Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Over the past several decades, scientists have began to better understand dying as a biological process – whether it happens over the course of weeks or appears to occur in an instant. In this short video, the UK filmmaker and presenter Max Tobin deploys a heavy dose of gallows humour to investigate a groundbreaking series of studies that may offer hints at what the stage between ‘clinical death’ (cessation of vital functions) and ‘brain death’ (cessation of brain activity) actually feels like. In particular, he looks at the biological and experiential similarities between ‘near-death experiences’ and taking the hallucinogenic drug DMT, in discussion with Chris Timmermann of the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London, who led the research.
Video by BBC Reel
Writer and Presenter: Max Tobin
video
Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
video
Wellbeing
Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later
20 minutes
video
Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
video
Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
video
War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
video
Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
video
Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes