Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
‘The conceit of the American suburb is that we’re all in a great park together.’
Front lawns are unnatural and generally serve little practical use, and yet they’re a staple of suburban culture, carefully manicured by their owners and so ubiquitous that they’re the largest irrigated crop in the United States. In this brief video, the US food and nature writer Michael Pollan ponders the ‘peculiar institution’ of the American lawn, taken for granted as natural by many Americans when, technically, it’s anything but.
Video by RadioWest
video
Bioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
video
History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
video
Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
video
Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
24 minutes
video
Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
video
Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes
video
Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes
video
Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes
video
War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes