Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Redwoods typically provoke wonder at the macro scale. They are, after all, the largest and tallest trees in the world. But in this visualisation from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, viewers are invited on a remarkable tour through several levels of organisation in a redwood tree leaf, from scales measured in centimetres down to nanometres. Starting at the stomata, where carbon dioxide enters the plant, before finally landing at the thylakoid membrane, where light-based photosynthetic reactions occur, the animation reveals just some of the extraordinarily complex systems underpinning what we might easily overlook as a mere leaf. For more details and data, watch the annotated version of the video here.
Video by California Academy of Sciences
video
Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
video
Biology
‘Save the parasites’ may not be a popular rallying cry – but it could be a vital one
11 minutes
video
Metaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
55 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
8 minutes
video
Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes
video
Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes
video
Engineering
From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation
24 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes