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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
Namesake | Aeon
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video

Earth science and climate

A biologist on the sorrows of documenting the Great Salt Lake’s collapse

6 minutes

Grands canons | Aeon
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video

Design and fashion

Household items are reborn in a ‘visual symphony of everyday objects’

11 minutes

Cosmic vision | Aeon
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essay

Space exploration

Cosmic vision

By showing us a new cosmos, the discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope will ripple through our moral universe

Claire Isabel Webb

Dan Tepfer: TriadSculpture | Aeon
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video

Music

As a pianist strikes a chord, visualisations of his notes appear in real time

5 minutes

How do we know what’s real? | Aeon
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video

Quantum theory

Why aren’t our everyday lives as ‘spooky’ as the quantum world?

7 minutes

Lessons from the foragers | Aeon
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essay

Anthropology

Lessons from the foragers

Hunter-gatherers don’t live in an economic idyll but their deep appreciation of rest puts industrialised work to shame

Vivek V Venkataraman

What has feelings? | Aeon
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essay

Computing and artificial intelligence

What has feelings?

As the power of AI grows, we need to have evidence of its sentience. That is why we must return to the minds of animals

Kristin Andrews & Jonathan Birch

The sights of space: a voyage to spectacular alien worlds | Aeon
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video

Space exploration

Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets

31 minutes

Selected before birth | Aeon
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essay

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

How to outsmart the prisoner’s dilemma | Aeon
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video

Logic and probability

Chew over the prisoner’s dilemma and see if you can find the rational path out

6 minutes

Disturbance | Aeon
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essay

Environmental history

Disturbance

How atomic doomsday experiments, fuelled by Cold War fears, shaped then shook ecologists’ faith in self-healing nature

Laura J Martin

Children of the Ice Age | Aeon
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essay

Archaeology

Children of the Ice Age

With the help of new archaeological approaches, our picture of young lives in the Palaeolithic is now marvellously vivid

April Nowell

The panspermia theory | Aeon
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video

Biology

The idea that life on Earth originated elsewhere is not as far out as it seems

6 minutes

The book of leaves | Aeon
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video

Biology

Flicker through the eclectic beauty and biological diversity of 2,400 leaves

3 minutes

The Rift | Aeon
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essay

Deep time

The Rift

Splitting the African continent, it is the only place where our human story can be read continuously from the very start

Tristan McConnell

Barry Loewer on causation | Aeon
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video

Metaphysics

Bertrand Russell wanted to kill off causation. Can contemporary philosophy rescue it?

8 minutes

Disarming transphobia | Aeon
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essay

Gender and identity

Disarming transphobia

‘Rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ is a popular weapon in the anti-trans arsenal. It is nothing but unscientific bunk

Quinnehtukqut McLamore

There’s no planet B | Aeon
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essay

Space exploration

There’s no planet B

The scientific evidence is clear: the only celestial body that can support us is the one we evolved with. Here’s why

Arwen E Nicholson & Raphaëlle D Haywood

The great Moon hoax | Aeon
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History of science

Bat-people on the Moon – what a famed 1835 hoax reveals about misinformation today

8 minutes

Connecting the human body to the outside world | Aeon
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Biotechnology

What it’s like to wear a prosthetic that ‘feels’

6 minutes

Chemical somnia | Aeon
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video

Chemistry

A square inch in a Petri dish becomes a grand stage for chemical transformations

4 minutes

Blaulicht (Blue light) | Aeon
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Medicine

What is it like to be a paramedic, navigating human emergency?

17 minutes

Creating a wormhole in a quantum computer | Aeon
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Physics

The tangled tale of how physicists built a groundbreaking wormhole in a lab

17 minutes

How to get better at video games (according to babies) | Aeon
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Computing and artificial intelligence

Teaching an AI to beat video games still takes human imagination

5 minutes