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Essays

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Longform Essays written by serious and creative thinkers on philosophy, psychology, science, society and culture

Aerial photo of a snowy town with colourful buildings and a vast frozen landscape in the background.

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The environment

On unstable ground

A ‘great reshuffle’ of the land is underway. It will force us to reconsider traditional ideas of property and ownership

Michael Albertus

Black and white photo of people wrapped in shawls sitting with light and smoke creating dramatic shadows and highlights.

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Philosophy of mind

By the light of brahman

Ideas from classical Indian philosophy help illuminate the enigmas of selfhood, consciousness and the nature of reality

Anand Vaidya & Manjula Menon

Black and white photo of oil workers handling equipment on a rig, with oil splashing out from the pipe they are holding.

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Gender

Does testosterone make men?

In probing whether there are basic sex differences in humans, a psychologist and a biologist agree to seriously disagree

Cordelia Fine & Carole Hooven

Photo of the Phaistos Disc, an ancient clay tablet with spiral symbols, on a black background.

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Language and linguistics

The lonely life of a glyph-breaker

The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever see that happen again?

Francesco Perono Cacciafoco

Two men on stage acting, one holds an apple on a stick and looks through two glass lenses held by the other man, in dramatic lighting.

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Dance and theatre

What actors know

Acting is an ancient and intrinsically human way to establish vibrant connections with one another. And it’s available to us all

John Britton

An urban slum with people, horses and goats amidst debris, shacks and informal structures in the background.

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Poverty and development

Raising the threshold

The World Bank’s poverty line is inaccurate and out of date – an error that obscures the feebleness of market solutions

Attrishu Bordoloi

Four girls sitting on a riverbank, sitting in two groups of two; three upright and one lying down, with backpacks and bags nearby.

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Neurodiversity

Autism’s missing women

Long believed to be particularly associated with males, new research is revolutionising our understanding of autism

Gina Rippon

A desert highway at dusk with cliffs and the moon visible and a rear-view mirror showing a road and sunset reflection behind.

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Physics

The stagnation of physics

Physicists today need to jettison the all-too-attractive myth that they are uncovering the hidden reality of our Universe

Adrien De Sutter

A cheetah cub playfully interacts with a brown dog on grass, with a toy in the background.

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Bioethics

Why the cat wags her tail

Here’s a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal play?

Mathilde Tahar-Malaussena

A busy urban street with cars, a motorbike and a truck passing by a neon-lit building at sunset.

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Poverty and development

How Kerala got rich

Fifty years ago it was one of India’s poorest states, now it is now one of the richest. How did Kerala do it?

Tirthankar Roy & K Ravi Raman

Sepia-toned photo of a person in formal Victorian attire, standing with a slightly tilted head, against an ornate backdrop.

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Gender and identity

Requeering Wilde

Oscar Wilde is an icon of gay liberation from secrecy. But his life and his sexuality were not so simple – nor so binary

Sam Mills

A child in a pink raincoat jumping in a puddle on a city street on a rainy day with terraced houses in the background.

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Philosophy of mind

Suffused with causality

Humans have a superpower that makes us uniquely capable of controlling the world: our ability to understand cause and effect

Mariel Goddu