Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
In this early stop-motion animation from 1909, the pioneering British naturalist and filmmaker F Percy Smith uses a mechanical model to illustrate how some spiders are able to fly by throwing a thread of silk to the wind. At the time, serious research on spiders was very limited – the arachnology field resembled something closer to a group of enthusiasts than a field of experts. Smith was among those enthusiasts, and was inspired to create this short film in part because he believed that demystifying the widely detested creatures would help to destigmatise them. While its arachnophobia-alleviating qualities are debatable, the charming and illuminating short stands as testament, more than a century later, to Smith’s avidity for the natural world.
Director: F Percy Smith
Website: British Film Institute
video
Evolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes
video
Physics
The rhythms of a star system inspire a pianist’s transfixing performance
5 minutes
video
Art
Watch as Japan’s surplus trees are transformed into forest-tinted crayons
4 minutes
video
Biology
A spectacular, close-up look at the starfish with a ‘hands-on’ approach to parenting
5 minutes
video
Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
video
Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
video
War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
video
Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes