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The view from Mars

4 minutes

Out of mind

14 minutes

The Mozart effect

5 minutes

Thai country living

15 minutes

It’s rocket science

5 minutes

How scientists at the ALMA telescope in Chile decode the secrets of the cosmos

Chile’s Atacama Desert, home of the massive ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) telescope, is the place on Earth most like Mars. Made up of 66 massive antennae atop a high plateau in the Atacama, ALMA ranks alongside the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France as one of humanity’s most massive, international scientific collaborations. The sophisticated telescope system uses radio frequencies to detect millimetre wavelengths instead of relying on visible light, looking back through billions of light years to uncover the make-up of massive dust clouds and galaxies. In time, scientists believe the project will revolutionise our understanding of the origins of our own solar system, stars, and galaxy.

Director: Jonathan de Villiers

Website: NOWNESS

What it’s like to have aphantasia, the inability to visualise images in the mind’s eye

After his mother’s death, Alex Wheeler felt guilty about how quickly he was able to move on from the initial shock, especially when compared with his siblings. His perspective on his emotions would come into clearer view when, by chance, he learned of a newly coined neurological phenomenon known as aphantasia, in which individuals are unable to generate images in their mind’s eye. In the short documentary Out of Mind, Wheeler retells his story and connects with the UK neurologist Adam Zeman, whose pioneering research on aphantasia gave it a name and brought it into public view, and the UK artist Amy Right, who also has aphantasia. Through Wheeler’s story, the UK filmmaker Simon Mulvaney explores the fascinating connections between images and emotions at the brain level.

Director: Simon Mulvaney

Producer: Anna O’Donohue

No, Mozart isn’t a brain hack for babies – here’s how music really affects intelligence

In 1991, a small study conducted at the University of California, Irvine found that young adults received a modest brain boost from listening to Mozart before performing small mental tasks. From this, an exaggerated mythology surrounding what became known as ‘the Mozart effect’ emerged, linking exposure to classical music with heightened intelligence – especially in babies. In this animation, the UK broadcaster and psychologist Claudia Hammond dissects how a mania for this Mozart effect took hold, and what the research on music and intelligence actually says. In doing so, the short video also provides a telling look at how academic studies are often distorted and overstated in the media and in the public imagination.

Video by BBC Reel

The rhythms of rural Thailand, where both food and music are sourced from the ground

Thai Country Living is a film with a title that doesn’t leave you wondering. This charming short documentary by the UK filmmakers Ben and Dan Tubby (also known as the Tubby Brothers) takes viewers on a brief journey to the Isaan region, in Thailand’s northeast. The host for the trip, Suman Tapkham, provides the home cooking, with ingredients fresh from his small farm; the music comes via a bamboo instrument known as a khaen, which Tapkham crafts by hand; and the warm conversation is largely made of reflections on his life spent in the country, and his worries that the unique culture there might soon be lost. Through their portrait, the Tubby Brothers capture a slice of Thailand far from the bustle of Bangkok most commonly associated with the country, and, for many viewers, a more than welcome portion of armchair travel.

Directors: Ben Tubby, Dan Tubby

Producer: Somboon Vichaisre

Website: Tubby Brother Films

How sky-high dreams launched one man’s audacious life in homemade rocketry

As the first civilian to successfully launch an amateur rocket into space in 2004, and a holder of a great many rocketry-related world records since the 1960s, Ky Michaelson has truly earned his self-anointed title as ‘The Rocketman’. Following a decorated career as a Hollywood stunt performer and coordinator, Michaelson, now aged 82, is retired from show business and spends most of his time building rockets in his garage. And his audacious spirit hasn’t mellowed with age. These days, he has his sights set on launching the first homemade manned rocket into space. This upbeat documentary portrait by the US-based director Rachel Knoll explores Michaelson’s unconventional path as a high-school dropout turned rocket engineer who wouldn’t let dyslexia stop him from aiming for the sky.

Director: Rachel Knoll

Producer: John Pesavent

How scientists at the ALMA telescope in Chile decode the secrets of the cosmos

Chile’s Atacama Desert, home of the massive ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) telescope, is the place on Earth most like Mars. Made up of 66 massive antennae atop a high plateau in the Atacama, ALMA ranks alongside the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France as one of humanity’s most massive, international scientific collaborations. The sophisticated telescope system uses radio frequencies to detect millimetre wavelengths instead of relying on visible light, looking back through billions of light years to uncover the make-up of massive dust clouds and galaxies. In time, scientists believe the project will revolutionise our understanding of the origins of our own solar system, stars, and galaxy.

Director: Jonathan de Villiers

Website: NOWNESS

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Artists impression of ʻOumuamua courtesy M Kornmesser/ESO

Essay/
Astronomy
Contact

An alien-made artefact or just interstellar debris? What ʻOumuamua says about how science works when data is scarce

Matthew Bothwell

Dani people preparing for a pig feast. Baliem Valley, West Papua, Indonesia, 1996. Photo by Susan Meiselas/Magnum

Essay/
Anthropology
How equality slipped away

For 97 per cent of human history, all people had about the same power and access to goods. How did inequality ratchet up?

Kim Sterelny