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Endemic to the rainforests of New Guinea, flame bowerbirds possess one of Earth’s most distinctive courtship rituals. In this excerpt from the BBC’s ‘Life Story’ series, a brilliantly coloured male bowerbird builds, dilates his pupils, wheezes, dances like a matador and head-butts, all in the service of securing a mate.
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Fairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
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Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
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Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
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Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes
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Information and communication
‘Astonished and somewhat terrified’ – Victorians’ reactions to the phonograph
36 minutes
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Engineering
From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation
23 minutes
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Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes