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Ed Lake

Editorial Director, Profile Books

Ed Lake is an editorial director at Profile Books and former deputy editor of Aeon. He spent five years at The Daily Telegraph before moving to the Middle East to work on The National, where he was deputy editor on the Review section. He is interested in the philosophy of science, the history of political thought, and novels in which a dreamer wakes into a world transformed. He lives in north London.

Written by Ed Lake

Edited by Ed Lake

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Ecology and environmental sciences

It’s not easy being green

If rational persuasion fails to make people behave environmentally, could rituals and a dash of guilt do a better job?

Stephen Cave & Sarah Darwin

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Family life

If babies were randomly allocated to families would racism end?

Howard Rachlin & Marvin Frankel

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Language and linguistics

Naughty words

What makes swear words so offensive? It’s not their meaning or even their sound. Is language itself a red herring here?

Rebecca Roache

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Film and visual culture

Fantasy North

The top of the globe has always meant fantasy, myth, adventure. What explains the icy northern grip on our imagination?

E R Truitt

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Information and communication

Doing more with less: the economic lesson of Peak Paper

John Quiggin

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Ethics

High five!

Why, in the entire history of human life, did awesomeness become the great virtue of our age (and suckiness its vice)?

Nick Riggle

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Film and visual culture

Dispatches from the ruins

The human world has become bafflingly complex and strangely fragile making apocalypse the easiest thing to imagine

Frank Bures

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Childhood and adolescence

What every dictator knows: young men are natural fanatics

Joe Herbert

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Political philosophy

It’s not presidents but pressure groups who lead US politics

Erik Loomis

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Biotechnology

Biohackers should produce a microbial uberfood for the world

Dawn Field

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Ageing and death

Ask the aged

Who better to answer questions about the purpose of life than someone who has been living theirs for a long time?

Karl Pillemer

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Mood and emotion

The hunger mood

Hunger isn’t in your stomach or your blood-sugar levels. It’s in your mind – and that’s where we need to shape up

Michael Graziano