulnerable, earthbound and aerial, daimons across the world resemble one another
David Gordon White
video
Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
essay
Demography and migration
The vanishing of youth
The precipitous decline of birthrates throughout the world poses a serious threat to humanity. What is to be done?
Victor Kumar
video
Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
essay
Global history
Vikings on the Silk Roads
The Norse ravaged much of Europe for centuries. They were also cosmopolitan explorers who followed trade winds into the Far East
Neil Price
essay
Information and communication
Methodical banality
Like today’s large language models, 16th-century humanists had techniques to automate writing – to the detriment of novelty
Hannah Katznelson
video
Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
essay
Human rights and justice
Struggling to wake
After a murderous kidnapping in Nigeria, I launched a campaign to put a stop to the abductions. Why did no one listen?
Ayisha Osori
video
Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
essay
Philosophy of science
More-than-human science
When AI takes over the practice of science we will likely find the results strange and incomprehensible. Should we worry?
Brandon Boesch
essay
Thinkers and theories
The truth about love
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates shared a theory of love from the teachings of a ‘non-Athenian woman’. Who was she really?
Armand D’Angour