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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
The war on cancer | Aeon
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essay

Illness and disease

The war on cancer

Is it time to abandon the century-old idea that cancer is best met with a ‘fight’ from patients and their doctors alike?

Elaine Schattner

Blaulicht (Blue light) | Aeon
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video

Medicine

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

17 minutes

Are they the canaries? | Aeon
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Illness and disease

Are they the canaries?

People with multiple chemical sensitivity seem to be allergic to the world. What, if anything, can medicine do for them?

Xi Chen

The body is not a machine | Aeon
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essay

Medicine

The body is not a machine

Modern biomedicine sees the body as a closed mechanistic system. But illness shows us to be permeable, ecological beings

Nitin K Ahuja

Shocked | Aeon
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essay

History of science

Shocked

With evidence for efficacy so thin, and the stakes so high, why is ‘electroshock’ therapy still a mainstay of psychiatry?

John Read

Natural and unnatural | Aeon
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Illness and disease

Natural and unnatural

‘Natural’ remedies are metaphysically inconsistent and unscientific. Yet they offer something that modern medicine cannot

Alan Jay Levinovitz

Beautiful monsters | Aeon
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Illness and disease

Beautiful monsters

Cancer is part of multicellular life. Now the riotous growth of crested cacti show how humans might adapt to live with it

Athena Aktipis

Life and breath | Aeon
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Medicine

Life and breath

There’s a strange, and deeply human, story behind how we taught machines to breathe for critically ill patients

Sarah Ruth Bates

Stealth infections | Aeon
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Illness and disease

Stealth infections

From the Black Death to polio, the most dangerous pathogens have moved silently, transmitted by apparently healthy people

Wendy Orent

The medicalised life | Aeon
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Medicine

The medicalised life

Why do so many see vaccines and other medical interventions as tools of social control rather than boons to health?

Bernice L Hausman

Gentle medicine could radically transform medical practice | Aeon
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Medicine

Gentle medicine could radically transform medical practice

Jacob Stegenga

Three ways to smell cancer | Aeon
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video

Biotechnology

How harnessing the power of dogs could help scientists sniff out cancer early

7 minutes

It didn’t have to be this way | Aeon
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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

Engines of life | Aeon
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essay

Future of technology

Engines of life

At the level of the tiny, biology is all about engineering. That’s why nanotechnology can rebuild medicine from within

Sonia Contera

Chemobrain is real. Here’s what to expect after cancer treatment | Aeon
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idea

Illness and disease

Chemobrain is real. Here’s what to expect after cancer treatment

Anton Isaacs

No patient is an island | Aeon
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Medicine

No patient is an island

How a concern to protect the autonomy of patients leads to the exclusion of families just when they are needed the most

Anita Ho

Rats are us | Aeon
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Animals and humans

Rats are us

They are sentient beings with rich emotional lives, yet we subject them to experimental cruelty without conscience. Why?

Kristin Andrews & Susana Monsó

Neither person nor cadaver | Aeon
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Bioethics

Neither person nor cadaver

The body is warm, but the brain has gone dark: why the notion of brain death provokes the thorniest of medical dilemmas

Sharon Kaufman

Polyphonic Mozart | Aeon
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video

Biology

Singing Mozart in the MRI shows how overtone singers can hit two notes at once

1 minute

A sage on the ward | Aeon
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Wellbeing

A sage on the ward

Good nurses are attuned to the lived experience of patients. Can the theory of phenomenology add more to their practice?

Dan Zahavi

The whole-planet view | Aeon
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Consciousness and altered states

The whole-planet view

Psychedelics offer a sense of expansive connectedness, just like astronauts have felt looking back to Earth from space

Rosalind Watts, Sam Gandy & Alex Evans

Nueva vida | Aeon
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video

Illness and disease

How a ball kick to the head triggered a black comedy of sickness and mania

7 minutes

Why synthetic chemicals seem more toxic than natural ones | Aeon
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idea

Chemistry

Why synthetic chemicals seem more toxic than natural ones

Niranjana Krishnan

Pills dissolve | Aeon
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video

Medicine

Watching the hidden world of dissolving meds is its own chill pill

2 minutes