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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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Gender
A catchy tune explains the world’s ‘isms’ – according to your mum doing the laundry
5 minutes
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Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
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Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
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Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
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History of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
29 minutes
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
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Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes