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With some 7 million dried plant specimens, the herbarium at Kew Gardens in London is one of the largest collections of its kind in the world. Building on the Linnaean system, through Darwin to DNA, scientists there have traced the relationship between plant life-forms and the timeline of their development over the ages – from algae to mosses to flowers. While the plant family tree is thought to be 95 per cent complete, this short documentary reveals that continuing to study plants gives us an important framework for asking questions about how our ecosystems actually work.
Video by Lonelyleap
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Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
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Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
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Evolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes
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Physics
The rhythms of a star system inspire a pianist’s transfixing performance
5 minutes
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Art
Watch as Japan’s surplus trees are transformed into forest-tinted crayons
4 minutes
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Biology
A spectacular, close-up look at the starfish with a ‘hands-on’ approach to parenting
5 minutes
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Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
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Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
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Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes