Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Albert Einstein’s introduction of special relativity at the dawn of the 20th century left physicists with any number of peculiar new puzzles to work through. One of the most famous is the thought experiment that came to be known as the ‘twin paradox’, which considers how twins would age in relation to one another if one were to journey light years into space and back while the other remained on Earth. Using the twin paradox as a launch pad, this animation from TED-Ed takes viewers on a journey into the knotty world of time dilation. In particular, the short details why it would be a mistake to view the spaceship and Earth as two equally stationary objects, which would have caused each twin to have, paradoxically, aged faster from the perspective of the other once they were reunited.
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?
12 minutes
video
Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
video
Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
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