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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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
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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
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Global history
Plagues and empires
What can the decline of the Roman Empire and the end of European feudalism tell us about COVID-19 and the future of the West?
John Rapley
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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
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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
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Anthropology
On the run from COVID-19, an Indigenous family treks deep into the Amazon rainforest
17 minutes
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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
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Life stages
Love evolves and death isn’t worth your worry – life lessons from an 88-year-old
7 minutes
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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
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Film and visual culture
A series of animated illusions illustrates how we project depth on to flat surfaces
8 minutes
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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
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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
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Cosmology
Building ‘bigger and better’ has pushed cosmology forward. Can it take it any further?
7 minutes
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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
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Art
How Hokusai’s Great Wave emerged from Japan’s isolation to become a global icon
17 minutes
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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
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Biology
Watch the elegant flow of a sheep herd, seen from the sky above Israel
1 minute
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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
essay
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
video
Physics
How would a piano sound on Mars? Embark on an interplanetary sonic journey
20 minutes
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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
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Work
Emergency first responders meet chaos with dissonant calm in this gripping short
9 minutes
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Meaning and the good life
Albert Camus built a philosophy of humanity on a foundation of absurdity
6 minutes
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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