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Violent plasma explosions from the Sun’s surface – known as coronal mass ejections – reverberate to the farthest reaches of our solar system. However, due to the Earth’s protective magnetosphere, most people don’t take note of these events unless a particularly powerful solar flare disrupts radio signals or produces colourful aurorae near the poles. Created as part of an art installation, this inventive, visceral short uses data collected from the University of Alberta’s CARISMA radio array to sonically and visually interpret a geomagnetic storm high in Earth’s atmosphere. Manifesting the data as a dynamic sculpture, the digital rendering captures the volatility of these usually unseen and unheard phenomena, hinting at their potentially destructive powers.
Directors: Ruth Jarman, Joe Gerhardt
Website: Semiconductor Films
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
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Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
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Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
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Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
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War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes