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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
Memories within myth | Aeon
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Anthropology

Memories within myth

The stories of oral societies, passed from generation to generation, are more than they seem. They are scientific records

Patrick Nunn

The return of silvopasture | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

The return of silvopasture

This ancient practice, nurturing animals and trees in an ecological system, fights climate change and restores the land

Liz Carlisle & Niki Mazaroli

Namesake | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

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

6 minutes

Disturbance | Aeon
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Environmental history

Disturbance

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

Laura J Martin

There’s no planet B | Aeon
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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

Our Earth, shaped by life | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

Our Earth, shaped by life

Darwin was the first to see that all lifeforms, from worms to corals, transform the planet. What does that mean for us?

Olivia Judson

A singular scientist | Aeon
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History of science

A singular scientist

James Lovelock was a visionary whose greatest ideas were made possible by his unshakeable independence

Roger Highfield

Tomorrow’s corals | Aeon
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Oceans and water

Tomorrow’s corals

A warming planet and acid oceans will radically transform marine ecosystems. How will our beloved reefs survive?

Klaus M Stiefel & James D Reimer

Deforest | Aeon
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The environment

Photographs of rainforests dissolving in acid strike a beautiful note of warning

10 minutes

Good fire | Aeon
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Ecology and environmental sciences

To renew Yosemite, California should embrace a once-outlawed Indigenous practice

6 minutes

The Antarctic paradox | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

The Antarctic paradox

The most protected place on Earth has become one of the most threatened – and threatening. Can its problems be solved?

Alejandra Mancilla & Peder Roberts

A new Earth rises | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

A new Earth rises

How did the planet replace the nation-state to become the prime political object of the 21st century?

Erik Isberg

Last days at Paradise High | Aeon
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Childhood and adolescence

When Paradise, California burned, its teens became instant climate refugees

23 minutes

Poseidon’s wrath | Aeon
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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

Degrees of uncertainty | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

How much can science really tell us about the future of climate change?

24 minutes

Utuqaq | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

‘Ice has a memory’ – an Inuit poem contemplates scientific exploration of Greenland

28 minutes

The deep Anthropocene | Aeon
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Archaeology

The deep Anthropocene

A revolution in archaeology has exposed the extraordinary extent of human influence over our planet’s past and its future

Lucas Stephens, Erle Ellis & Dorian Fuller

Three pioneers who predicted climate change | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

Climate change science is centuries, not decades old, and it was pioneered by a woman

5 minutes

Is there a limit to optimism when it comes to climate change? | Aeon
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Ecology and environmental sciences

Is there a limit to optimism when it comes to climate change?

Fiacha Heneghan

What Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy can offer in the Anthropocene | Aeon
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Meaning and the good life

What Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy can offer in the Anthropocene

Ed Simon

Dulce | Aeon
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Family life

For Dulce, the rite of passage of learning to swim might soon be her means of survival

11 minutes

A year along the geostationary orbit | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

From 20,000 miles up, our home planet is a hypnotic swirl of the familiar and the sublime

16 minutes

Nuclear power is not the answer in a time of climate change | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

Nuclear power is not the answer in a time of climate change

Heidi Hutner & Erica Cirino

Flash! | Aeon
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Earth science and climate

Flash!

It ignited life on Earth, propelled evolution, and now signals climate change. Yet what sparks lightning remains a mystery

Sidney Perkowitz