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Fuelling the future | Aeon

Fuelling the future

Fantasies about new power sources for human ambitions go back a century or more. Could these past visions energise our own future?

Iwan Rhys Morus

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The addiction trap | Aeon
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Addiction

The addiction trap

Our inability to treat substance use disorders stems from a narrow-minded view that brains and genes are their real cause

Judith Grisel

The return | Aeon
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Anthropology

On the run from COVID-19, an Indigenous family treks deep into the Amazon rainforest

17 minutes

Can culture degenerate? | Aeon
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Beauty and aesthetics

Can culture degenerate?

Tempting it might be, but the idea that culture has become vacuous and banal comes with unsavoury implications

Christy Wampole

Inga | Aeon
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Life stages

Love evolves and death isn’t worth your worry – life lessons from an 88-year-old

7 minutes

In praise of possibility | Aeon
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Thinkers and theories

In praise of possibility

For the political economist Albert O Hirschman, democracy thrives not on strong opinions but on doubt and flexibility

Michele Alacevich

Around is around | Aeon
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Film and visual culture

A series of animated illusions illustrates how we project depth on to flat surfaces

8 minutes

Poseidon’s wrath | Aeon
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Archaeology

Poseidon’s wrath

Vanished beneath the waves in 373 BCE, Helike is a byword for thinking about disaster, for ancients and moderns alike

Guy D Middleton

Literary prostitutes | Aeon
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Stories and literature

Literary prostitutes

I self-published erotica to make ends meet. Could I follow in Anaïs Nin’s footsteps or was I doomed to churn out filth?

Sam Mills

ORIGINALCosmology in the dark | Aeon
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Cosmology

Building ‘bigger and better’ has pushed cosmology forward. Can it take it any further?

7 minutes

After neurodiversity | Aeon
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Neurodiversity

After neurodiversity

We live in a world that must move beyond identity politics and embrace new models of the mind. Enter psydiversity

Bonnie Evans

The Great Wave by Hokusai | Aeon
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Art

How Hokusai’s Great Wave emerged from Japan’s isolation to become a global icon

17 minutes

Don’t farm bugs | Aeon
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Bioethics

Don’t farm bugs

Insect farming bakes, boils and shreds animals by the trillion. It’s immoral, risky and won’t resolve the climate crisis

Jeff Sebo & Jason Schukraft

Aerial sheep herding in Yokneam | Aeon
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Biology

Watch the elegant flow of a sheep herd, seen from the sky above Israel

1 minute

Typos, tricks and misprints | Aeon
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Language and linguistics

Typos, tricks and misprints

Why is English spelling so weird and unpredictable? Don’t blame the mix of languages; look to quirks of timing and technology

Arika Okrent

Forget morality | Aeon
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Ethics

Forget morality

Moral philosophy is bogus, a mere substitute for God that licenses ugly emotions. Here are five reasons to reject it

Ronnie de Sousa

The sounds of space | Aeon
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Physics

How would a piano sound on Mars? Embark on an interplanetary sonic journey

20 minutes

We’re all teenagers now | Aeon
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Childhood and adolescence

We’re all teenagers now

Adolescence isn’t a time of life so much as a frame of mind. Liberating yet damaging, it’s transformed the US and the world

Paul Howe

The shift | Aeon
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Work

Emergency first responders meet chaos with dissonant calm in this gripping short

9 minutes

The divine Dante | Aeon
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Stories and literature

The divine Dante

At 700, Dante’s Divine Comedy is as modern as ever – a lesson in spiritual intelligence that makes us better at being alive

Mark Vernon

Plato’s Atlantis | Aeon
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The ancient world

Not a lost kingdom but a parable – how to read Athens in Plato’s story of Atlantis

24 minutes

A non-Standard model | Aeon
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Cosmology

A non-Standard model

Most cosmologists say dark matter must exist. So far, it’s nowhere to be found. A widely scorned rival theory explains why

David Merritt

Attached | Aeon
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Childhood and adolescence

Attached

From cradle to grave, we are soothed and rocked by attachments – our source of joy and pain, and the essence of who we are

Mostafa El-Kalliny & Zoe R Donaldson

Is life meaningless? And other absurd questions | Aeon
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Meaning and the good life

Albert Camus built a philosophy of humanity on a foundation of absurdity

6 minutes

Vast early America | Aeon
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Nations and empires

Vast early America

There is no American history without the histories of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. And this past has consequences today

Karin Wulf

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