Photo by Sriram Murali
Photo by Sriram Murali
Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The Anamalai Tiger Reserve in southern India is best known for its elephant and tiger populations. However, this video from the filmmaker, photographer and ‘dark sky advocate’ Sriram Murali focuses on the ‘tiny insect that steals the show’ in the reserve at night. There are some 2,000 species in the Lampyridae family of beetles – better known as ‘fireflies’ – and many of them use bioluminescence to communicate and find mates. However, only a few species synchronise their light signals, and rarely in such large congregations as Murali captures within the reserve, protected from human activity and artificial light. Set against a near-pitch black backdrop, the small blinking patterns on display combine to form a stunning glimpse into the phenomena of both bioluminescence and emergence.
Via Colossal
Director: Sriram Murali
video
Film and visual culture
‘Bags here are rarely innocent’ – how filmmakers work around censorship in Iran
8 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Closed captions suck. Here’s one artist’s inventive project to make them better
8 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice
5 minutes
video
Anthropology
Why are witchcraft accusations so common across human societies?
4 minutes
video
Wellbeing
Born in China, Zee seeks a gender-affirming life in the American Midwest
11 minutes
video
Chemistry
Why do the building blocks of life possess a mysterious symmetry?
12 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
A whale hunt is an act of prayer for an Inuit community north of the Arctic Circle
8 minutes
video
Cosmology
Tiny, entangled universes that form or fizzle out – a theory of the quantum multiverse
11 minutes
video
Astronomy
The history of astronomy is a history of conjuring intelligent life where it isn’t
34 minutes