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In 1981, the US Department of Energy and the civil engineering company Bechtel Corp assembled a task force to help tackle the problem of how to warn future humans to stay away from radioactive nuclear waste sites thousands of years into the future. Perhaps the strangest solution came from the French author Françoise Bastide and the Italian semiologist Paolo Fabbri, who proposed genetically engineering cats to change colour in response to radiation, and creating a mythology of danger around those cats. An exploration of unusually creative problem-solving, the French director Benjamin Huguet’s film probes how the once-obscure, decades-old ‘ray-cat solution’ has recently found new life.
Director: Benjamin Huguet
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War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes
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Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
31 minutes
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Earth science and climate
There’s a ‘climate bomb’ ticking beneath the Arctic ice. How can we prepare?
8 minutes
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Political philosophy
The radical activist couple who fought for social change in the courtroom
21 minutes
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Human rights and justice
When a burial for slave trade victims is unearthed, a small island faces a reckoning
29 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
GPS tracking reveals stunning insights into the patterns of migratory birds
6 minutes
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Human rights and justice
Can providing humanitarian aid be illegal? A troubling case from the US-Mexico border
17 minutes
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Space exploration
The rarely told story of the fruit flies, primates and canines that preceded us in space
12 minutes
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Film and visual culture
A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life
4 minutes