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In this brief yet expansive science lesson, the UK physicist and science educator Brian Cox explores how ‘each snowflake is a microcosm of the laws of physics’. Narrating over charming paper cut-out animation, Cox details a snowflake’s journey from its birth in the clouds to its final melting place, as well as how Johannes Kepler’s theory about their hexagonal shape would take some four centuries to be proved correct. Connecting the structure of these small ice crystals to that of spiral galaxies, this riveting dive into the natural laws that govern all things great and small will almost surely make you see the humble snowflake anew.
Video by The Royal Society
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
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Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
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Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
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Biology
‘Save the parasites’ may not be a popular rallying cry – but it could be a vital one
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Metaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
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Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes