Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Albert Einstein’s introduction of special relativity at the dawn of the 20th century left physicists with any number of peculiar new puzzles to work through. One of the most famous is the thought experiment that came to be known as the ‘twin paradox’, which considers how twins would age in relation to one another if one were to journey light years into space and back while the other remained on Earth. Using the twin paradox as a launch pad, this animation from TED-Ed takes viewers on a journey into the knotty world of time dilation. In particular, the short details why it would be a mistake to view the spaceship and Earth as two equally stationary objects, which would have caused each twin to have, paradoxically, aged faster from the perspective of the other once they were reunited.
video
Physics
Groundbreaking visualisations show how the world of the nucleus gives rise to our own
10 minutes
video
Earth science and climate
There’s a ‘climate bomb’ ticking beneath the Arctic ice. How can we prepare?
8 minutes
video
Physics
To change the way you see the Moon, view it from the Sun’s perspective
5 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
GPS tracking reveals stunning insights into the patterns of migratory birds
6 minutes
video
Space exploration
The rarely told story of the fruit flies, primates and canines that preceded us in space
12 minutes
video
Neuroscience
This intricate map of a fruit fly brain could signal a revolution in neuroscience
2 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?
12 minutes
video
Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
video
Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes