essay
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Psychodynamic nonsense
After decades of practising psychotherapy, I believe it has little foundation in science and often causes harm
Niklas Serning
video
Home
How an artist transformed a dilapidated hunting lodge into a house made of dreams
8 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
So many unmarried men
For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that its greatest practitioners were bachelors
Ellie Robson
essay
Public health
A very American fear
Moral panics about erotica have coursed through the country’s history. Why do so many Americans think of porn as harm?
Rebecca L Davis
essay
Deep time
The bookends of time
Nothing lasts forever: not humanity, not Earth, not the Universe. But finitude confers an indelible meaning to our lives
Thomas Moynihan
video
Sports and games
Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play
5 minutes
essay
Mathematics
Beyond causality
In order to bridge the yawning gulf between the humanities and the sciences we must turn to an unexpected field: mathematics
Gordon Gillespie
video
Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
video
Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes
essay
Space exploration
How the Moon became a place
For most of history, the Moon was regarded as a mysterious and powerful object. Then scientists made it into a destination
Danny Robb
video
Fairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
So many unmarried men
For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that its greatest practitioners were bachelors
Ellie Robson
video
Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
essay
Poverty and development
Poverty is not permanent
By understanding the pernicious myths surrounding poverty, we can make progress towards a lofty goal: dignity for all
Anirudh Krishna & Dirk Philipsen
video
Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
essay
Public health
A very American fear
Moral panics about erotica have coursed through the country’s history. Why do so many Americans think of porn as harm?
Rebecca L Davis
video
Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
essay
History of science
The birth of naturalism
The modern era is often seen as the triumph of science over supernaturalism. But what really happened is far more interesting
Peter Harrison
video
Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
essay
Nations and empires
Passion and Palestine
More than any other conflict, Israel/Palestine has provoked extraordinarily fervent emotion throughout the world. Why?
Derek Jonathan Penslar
essay
Public health
Hearts and brains
Humans always end up with clogged arteries, right? That’s not what the lives of the Tsimane in the Amazon basin tell us
Ben Daitz
video
Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
The listening gift
It is the dark matter of conversation, the white space around a poem. For Rilke, listening is receiving the divine
Faith Lawrence
video
Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes
essay
Biology
In praise of subspecies
To lump or to split? Deciding whether an animal is a species or subspecies profoundly influences our conservation priorities
Richard Smyth
video
Information and communication
‘Astonished and somewhat terrified’ – Victorians’ reactions to the phonograph
36 minutes
essay
Politics and government
The end of neoliberalism?
The case of Mexico shows that, despite a proliferating discourse that it is over, neoliberalism is as relentless as ever
Inés Escobar González
essay
Chemistry
Chemical laws
Often dismissed as the poor cousin of the sciences, chemistry has revealed natural laws that illuminate our Universe
Vanessa A Seifert