Society

We’ve always been distracted

Worried that technology is ‘breaking your brain’? Fears about attention spans and focus are as old as writing itself

Joe Stadolnik

From Roman pots to glass eyes, the shore of the river Thames teems with surprises

8 minutes

Care from afar

For over a century telemedicine has promised healthcare for all. But will it ever replace seeing a human being in person?

Jeremy A Greene

Why did the Romans create a massive, entirely impractical map of their empire?

7 minutes

A peace activist’s harrowing account of nuclear war is a visceral case for disarmament

26 minutes

Dancing with water

As storms, droughts and floods become more intense, what can the world learn from Japan’s profoundly wet history?

Giulio Boccaletti

Master cartography and mythical creatures – the world according to the Catalan Atlas

8 minutes

Ceramic designs spin to life in a tactile meditation on the art of pottery

9 minutes

A rare glimpse inside a samurai sword workshop, where ritual meets mastery

24 minutes

Contaminated kinship

If your hometown were beset with toxic dust, like Australia’s Broken Hill, would you feel any less connected to it?

Lilian Pearce

Unravelling the surprisingly epic story of the world’s oldest pair of trousers

45 minutes

Reading the strings and knots that keep the secrets of the Inka Empire

9 minutes

Behold as a mechanical foghorn in Shetland awakes from its year-long slumber

2 minutes

Trolls be gone

Anonymous users generate most toxic abuse and conspiracy theories online. The right to be anonymous should be curtailed

Stephen Kinsella

A Viking axe struck a Newfoundland tree in the year 1021. Here’s how scientists proved it

7 minutes

Remarkable historical footage is locked behind paywalls. It’s time to set it free

4 minutes

Pixel: a biography

An exact mathematical concept, pixels are the elementary particles of pictures, based on a subtle unpacking of infinity

Alvy Ray Smith