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To understand how an animal sees the world, start with the shape of its pupils
If you’ve ever peered into the eyes of a cat or a goat, you’ll have noticed that pupils can come in quite a few shapes and sizes. And those are just two among a great many animals – including geckos, toads, stingrays and cuttlefish – that demonstrate the diversity of pupil shapes in nature. With stylish and clever animation, this video from TED-Ed takes a brief dive into animal vision, detailing the wide range of pupil types in the eyes of the animal kingdom, as well as the fascinating ways they can shape perception and indicate a creature’s place in their ecosystem.
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
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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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Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
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Engineering
From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
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Physics
Groundbreaking visualisations show how the world of the nucleus gives rise to our own
10 minutes