Cameron Allan McKean
Editor, Aeon+Psyche
Cameron is a writer, editor and underwater anthropologist in Melbourne, Australia. After a decade in Tokyo working as an arts journalist, he began doctoral studies at Deakin University involving fieldwork with scientists and divers at coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. Cameron is a former books and culture editor for The Japan Times, and a past contributor to CNN, ArtAsiaPacific, Dwell, Apartamento, and art-agenda.
Edited by Cameron Allan McKean
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Chatbots of the dead
We can now create compelling experiences of talking with our dead. Is this ghoulish, therapeutic or something else again?
Amy Kurzweil & Daniel Story
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Global history
There are no pure cultures
All of our religions, stories, languages and norms were muddled and mixed through mobility and exchange throughout history
Inanna Hamati-Ataya
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Stories and literature
Laboratories of the impossible
By testing the boundaries of reality, Spanish-language authors have created a sublime counterpart to experimental physics
Joshua Roebke
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Cosmology
Exploding the Big Bang
It was thought that science could tell us about the origins of the Universe. Today that great endeavour is in serious doubt
Daniel Linford
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Human evolution
The eugenicist of UNESCO
Why did Julian S Huxley, first director of the UN agency, think eugenics held the key to a more evolved, harmonious world?
Stefan Bernhardt-Radu
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Philosophy of science
Elusive but everywhere
A new theory argues that unseen ‘fields’ guide all goal-directed things in the Universe, from falling rocks to voyaging turtles
Daniel W McShea & Gunnar O Babcock
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Philosophy of science
The forces of chance
Social scientists cling to simple models of reality – with disastrous results. Instead they must embrace chaos theory
Brian Klaas
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Philosophy of science
Life makes mistakes
Hens try to hatch golf balls, whales get beached. Getting things wrong seems to play a fundamental role in life on Earth
David S Oderberg
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Home
The joy of clutter
The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’
Matt Alt
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History of science
Clock time contra lived time
Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein fundamentally disagreed about the nature of time and how it can be measured. Who was right?
Evan Thompson
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Complexity
Problem-solving matter
Life is starting to look a lot less like an outcome of chemistry and physics, and more like a computational process
David C Krakauer & Chris Kempes
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Anthropology
Your body is an archive
If human knowledge can disappear so easily, why have so many cultural practices survived without written records?
Helena Miton