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All those naked Greeks… | Aeon
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All those naked Greeks…

Men in ancient Greek art exercise, fight battles, pursue lovers and mourn lost friends, all without their pants on. Why?

Deep warming | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

Deep warming

Even if we ‘solve’ global warming, we face an older, slower problem. Waste heat could radically alter Earth’s future

Mark Buchanan

Gecko grip | Aeon
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Biology

The key to geckos’ unrivalled climbing skills isn’t sticky feet. It’s subatomic

4 minutes

The life of Wanda Półtawska | Aeon
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History

The life of Wanda Półtawska

Her closeness to Pope John Paul furnished him with anti-abortion ideals, fuelled by her survival of the Ravensbrück camp

Joy Neumeyer

Green Bank pastoral | Aeon
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Technology and the self

Greetings from Green Bank – the small town where modern technology is banned

10 minutes

How John Keats writes a poem | Aeon
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Stories and literature

What makes John Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ so enduringly powerful?

10 minutes

Ingenious librarians | Aeon
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History of technology

Ingenious librarians

A group of 1970s campus librarians foresaw our world of distributed knowledge and research, and designed search tools for it

Monica Westin

Don’t let them fool you | Aeon
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Social psychology

Don’t let them fool you

The fear of being duped is ubiquitous, but excessive scepticism makes it harder to trust one another and cooperate

Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

The science of cuteness | Aeon
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Human evolution

Far from frivolous, cuteness is a powerful – and still mysterious – force of nature

6 minutes

Matrimony and the market | Aeon
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Economic history

Matrimony and the market

The sexual revolution promised new norms of intimacy based on egalitarianism. So far, only the rich have cashed in

Daniel Tutt

Making a Noh mask | Aeon
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Dance and theatre

How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood

16 minutes

Models of antiquity | Aeon
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Politics and government

Models of antiquity

Radicals in the Age of Revolution saw the classical world as a common inheritance that could aid their fight for liberty

Francesca Langer

Beautiful! | Aeon
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Family life

On a whirlwind morning, a couple learns if they’re facing an unplanned pregnancy

7 minutes

The art of rules | Aeon
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Art

The art of rules

Conceptual art often confounds. The key is to understand the rules of the artwork and the aesthetic experiences they yield

Sherri Irvin

A philosophy of secrets | Aeon
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Thinkers and theories

A philosophy of secrets

Jacques Derrida was fascinated by the figure of the Marrano Jew, whose identity could barely be told even to themselves

Peter Salmon

Ancient wine drinking | Aeon
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The ancient world

What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia

16 minutes

The sonnet machine | Aeon
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Stories and literature

The sonnet machine

A sonnet contains an emotional drama of illusion and deception, crisis and resolution, crafted to make us think and feel

Timothy Hampton

David Goldblatt in Johannesburg | Aeon
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Art

David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white

15 minutes

How to mourn a forest | Aeon
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Anthropology

How to mourn a forest

The Marind people of West Papua deploy mourning not only to grieve their animal and plant kin but as political resistance

Sophie Chao

Eliminative materialism | Aeon
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Philosophy of mind

Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no

5 minutes

Time is an object | Aeon
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Physics

Time is an object

Not a backdrop, an illusion or an emergent phenomenon, time has a physical size that can be measured in laboratories

Sara Walker & Lee Cronin

Water worlds | Aeon
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Space exploration

In the search for life, might alien ocean worlds be a better bet than Earth-like planets?

5 minutes

The Swedish theory of love | Aeon
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Political philosophy

The Swedish theory of love

All countries must balance the freedom of individuals with the demands of the community. Sweden’s solution is unique

Lars Trägårdh

Eleonore Stump on the problem of evil | Aeon
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Philosophy of religion

How a devout Catholic philosopher approaches the problem of evil

8 minutes

The post-linguistic turn | Aeon
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History of ideas

The post-linguistic turn

Analytic and continental philosophers were once united in their obsession with language. But now new questions have arisen

Crispin Sartwell

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