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Philosophy

Essays and videos on philosophy, the history of ideas, ethics and life’s big questions
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History of science

The rights of the dead

From the Irish Giant to the Ancient One, is it ever ethical for scientists and museums to study bodies without permission?

Anita Guerrini

A yellow orchid flower in a vase is lit by sunlight from a side window in a living room. The background is out of focus
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Psychosis and psychedelics

In the 1960s, psychedelic research was driven underground. Now it’s re-emerging – with lessons for the study of psychosis

Phoebe Friesen

A black and white photo of a man in doctor’s clothing posed next to a lab bench with a microscope looking directly at the camera
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Medicine

Physician, invade thyself

Eager for medical breakthroughs, some doctors take enormous risks experimenting on themselves. Should we celebrate them?

Tom Doyle

In the foreground a European mother cradles a newborn baby as an Indian woman looks on from the right
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Bioethics

Reproductive technologies

Infertility treatments aim to improve women’s lives. But they risk tying womanhood to the toxic expectation of motherhood

Gulzaar Barn

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video

Space exploration

Would children born beyond Earth ever be able to return to humanity’s home planet?

5 minutes

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Animals and humans

The free dogs of India

These canines have independent, peaceful, happy lives without a pet’s constraints. Why are they being persecuted and culled?

Krithika Srinivasan & Chris Pearson

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Consciousness and altered states

Animal, vegetable, mineral

Cruel and unscientific, the ‘vegetative state’ diagnosis stems from a hierarchical and bigoted view of all living things

Ben Platts-Mills

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Animals and humans

Where went the wolf?

The very attributes that make small dogs cute and popular are slowly strangling their ability to function as real animals

Jessica Pierce

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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

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video

Ethics

How many monkeys is it worth sacrificing to save a human life?

6 minutes

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Animals and humans

Happy the person

She has deep emotions, complex social needs and a large, elephant brain. Her legal personhood should be recognised too

Lori Marino

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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

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Animals and humans

Freefall into darkness

Scientists study animals to illuminate human psychology. So why are we blind to the mental lives of our caged subjects?

Garet Lahvis

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Animals and humans

Against human exceptionalism

In a tight spot, you’d probably intuit that a human life outweighs an animal’s. There are good arguments why that’s wrong

Jeff Sebo

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video

Family life

A son of China’s former one-child policy remembers the sibling he never had

8 minutes

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Bioethics

We are all frail

We should be able to acknowledge that disabilities can cause pain and suffering without disabled people feeling dehumanised

Tom Shakespeare

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Animals and humans

The posthuman dog

If humans were to disappear from the face of the Earth, what might dogs become? And would they be better off without us?

Jessica Pierce

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Oceans and water

Defend the deep

Instead of letting waves of exploitation sweep through the deep ocean, we could choose to protect this vast living realm

Helen Scales

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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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video

Biology

When medicine offers no relief, a biohacker begins a radical self-experiment

12 minutes

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Space exploration

Do we send the goo?

The ability to stir new life into being, all across the Universe, compels us to ask why life matters in the first place

Betül Kaçar

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Consciousness and altered states

Consciousness regained

After years of deep therapeutic pessimism, emerging therapies offer hope for patients trapped between coma and wakefulness

Aurore Thibaut

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Public health

It didn’t have to be this way

A bioethicist at the heart of the Italian coronavirus crisis asks: why won’t we talk about the tradeoffs of the lockdown?

Silvia Camporesi

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video

Bioethics

For some, animal testing is ‘just science’. For others, it’s just not right

17 minutes