Society
essay
Art
The art of rules
Conceptual art often confounds. The key is to understand the rules of the artwork and the aesthetic experiences they yield
Sherri Irvin
video
Information and communication
Mapping data visualisation’s meteoric rise from Victorian London to today
6 minutes
video
History of technology
Who owns history? How remarkable historical footage is hidden and monetised
18 minutes
video
History of technology
The long-awaited arrival of TV to Shetland sparks debate in this vintage clip
9 minutes
video
Global history
The famed medieval map that stretched beyond Earth to heaven, history and myth
5 minutes
essay
History of technology
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
video
History of science
Bat-people on the Moon – what a famed 1835 hoax reveals about misinformation today
8 minutes
video
The ancient world
What did the Rosetta Stone’s inscription actually communicate?
17 minutes
video
Art
The revolutionary artist who propelled the Black Panther movement with imagery
8 minutes
video
The ancient world
Why did the Romans create a massive, entirely impractical map of their empire?
7 minutes
video
Politics and government
Is mass media still ‘manufacturing consent’ in the internet age?
5 minutes
video
History of technology
Master cartography and mythical creatures – the world according to the Catalan Atlas
8 minutes
video
Mood and emotion
A century of letters captures the emotions of life in a new city, far from home
21 minutes
video
Technology and the self
Adaptive technologies have helped Stephen Hawking, and many more, find their voice
5 minutes
video
Information and communication
From mental image to sketch – how memories and emotions conjure up a face
23 minutes
video
Travel
A postcard from Mumbai, where there’s poetry in getting from A to B
5 minutes
video
History of technology
Reading the strings and knots that keep the secrets of the Inka Empire
9 minutes
video
History of technology
Behold as a mechanical foghorn in Shetland awakes from its year-long slumber
2 minutes
essay
Information and communication
Trolls be gone
Anonymous users generate most toxic abuse and conspiracy theories online. The right to be anonymous should be curtailed
Stephen Kinsella
video
Neurodiversity
Workplace diversity isn’t just about equality – it’s a competitive advantage
4 minutes
video
Information and communication
There are many ways to make a flat map of the world – each of them a unique distortion
10 minutes
video
Information and communication
The modern world is littered with statistical noise. Here’s how to find the signal
5 minutes
video
Work
Emergency first responders meet chaos with dissonant calm in this gripping short
9 minutes
essay
Social psychology
A good scrap
Disagreements can be unpleasant, even offensive, but they are vital to human reason. Without them we remain in the dark
Ian Leslie