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It’s common lore that chameleons change their colours to blend in with their environment and elude predators, but in reality, chameleons’ baseline earth-tones provide camouflage, while their more brilliant colours communicate their physiological state and intentions to other chameleons. These colour shifts result not from pigments as previously thought, but from changes in microscopic salt crystals in the chameleons’ skin. At the University of California, Berkeley, researchers are attempting to harness chameleon skins’ powers to create new synthetic materials.
Producer: Jason Jaacks
Website: Deep Look
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Fairness and equality
How the first woman of colour to be elected to the US Congress remade education
21 minutes
video
History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
19 minutes
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Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
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Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
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Astronomy
From zero to 5,000 – music and visuals express 30 years of exoplanet discoveries
1 minute
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Economics
We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like?
30 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
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Art
‘Long Live Degenerate Art’ – how a Surrealist group in Cairo defied repression in 1938
4 minutes