essayNeuroscience
The empty brain
Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer
Robert Epstein
essayLanguage and linguistics
English is not normal
No, English isn’t uniquely vibrant or mighty or adaptable. But it really is weirder than pretty much every other language
John McWhorter
essayWork
Fuck work
Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?
James Livingston
essayMeaning and the good life
Indifference is a power
As legions of warriors and prisoners can attest, Stoicism is not grim resolve but a way to wrest happiness from adversity
Lary Wallace
essayChildhood and adolescence
The play deficit
Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure. Without the freedom to play they will never grow up
Peter Gray
essayBiology
The obesity era
As the American people got fatter, so did marmosets, vervet monkeys and mice. The problem may be bigger than any of us
David Berreby
videoBiology
Watch a single cell become a complete organism in six pulsing minutes of timelapse
6 minutes
videoBeauty and aesthetics
This is the final resting place of your cast-off clothing
14 minutes
videoEcology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
videoThe ancient world
From eruption to obliteration – the sights and sounds of 48 fateful hours in Pompeii
9 minutes
videoDemography and migration
How we became more than 7 billion – humanity’s population explosion, visualised
6 minutes
videoDeath
In 2009, a man arrived in an Irish town with a plan to disappear forever
19 minutes
ideaPhysics
Why we can stop worrying and love the particle accelerator
Joel Frohlich
ideaEconomics
Conspicuous consumption is over. It’s all about intangibles now
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
ideaCognition and intelligence
What know-it-alls don’t know, or the illusion of competence
Kate Fehlhaber
ideaSocial psychology
A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you
Clifton Mark
ideaMedicine
Gentle medicine could radically transform medical practice
Jacob Stegenga
ideaWar and peace
What did Hannah Arendt really mean by the banality of evil?
Thomas White