Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Neither plant nor animal, shapeshifting plasmodial slime mould was once considered a fungus, which it sometimes resembles. The mould crawls 1/25th of an inch per hour in search of life-sustaining nutrients and, despite lacking a brain, displays basic forms of computation and intelligence. This trailer for the feature-length documentary The Creeping Garden gives a brief glimpse into what has made plasmodial moulds such a point of fascination for scientists, mycologists and artists, including whether the moulds could hold clues to the origins of intelligent life.
Directors: Tim Grabham, Jasper Sharp
video
Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes
video
Archaeology
What’s an ancient Greek brick doing in a Sumerian city? An archeological investigation
16 minutes
video
Family life
The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them
21 minutes
video
Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes
video
History
From Afghanistan to Virginia – the Muslims who fought in the American Civil War
22 minutes
video
Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
video
Fairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes
video
Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes