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Masham and me | Aeon
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Masham and me

Were it not for her friendship with John Locke, the radical feminist gems of philosopher Damaris Masham might be unknown

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Lessons from the foragers | Aeon
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Anthropology

Lessons from the foragers

Hunter-gatherers don’t live in an economic idyll but their deep appreciation of rest puts industrialised work to shame

Vivek V Venkataraman

How do we know what’s real? | Aeon
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Quantum theory

Why aren’t our everyday lives as ‘spooky’ as the quantum world?

7 minutes

Give the drummer some | Aeon
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Music

Give the drummer some

As AI drum machines embrace humanising imperfections, what does this mean for ‘real’ drummers and the soul of music?

Jack Stilgoe

The Parthenon Marbles | Aeon
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Global history

The strange journey of the Parthenon Marbles to the British Museum

10 minutes

The fate of the wild | Aeon
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Animals and humans

Laura fights to protect the magnificence of wild horses running free

6 minutes

Medieval babycare | Aeon
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History

Medieval babycare

From mansplaining about breastfeeding to debates on developmental toys, medieval parenting was full of familiar dilemmas

Katherine Harvey

Wielding death | Aeon
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Politics and government

Wielding death

When everyday life is marked by oppression and violence, can a martyr’s death truly be an act of freedom and resistance?

Umar Lateef Misgar

My theatre | Aeon
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Film and visual culture

The old-time cinema experience endures in a quiet corner of Japan

5 minutes

What has feelings? | Aeon
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Computing and artificial intelligence

What has feelings?

As the power of AI grows, we need to have evidence of its sentience. That is why we must return to the minds of animals

Kristin Andrews & Jonathan Birch

The sights of space: a voyage to spectacular alien worlds | Aeon
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Space exploration

Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets

31 minutes

The space between us | Aeon
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The space between us

In order to understand and heal mental distress, we must see our minds as existing in relationships, not inside our heads

James Barnes

Still the one | Aeon
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Gender and identity

‘I didn’t fall in love with a couple of body pieces’ – on marriage and transition

3 minutes

The ethics of human extinction | Aeon
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Ethics

The ethics of human extinction

Why would it be so bad if our species came to an end? It is a question that reveals our latent values and hidden fears

Émile P Torres

Selected before birth | Aeon
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Bioethics

Selected before birth

Embryo risk screening could lower the odds of illnesses ranging from depression to diabetes. Can it be ethically done?

Todd Lencz & Shai Carmi

How to outsmart the prisoner’s dilemma | Aeon
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Logic and probability

Chew over the prisoner’s dilemma and see if you can find the rational path out

6 minutes

Secrets hurt their holders | Aeon
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Mental health

Secrets hurt their holders

Holding back the truth can take a huge toll on your relationships and your mental health. Why? And is there a better way?

Michael Slepian

The impossible architecture of Étienne-Louis Boullée | Aeon
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Architecture

The radically impractical 18th-century architect whose ideas on beauty endure

19 minutes

Disturbance | Aeon
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Environmental history

Disturbance

How atomic doomsday experiments, fuelled by Cold War fears, shaped then shook ecologists’ faith in self-healing nature

Laura J Martin

Making a Go board | Aeon
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Making

From log to Go board – the world’s oldest game, made the old-fashioned way

20 minutes

Children of the Ice Age | Aeon
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Archaeology

Children of the Ice Age

With the help of new archaeological approaches, our picture of young lives in the Palaeolithic is now marvellously vivid

April Nowell

If not vegan, then what? | Aeon
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Ethics

If not vegan, then what?

A vegan diet can be hard to adopt, even if you’re convinced it’s the right thing to do. What are the next-best options?

Peter Godfrey-Smith

A brief history of vampires | Aeon
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Stories and literature

The key to a vampire’s immortality? Meeting the anxieties of the moment

15 minutes

What the tablets say | Aeon
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Archaeology

What the tablets say

Some 3,700 years ago, an enslaved girl, a barber, and a king crossed paths in a city by the Euphrates. This is their story

Amanda H Podany

The panspermia theory | Aeon
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Biology

The idea that life on Earth originated elsewhere is not as far out as it seems

6 minutes

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