文化・思想

Should 'bird brain' be a compliment? Here's how crows think fast

New research in the journal Science finds that crows turn visual information into decisions twice as fast as humans and primates. They also process information is quite similarly to humans.

NPR Science · EN

The latest in space science: We look back at the Big Bang

In this edition of Spacing Out, the team from Short Wave shares the latest developments in space science, including the theory on why the universe is made of matter

NPR Science · EN

Time expert Philippe Richard on why scientists are changing how we keep time

Scientists have voted to change how the world keeps time, but most people won't even notice. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Philippe Richard, director of Switzerland's Federal Institute of Metrology.

NPR Science · EN

How AI is transforming hurricane forecasts

Hurricane forecasters are increasingly using artificial intelligence to make predictions.

NPR Science · EN

When an invasive fish is also tasty, Maryland schoolkids can help 'eat the problem'

The Chesapeake Bay, home to blue crabs and striped bass, has a new apex predator: the blue catfish. It's invasive and voracious. It's also delicious, which officials hope might help save the bay.

NPR Science · EN

Even birds get jet lagged, study shows

A species of seabirds appears to become disoriented on flights back to its nest due to shifting time zones.

NPR Science · EN

This week in science: mysterious X-rays, movement and learning, and memory formation

Emily Kwong and Ari Daniel of NPR's Short Wave talk about mysterious X-ray objects, the link between movement and learning and how a small part of the brain triggers memory formation.

NPR Science · EN

Oyster stocks have plunged in the Chesapeake. This resident wants to bring them back

Oyster reefs once abounded in the Chesapeake, but overharvesting slashed their populations, leading to poorer water quality and less habitat for other species. Now, researchers and local residents are finding creative ways to bring their numbers back up.

NPR Science · EN

The secrets of Hohle Fels cave

Why aren’t we all Neanderthals? These ancient bird figurines suggest that art was essential to our evolutionary success - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

A vocabulary for the future: nature

For the philosopher Bruno Latour, seeing anything ‘natural’ as good and the ‘artificial’ as bad is perversely human-centric - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

When it started to burn

Horrific violence, enduring terror and ceaseless solidarity: four years of war through the eyes of Ukrainian civilians - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

Bhutan: the last place

What happened when people in Bhutan, the last country on Earth without television, were allowed to watch it in 1999? - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

Great art explained: Tamara in the green Bugatti

A very modern conception of womanhood: in the Jazz Age paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, women were bold, free and stylish - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

The Amarna letters

Petty disputes, pleas for help and requests for gold – explore letters sent to Egyptian pharaohs more than 3,000 years ago - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

Hills and mountains

A girl’s story of forced marriage reveals how the Soviet invasion of 1979 transformed life in Afghanistan - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

Jo Marchant: In search of now

What is ‘now’? Through physics via philosophy and psychology, discover the science and mystery of the present moment - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon

Aeon Video · EN

BBCSO/Stasevska review – Caroline Shaw’s cosmic visions meet Barber’s lyrical brilliance

Barbican, London The Golden Record and the vastness of space inspire a fascinating but underdeveloped new work, alongside a richly rewarding performance from Randall Goosby As it hurtles away from Earth – 16bn miles and counting – the Golden Record on board the Voyager spacecraft continues to fascinate us. Caroline Shaw ’s The Listeners – written for San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque in 2019 and here receiving its London premiere from the BBCSO as part of Shaw’s Barbican residency – features one of its tracks: spoken greetings in 55 languages. Heard via record player, these resonate through

Guardian Culture · EN

Steve Ellis, frontman of Everlasting Love hitmakers Love Affair, dies aged 76

Singer hit No 1 with pop-rock band in 1968 and scored three more Top 10 hits with them, before solo career featuring collaborations with Paul Weller Steve Ellis, the singer who found fame as the frontman of 60s pop-rockers Love Affair, has died aged 76. A message on social media announced that Ellis died “peacefully” on 30 October, after “complications from a chronic illness”. With his stirring, heartfelt croon, Ellis gave voice to one of the most enduring hits of the 1960s: Everlasting Love, which topped the UK chart in 1968. Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

‘Sad lost souls’: Taika Waititi lambasts critics after Klara and the Sun box-office disaster

The Jojo Rabbit director blamed the dismal numbers for his film of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel on ‘obsolete’ reviewers’ notices, adding that he works ‘for the people’ – whose Rotten Tomatoes ratings are much higher Taika Waititi has launched a furious broadside at “critics” following the disastrous commercial performance of Klara and the Sun, his new film adapted from a Kazuo Ishiguro novel. In a post on social media , Waititi wrote: “This Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus settled, and became critics.” Continue

Guardian Culture · EN

Crossings: Laura Pannack’s award-winning images of South African youth – in pictures

The British visual artist and photographer Laura Pannack has been named the winner of the inaugural Tom Stoddart award for excellence 2025. A collaboration between Gost Books and the Ian Parry photojournalism grant , the award supports photographers engaged in long-form documentary work. South Africa has one of the world’s highest levels of social inequality and a rapidly growing youth population; Pannack’s project Crossings looks at the journey to and from school and its physical and psychological challenges for young people Crossings by Laura Pannack is available now Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN

Beaches, Beatles and a broken marriage: how Wilhelmina Barns-Graham became a radical art icon

The artist who was inspired by Swiss glaciers, the Vietnam war and her own divorce was sidelined from St Ives’ art history – but finally has a major retrospective at Tate At the centre of Tate St Ives’ newly opened retrospective of the British modernist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, her monumental altar-piece Glacier (Blue Cave) pulls viewers into its frozen tendons of turquoise and white. Its mouth is agape and the blue slit of its eye casts downwards to the rest of its body. The glacier feels human: a vivisection of rock, ice and snow that brings to mind the fragmented facial features of Picasso’

Guardian Culture · EN

One in a Million review – deeply moving film about displacement, freedom and the upheaval of starting again

Following a Syrian mother and daughter over a decade, Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes capture a family transformed There’s a startling moment in this BBC refugee documentary when Syrian mother Nisreen – in the apparently miserable situation of hiking across the Balkans towards Germany, four kids in tow – suddenly explodes with joy. “This is the best holiday I’ve ever had! It’s an amazing adventure. Now I have the chance to walk in the rain – I love it!” Shunted off early into an arranged marriage, never having left Syria until forced out of Aleppo by the civil war, for Nisreen this running jump i

Guardian Culture · EN

Ashanti: ‘I’ve had a bodysuit snap off on stage. That was not my coolest moment’

Before her Australian tour, the Grammy-winner talks about her marriage to Nelly, fans rushing the stage and her secret skill Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Your debut album, Ashanti, turns 25 next year and you’re in the process of re-recording it. How do you feel about that album now? We are re-recording it so I will own my masters. Sonically, it will be a lot clearer. It was 25 years ago so it’ll sound a little more new, obviously, but with the same classic vibe. I’m very excited. What I’ve learned is that I’m just really grateful to have written records that stand the test of ti

Guardian Culture · EN

Tomb Raider’s creators on how the game changed their lives: ‘Skint staff were suddenly pulling up in sports cars’

‘Giving Lara Croft pistols meant we could show off her acrobatics. And when she goes to Peru, we threw in a T rex!’ I joined Core Design in the summer of 1994 and met Toby Gard, who showed me his concept sketches for Tomb Raider. He’d already come up with the title and drawn a mock-up box cover with a woman holding two pistols. Continue reading...

Guardian Culture · EN