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‘Even if you’re a tough person you can’t avoid becoming a child again…’
In this video composed of time-lapse imagery recorded from the International Space Station, four veteran astronauts – Helen Sharman, Michael Barratt, Jean-François Clervoy and Daniel Tani – describe the singular, life-changing experience of looking down at Earth. In providing context for these images of our planet (the station orbits Earth every 92 minutes, for instance) and trying to find words for the profound sense of wonder that has come to be known as ‘the overview effect’, the astronauts strive valiantly to share their rarified perspective, giving us just a glimmer of an experience that many people think is just around the corner for a much greater number of us.
Producer and Editor: Ed Prosser
Website: The Royal Institution
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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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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
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
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Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes