Image of a digitally rendered icy Earth-like planet in space with shadowed left side and visible landmasses.

The snowball effect

Our planet was once a harsh, alien, icy world. Yet this deep freeze may have shaped you, me and all life on Earth

essayEarth science and climate

The snowball effect

Graham Shields

Popular this month

essayNeuroscience

Can you rewire your brain?

The metaphor of rewiring offers an ideal of engineered precision. But the brain is more like a forest than a circuit board

Peter Lukacs

Photo of a truck on a narrow bridge with people balancing and pushing it under a clear sky.

essayHuman evolution

How selfish are we?

An age-old debate about human nature is being energised with new findings on the tightrope of cooperation and competition

Jonathan R Goodman

Two boys in colourful clothes standing beside a large painting of an elderly woman in a gold frame.

essayEconomics

Is inherited wealth bad?

Despite associations with the idle rich, the fact that inheritances are rising is a sign of a healthy, growing economy

Daniel Waldenström

Photo of two silhouettes walking by fountains with bokeh effect in the foreground, Arc de Triomphe in the background.

essayComputing and artificial intelligence

Computers can’t surprise

As AI’s endless clichés continue to encroach on human art, the true uniqueness of our creativity is becoming ever clearer

Richard Beard

Black and white photo of a street scene with a heated discussion involving a traffic officer and men near cars.

essayPolitical philosophy

Guarding the guardians

Good institutions are social technologies that scale trust from personal relations to entire nations. How do they work?

Julien Lie-Panis

Photo of a child in a colourful winter jacket and knitted hat, in a snowy forest, with a thoughtful expression.

videoNature and landscape

A father and son’s search for the line where the snow starts

12 minutes

Two figures in flowing robes standing amidst partially submerged bodies in a dark, eerie landscape.

essayStories and literature

Subverting hell

In their visions of the underworld Dante and Milton were truly subversive, incorporating predecessors into their own repudiation

Charlie Ericson

Hands intricately painting a small figurine’s hair black with a fine brush, the figure wears a blue outfit.

videoLove and friendship

An action-figure maker’s outsized tribute to his late brother

15 minutes

Felt art of a man in a red turban with sheep on a hillside under a stylised sun.

videoAnimals and humans

A musical ode to Indian wool and life on the Deccan Plateau

8 minutes

Painting of a vibrant futuristic city with lush greenery, people and colourful signs, featuring advanced architecture and technology.

essayArchitecture

Compost modernity!

The vision of solarpunk: joining nature with technology in vibrantly inclusive ways to create a world that truly blooms

Yogi Hale Hendlin

Illustration of a clock pierced by an arrow in a space with small pink spheres on a purple background.

videoPhysics

Time is real – if you view it through the lens of heat

6 minutes

Video of orcas swimming underwater displaying distinctive black-and-white patterns in a serene blue ocean environment.

essayBiology

Orcas and ourselves

Sea pandas or sadistic killers? These enigmatic creatures invite contradictory labels that say far more about us than them

Jason Colby

essayHuman evolution

How selfish are we?

An age-old debate about human nature is being energised with new findings on the tightrope of cooperation and competition

Jonathan R Goodman

Rock painting of animals in red pigment on a rough stone surface, depicting various quadrupeds across the rocky wall.

videoArchaeology

What the ‘Louvre of the desert’ reveals about the human story

15 minutes

A person in a garden facing a traditional Japanese building with a curved roof across a pond, surrounded by trees and bushes.

essayComparative philosophy

Between being and emptiness

In Japanese philosophy, unlike the atomised Western self, we are ‘ningen’ (人間), each enmeshed with other humans and nature

Takeshi Morisato

Photo of a woman juggling three white balls against a clear blue sky, wearing a white ruffled blouse and floral apron.

videoKnowledge

True mastery demands going beyond the rules to learn for yourself

15 minutes

essayNeuroscience

Can you rewire your brain?

The metaphor of rewiring offers an ideal of engineered precision. But the brain is more like a forest than a circuit board

Peter Lukacs

Illustration of a person standing with arms outstretched on a car roof filled with cheering people, trees in the background.

videoLife stages

Youthful joy and civil unrest collide in this epic road trip tale

11 minutes

Two children on a bike passing a group of people standing outside a large metal gate with buildings in the background.

essayWork

Victims and villains

In Southeast Asia’s scam compounds, workers are being enslaved but the boundary between victim and perpetrator is blurred

Ivan Franceschini & Ling Li

Illustration of a person framing their face with their fingers wearing an orange shirt against a grey background.

videoConsciousness and altered states

The elaborate places one’s mind wanders in solitary confinement

15 minutes

essayEconomics

Is inherited wealth bad?

Despite associations with the idle rich, the fact that inheritances are rising is a sign of a healthy, growing economy

Daniel Waldenström

Photo of abstract light trails in yellow and white on a dark background, creating a swirling, dynamic pattern.

videoPhysics

Our Universe has light not by chance but by necessity

59 minutes

Engraving showing a view of the Portuguese town of Cacheo with a fort, trees and sailing ships on a river.

essayGlobal history

A lesson in coexistence

The 17th-century town Cacheu was a hub of West African and European cultures, languages and beliefs (and run by women)

Toby Green

A person riding a motorcycle on a vertical wall in a wooden cylinder arena with spectators above, indoors.

videoSubcultures

The Indian daredevils who feel at home in the Well of Death

6 minutes

A baseball with red stitching on a black background partially lit from the top left corner.

essayPhysics

Playing in flatland

Physicists believe a third class of particles – anyons – could exist, but only in 2D. What kind of existence is that?

Elay Shech

essayComputing and artificial intelligence

Computers can’t surprise

As AI’s endless clichés continue to encroach on human art, the true uniqueness of our creativity is becoming ever clearer

Richard Beard

Aerial photo of an industrial conveyor unloading material into a turquoise water body, surrounded by carved sand dunes.

videoProgress and modernity

From Michigan to Singapore, a meditation on dreams built on sand

17 minutes

Three people draped in German flags standing in a town square during a gathering, with a rainbow in the cloudy sky.

essayAnthropology

Dreams of the far Right

Young Europeans join far-Right movements less out of grievance than out of a profound yearning to believe and belong

Agnieszka Pasieka