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A broken offering | Aeon
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A broken offering

A cracked voice, an empty bank account, a tour of duty. Who would have thought so much light could still get in?

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History by numbers | Aeon
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History

History by numbers

Is history a matter of individual agency and action, or of finding and quantifying underpinning structures and patterns?

Claire Lemercier & Claire Zalc

If you love this planet | Aeon
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War and peace

A peace activist’s harrowing account of nuclear war is a visceral case for disarmament

26 minutes

Here’s to the aquapolis | Aeon
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The environment

Here’s to the aquapolis

Unkempt, beguiling and lacking conventional geometry, wetlands bring a roguish, raffish wildness to the city

Tom Blass

Einstein’s twin paradox | Aeon
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Physics

An interstellar voyage explores the ‘paradox’ of twins separated by light years

6 minutes

What on earth is a xenobot? | Aeon
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Evolution

What on earth is a xenobot?

The more we understand how cells produce shape and form, the more inadequate the idea of a genomic blueprint looks

Philip Ball

Welcome to the pros | Aeon
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Personality

Why a journeyman boxer finds contentment in the art of losing

6 minutes

Are they the canaries? | Aeon
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Illness and disease

Are they the canaries?

People with multiple chemical sensitivity seem to be allergic to the world. What, if anything, can medicine do for them?

Xi Chen

EXCLUSIVEAgainst the tide | Aeon
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Subcultures

Living off-grid on a remote Scottish island is a mix of rejection and acceptance

13 minutes

Black King of Songs | Aeon
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Global history

Black King of Songs

His communism brought the great American singer Paul Robeson trouble in the US, but helped make him a hero in China

Gao Yunxiang

Ed and Pauline | Aeon
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Film and visual culture

At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start

19 minutes

Dark horses in the cosmos | Aeon
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Cosmology

Dark horses in the cosmos

Could primordial black holes from the beginning of time explain ‘dark matter’, the mysterious missing mass in the Universe?

Briley Lewis

Perfecting the art of longing | Aeon
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Mood and emotion

‘Let me dream you into my reality’: memories illuminate an unthinkable isolation

12 minutes

Abolish life sentences | Aeon
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Human rights and justice

Abolish life sentences

It is unjust, cruel and profoundly wasteful to consign a person to prison for life. A decent society must not do it

Judith Lichtenberg

Bird of prey | Aeon
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Biology

Journey deep into the Philippine forest in search of the world’s largest, rarest eagle

95 minutes

Buddhist missionaries | Aeon
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Religion

Buddhist missionaries

Buddhist monks have mostly escaped the label of proselytisers, but they’ll still spread the word to those who seek them out

Brooke Schedneck

Recoding art | Aeon
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Art

What does an AI make of what it sees in a contemporary art museum?

15 minutes

Living closer together | Aeon
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Cities

Living closer together

Urban density was once seen as a sign of unhealthiness and poverty. But today it is necessary to make cities sustainable

Max Holleran

Mink! | Aeon
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Fairness and equality

How the first woman of colour to be elected to the US Congress remade education

21 minutes

The delights of mischief | Aeon
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Virtues and vices

The delights of mischief

Mischievousness requires humour, wit and a playful humaneness: qualities that make for a particular kind of virtue

Alex Moran

The great regression | Aeon
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Subcultures

The great regression

To understand why so many adults are acting just like children, don’t blame Millennials – look to Japan in the 1990s

Matt Alt

The rocket on the roof | Aeon
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Personality

Wesley wants to solve the rooftop mystery – but does he have what it takes?

14 minutes

Semiotics of dogs | Aeon
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Animals and humans

Semiotics of dogs

In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles

Katrina Gulliver

Tantra: enlightenment to revolution | Aeon
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History of ideas

Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power

19 minutes

What lies beneath government | Aeon
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Politics and government

What lies beneath government

Buka Town in Bougainville shows how bureaucratic states could be reimagined, not as concrete buildings but as living gardens

Gordon Peake & Miranda Forsyth

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