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‘Where meat was once bound to the moral act of killing, it is now bound only to the market.’
While meat has played a vital part in the development of the human brain, according to the US author Harold McGee, our dependence on it could also be our undoing. The rise of meat production and consumption is proving environmentally disastrous, contributing heavily to water shortages, pollution and global warming. Knotty Objects: Steak is a brief plunge into the moral complexities of eating meat in the 21st century and some creative solutions that could help us overcome our inborn desire to eat animals.
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Meaning and the good life
Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave’s letter on the threat of computed creativity
5 minutes
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Human rights and justice
‘I know that change is possible’ – a Deaf prison chaplain’s gospel of hope
18 minutes
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Physics
Find the building blocks of nature within a single, humble snowflake
4 minutes
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Technology and the self
An artist swaps her head with everyday objects in a musing on consumerism
4 minutes
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Art
The overlooked polymath whose theatrical oeuvre made all of Rome a stage
30 minutes
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Physics
Why the golden age of total solar eclipses is already behind us
5 minutes
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Film and visual culture
An augmented-reality filter reveals the hidden movements all around us
7 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
The grit of cacti and the drumbeat of time shape a sculptor’s life philosophy
11 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Messages born of melody – hear the whistled language of the Hmong people
18 minutes