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‘What they should have sent was poets…’
Launched in December 1968, Apollo 8 was the first manned flight to reach the Moon, orbit it and return to Earth. The primary goal of the mission was to prepare for an eventual lunar landing, however, the flight is now best remembered for the unparalleled glimpses of Earth it provided and, in particular, the iconic photograph taken from lunar orbit that became known as ‘Earthrise’. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, this documentary from the director Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee features interviews with the crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, who took the famed picture. While reflecting on the life-changing experience of being the first people to view Earth from outside its orbit in the ‘inky black void’ of space, they detail how the unplanned photograph became their mission’s most lasting legacy, and gave them a newfound appreciation of their home planet.
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Metaphysics
Bertrand Russell wanted to kill off causation. Can contemporary philosophy rescue it?
8 minutes
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Archaeology
From Roman pots to glass eyes, the shore of the river Thames teems with surprises
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History of science
Bat-people on the Moon – what a famed 1835 hoax reveals about misinformation today
8 minutes
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Biotechnology
What it’s like to wear a prosthetic that ‘feels’
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Family life
Fifty years ago, a train collided with Jack and Betty’s car. Here’s how they remember it
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Chemistry
A square inch in a Petri dish becomes a grand stage for chemical transformations
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Medicine
What is it like to be a paramedic, navigating human emergency?
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Art
At 95, an artist paints swiftly to capture the fugitive light
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Physics
The tangled tale of how physicists built a groundbreaking wormhole in a lab
17 minutes