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Barnacle geese nest on cliffs to keep their eggs safe from predators. But just days after the chicks hatch, they face a brutal introduction to the outside world. To find food and join their parents, the goslings must plummet hundreds of feet from their nests. Unable to fly, many die in the process. More remarkably, though, as this excerpt from the BBC’s ‘Life Story’ series shows, many also manage to make it through this brutal survival strategy.
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
8 minutes
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Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
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Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes
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Fairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
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Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
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Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
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Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes