Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
It’s common lore that chameleons change their colours to blend in with their environment and elude predators, but in reality, chameleons’ baseline earth-tones provide camouflage, while their more brilliant colours communicate their physiological state and intentions to other chameleons. These colour shifts result not from pigments as previously thought, but from changes in microscopic salt crystals in the chameleons’ skin. At the University of California, Berkeley, researchers are attempting to harness chameleon skins’ powers to create new synthetic materials.
Producer: Jason Jaacks
Website: Deep Look
video
Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 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
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
video
Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
video
Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
14 minutes
video
Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
video
Fairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
10 minutes