~aeon | Bookmarks (108)
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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...
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‘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...
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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...
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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...
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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’....
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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A resurrected defence of beanbag genetics | Aeon Essays
Today a bitter dispute about the nature of biology is underway. A simple bag of beans...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...