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Although they may look computer-generated, the micro-images created by Maria Ferreira at the Rhode Island School of Design, examine a very real world ordinarily imperceptible to the human eye. In her short video Lattice, Ferreira uses a polarising filter under an inverted microscope to transform growing crystalline masses into otherworldly prismatic landscapes, revealing the striking beauty and complex geometry of crystal formation.
Director: Maria Constanza Ferreira
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
8 minutes
video
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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Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 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
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Engineering
From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation
23 minutes
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Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes