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Since it first began orbiting Mars in 2006, the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), a powerful camera attached to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has captured some 50,000 images of the planet. Its photographs have given scientists unprecedented access to Mars’s canyons, craters, mountains and sand dunes – the most detailed looks at the topography of another planet to date. In making A Fictive Flight Above Real Mars, the Finnish filmmaker Jan Fröjdman transformed stereoscopic anaglyphs taken by HiRISE into coloured, seemingly three-dimensional moving images, giving viewers something resembling the experience of a leisurely flight above our neighbouring planet. While often breathtaking, the video depicts unmistakably desolate, barren landscapes, hostile to human life, and still very far from a place to call home.
Director: Jan Fröjdman
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History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
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Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
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Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
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Fairness and equality
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Food and drink
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Anthropology
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30 minutes
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Biology
‘Save the parasites’ may not be a popular rallying cry – but it could be a vital one
11 minutes