Why Pale Blue Dot generates feelings of cosmic insignificance | Aeon Essays
When we see the Earth as ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ what do...
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality | Aeon Videos
In the aftermath of a head injury, Nick’s mind is split between his old self and...
When AIs do science, it will be strange and incomprehensible | Aeon Essays
When AI takes over the practice of science we will likely find the results strange and...
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned | Aeon Videos
‘Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring?’ George Orwell’s postwar ode to the toad...
Meet the woman who initiated Socrates in the philosophy of love | Aeon Essays
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates shared a theory of love from the teachings of a ‘non-Athenian woman’....
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way | Aeon Videos
Watch as two craftspeople use 19th-century methods and tools to turn a tree on Norway’s coast...
How the last letters of the condemned can teach us how to live | Aeon Essays
Condemned to death by firing squad, French resistance fighters put pen to paper. Their dying words...
Why we’re searching for alien tech in the solar system | Aeon Essays
When we look for extraterrestrials, we often peer into the depths of space. But alien life...
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough | Aeon Videos
Meet Sammy Squitten, the baby squirrel suckled by a cat and raised by a human, in...
To survive the Chaoscene, we will need resilient communities | Aeon Essays
The climate crisis is here. In order to thrive in these dangerous and precarious times, we...
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away | Aeon Videos
‘Artificial scientists’ can use machine-learning algorithms to design experiments that are beyond the intuition of humans...
A resurrected defence of beanbag genetics | Aeon Essays
Today a bitter dispute about the nature of biology is underway. A simple bag of beans...
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches | Aeon Videos
Sometimes wicked but always powerful. Why did witches transform from figures of fear to figures of...
How Vietnam earned its world-renowned anticolonial standing | Aeon Essays
Vietnam’s potent and storied anticolonialism is founded upon a unique sense of national shame - by...
The ‘great land reshuffle’ that’s transforming property rights | Aeon Essays
A ‘great reshuffle’ of the land is underway. It will force us to reconsider traditional ideas...
Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later | Aeon Videos
Thirty years after the Rwandan genocide, a therapist helps young adults born from rape navigate stigma...
How classical Indian philosophy helps us understand the self | Aeon Essays
Ideas from classical Indian philosophy help illuminate the enigmas of selfhood, consciousness and the nature of...
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth | Aeon Videos
A haunting elegy to the boreal forests of Finland hand-scratched onto 16mm film with fleeting glimpses...
A psychologist and biologist debate the significance of testosterone | Aeon Essays
In probing whether there are basic sex differences in humans, a psychologist and a biologist agree...
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times | Aeon Videos
What is the highest goal our lives can achieve? Paul Tillich and Mark Van Doren’s insights...
What it takes to be a glyph-breaker deciphering ancient languages | Aeon Essays
The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever...
Acting is an ancient tool of connection we can all play with | Aeon Essays
Acting is an ancient and intrinsically human way to establish vibrant connections with one another. And...
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes | Aeon Videos
With electron microscopes that magnify butterfly wings 50,000 times their original size, a hidden ‘topography’ emerges...
China, the World Bank, and the truth about global poverty | Aeon Essays
The World Bank’s poverty line is inaccurate and out of date – an error that obscures...
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines | Aeon Videos
Vova and Roma, two Ukrainian boys, spend their summer in the ever-present shadow of war in...
The missing women of autism are differently different | Aeon Essays
Long believed to be particularly associated with males, new research is revolutionising our understanding of autism...
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker | Aeon Videos
Inspired by Japanese master artists, a woodcut printmaker is constantly reimagining the landscapes of his California...
Why the hunt for reality is an impossible burden for physics | Aeon Essays
Physicists today need to jettison the all-too-attractive myth that they are uncovering the hidden reality of...
How evolution favoured costly and frivolous animal play | Aeon Essays
Here’s a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal...
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone | Aeon Videos
A playful collage of audio interviews captures candid and revealing reflections on love, sex and marriage...
How did Kerala go from poor to prosperous among India’s states? | Aeon Essays
Fifty years ago it was one of India’s poorest states, now it is now one of...
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive? | Aeon Videos
In the remote Himalayas, ice stupas are an elegant yet desperate response to climate change, and...
Sex, life and Oscar Wilde: ‘rarely pure and never simple’ | Aeon Essays
Oscar Wilde is an icon of gay liberation from secrecy. But his life and his sexuality...
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later | Aeon Videos
‘If I’m gonna to be this person, I gotta live by morals and standards’: how one...
Causal understanding is not a point of view, it’s a point of do | Aeon Essays
Humans have a superpower that makes us uniquely capable of controlling the world: our ability to...
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966 | Aeon Videos
Join a ‘computer dating’ meetup in 1966 in this short video to see what has –...
Would you eat a cockroach? What if it was sterilised? Why not? | Aeon Essays
The future of food is nutritious and sustainable – if we can overcome our instinctual revulsion...
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory | Aeon Videos
‘My dad will be gone by the time I reach him’ – a filmmaker captures the...
Why physics today stands on the wings of angels and demons | Aeon Essays
When medieval scholars sought to understand the nature of angels, they unwittingly laid the foundations of...
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way | Aeon Videos
How three communities on North America’s west coast find meaning by interacting with the flight paths...
Can the unregulated extract kratom help fight the opioid crisis? | Aeon Essays
Millions are turning to an unregulated herbal extract to curb their opioid addiction. But do the...
When psychical research and analytic philosophy shared Cambridge | Aeon Essays
Cambridge, home of analytic philosophy, was also a hotbed of psychical research. How did this spooky...
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling | Aeon Videos
Two Indian storytellers give intersecting and conflicting accounts of the same Hindu myth in this dazzling...
How it became wrong for nations to conquer others | Aeon Essays
It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries...
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy | Aeon Videos
A glimpse at the lives of preteen influencers Peyton and Lyla in rural Alabama as they...
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa | Aeon Videos
In the mountains of South Africa, the dispossessed locals bear the burden of the green economy...
Why zero could unlock how the brain perceives absence | Aeon Essays
It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the...
Why reading Martha C Nussbaum’s philosophy is pure pleasure | Aeon Essays
Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy is dynamic and challenging, but also elegant and lucidly written: she is the...
The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner | Aeon Videos
Snippets from a full day in a 24-hour diner make up this 13-minute short, offering a...
What does it mean to be a highly sensitive person? | Aeon Essays
Those with this little-known trait think more deeply and feel more empathy. But they also deal...
