Looking to make much better use of my time online, I stumbled on a YouTube series, , hosted by veteran science content creator Hank Green and writer Deboki Chakravarti. Life at the microscopic scale can be confusing and unfamiliar, but the pair create an accessible introduction to the tiny organisms around us. Try chaotic bacteria with wriggling, threadlike appendages as well as brain-eating amoebae, bristle worms and tardigrades (pictured above).
For fiction, I can’t praise the anime enough. Based on the eponymous manga by Naoki Urasawa (which reimagines the world and characters of Astro Boy), it follows robot detective Gesicht as he investigates a string of brutal murders.
Set in the aftermath of war, it is a meditation on the effects of conflict and hatred on the psyche, and explores how general artificial intelligence may inherit more from us than we intend it to.
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