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Since the 1970s, the number of rice varieties in India has plummeted from roughly 100,000 to 7,000. The massive drop is largely due to the rise of high-yield crops born from the Green Revolution, which helped relieve a strained food supply. However, the extinct rice varieties don’t just signify a loss of heritage and cultural identity in Indian villages – each lost variety is a small defeat in the battle to preserve biodiversity and genetic variation. The ecologist Dr Debal Deb has a creative solution to his country’s vanishing rice problem: a massive seed bank that houses and preserves rare indigenous rice before it disappears.
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Physics
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface
4 minutes
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Mathematics
How a verbal paradox shattered the notion of total certainty in mathematics
5 minutes
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Values and beliefs
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years
9 minutes
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War and peace
Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him
12 minutes
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Metaphysics
To see the Universe more clearly, think in terms of processes, not objects
6 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
How machine learning can help historians decode ancient inscriptions
7 minutes
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Animals and humans
What the ancient city of Kars looks like from the perspective of its stray dogs
9 minutes
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Family life
A son of China’s former one-child policy remembers the sibling he never had
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Making
Ceramic designs spin to life in a tactile meditation on the art of pottery
9 minutes