Menu
Donate
SIGN IN

Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
Time is an object | Aeon
Save

essay

Physics

Time is an object

Not a backdrop, an illusion or an emergent phenomenon, time has a physical size that can be measured in laboratories

Sara Walker & Lee Cronin

How like the kiwi we are | Aeon
Save

essay

Human evolution

How like the kiwi we are

To understand helpless human babies, our big brains and oddly involved dads, look to the evolution of birds not mammals

Antone Martinho-Truswell

Why did consciousness evolve? | Aeon
Save

video

Evolution

Why making if-then connections might be the key to consciousness

5 minutes

Our Earth, shaped by life | Aeon
Save

essay

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

Ed Yong: the hidden world of animal senses | Aeon
Save

video

Biology

To understand the limits of human senses, look to the wild world of animal cognition

45 minutes

The science of symmetry | Aeon
Save

video

Evolution

Symmetry rules life on Earth – but it comes with many fascinating exceptions

9 minutes

Moths and beetles in slow-motion flight | Aeon
Save

video

Biology

There’s no one way for an insect to fly, but they’re all amazing in close up and slo-mo

7 minutes

Seeing and somethingness | Aeon
Save

essay

Consciousness and altered states

Seeing and somethingness

An evolutionary approach to consciousness can resolve the ‘hard problem’ – with radical implications for animal sentience

Nicholas Humphrey

Fortune favours the shrewd | Aeon
Save

essay

Evolution

Fortune favours the shrewd

Attaining and maintaining power lies at the heart of almost all animal societies. And it’s as devious as human politicking

Lee Alan Dugatkin

Why whale song is like pop music | Aeon
Save

video

Biology

Like pop music, humpback whale songs spread, mutate, and fall out of fashion

9 minutes

What on earth is a xenobot? | Aeon
Save

essay

Evolution

What on earth is a xenobot?

The more we understand how cells produce shape and form, the more inadequate the idea of a genomic blueprint looks

Philip Ball

Connected-up-brains | Aeon
Save

essay

Evolution

Connected-up-brains

Bat friends, monkeys sharing, and humans holding hands: the brains of social animals synchronise and expand one another

Sofia Quaglia

The split-body problem | Aeon
Save

essay

Biology

The split-body problem

Why we need to stop thinking about parents, offspring and sex when we try to understand how life reproduces itself

Gunnar O Babcock

The web of life | Aeon
Save

essay

Evolution

The web of life

Classic evolutionary theory holds that species separate over time. But it’s fuzzier than that – now we know they also merge

Juli Berwald

Ancestral dreams | Aeon
Save

essay

Sleep and dreams

Ancestral dreams

We’re not the only beings that dream. What visions might sleep bring to a cell, an insect, a mollusk, an ape?

Sidarta Ribeiro

The many disguises of Australian walking sticks | Aeon
Save

video

Evolution

The master-of-disguise creature whose whole life is an elaborate lie

5 minutes

Promethean beasts | Aeon
Save

essay

Evolution

Promethean beasts

Far from being hardwired to flee fire, some animals use it to their own ends, helping us understand our own pyrocognition

Ivo Jacobs

This riotous life | Aeon
Save

essay

Palaeontology

This riotous life

There’s no rhythm to mass extinctions, no pattern to evolutionary recovery. Life bursts forth, in cacophonous adaptation

Riley Black

On the origin of minds | Aeon
Save

essay

Cognition and intelligence

On the origin of minds

Cognition did not appear out of nowhere in ‘higher’ animals but goes back millions, perhaps billions, of years

Pamela Lyon

Why simplicity works | Aeon
Save

essay

Physics

Why simplicity works

Does the existence of a multiverse hold the key for why nature’s laws seem so simple?

Johnjoe McFadden

What animals think of death | Aeon
Save

essay

Evolution

What animals think of death

Having a concept of death, far from being a uniquely human feat, is a fairly common trait in the animal kingdom

Susana Monsó

An idea with bite | Aeon
Save

essay

Genetics

An idea with bite

The ‘selfish gene’ persists for the reason all good scientific metaphors do: it remains a sharp tool for clear thinking

J Arvid Ågren

Aerial sheep herding in Yokneam | Aeon
Save

video

Biology

Watch the elegant flow of a sheep herd, seen from the sky above Israel

1 minute

Rotifers: charmingly bizarre and often ignored | Aeon
Save

video

Biology

An ode to the humble rotifer – one of nature’s simplest and strangest creatures

9 minutes