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Pam Weintraub

Senior Editor, Aeon+Psyche

Pam is an editor and writer specialising in psychology, neuroscience and the sciences. She has previously worked as executive and features editor at Discover, where her acquisitions were widely anthologised and received numerous national awards; a consulting editor at Psychology Today; and in a range of roles at Omni magazine, from senior editor and editor-at-large to founding editor of Omni online. She is author of 16 books on medicine, psychology and lifestyle, including Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic, which won the American Medical Writers Association book award in 2009. She can be found on Twitter @pam3001.

Written by Pam Weintraub

Edited by Pam Weintraub

A silhouetted figure walking with a dog through a dimly lit tunnel, contrasting with bright concrete walls in the foreground.

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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Targeted

For those who hear voices, the ‘broken brain’ explanation is harmful. Psychiatry must embrace new meaning-making frameworks

Justin Garson

Silhouette of a person walking through a spray of water at sunset with cars and buildings in the background.

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Neuroscience

The melting brain

It’s not just the planet and not just our health – the impact of a warming climate extends deep into our cortical fissures

Clayton Page Aldern

Close-up of a person’s hand using a smartphone in a dimly lit room with blurred lights in the background. The phone screen shows the text ‘How can I help you today?’ and a text input field.

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Computing and artificial intelligence

Mere imitation

Generative AI has lately set off public euphoria: the machines have learned to think! But just how intelligent is AI?

Deepak P

Person in a wheelchair with a laptop, wearing a monitoring cap, and a doctor in a lab coat standing nearby in a clinical setting.

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Illness and disease

Empowering patient research

For far too long, medicine has ignored the valuable insights that patients have into their own diseases. It is time to listen

Charlotte Blease & Joanne Hunt

Close-up of a hand gracefully resting on a naked woman’s torso, soft lighting accentuating the skin’s smooth texture against a dark background.

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Sex and sexuality

Sexual sensation

What makes touch on some parts of the body erotic but not others? Cutting-edge biologists are arriving at new answers

David J Linden

A black-and-white photo of soldiers in uniform checking documents of several men standing outdoors, with laundry hanging in the background.

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Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Decolonising psychology

At times complicit in racism and oppression, psychology has also been a fertile ground for radical and liberatory thought

Rami Gabriel

Painting of a riverside scene with a large windmill, boats on the water, and three women standing on the bank next to a dock, under cloudy sky.

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History of technology

Learning to love monsters

Windmills were once just machines on the land but now seem delightfully bucolic. Could wind turbines win us over too?

Stephen Case

Close-up image of a jumping spider showing its detailed features, including multiple eyes, hairy legs, and fangs. The spider is facing forward with a white background.

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Evolution

What is intelligent life?

Our human minds hold us back from truly understanding the many brilliant ways that other creatures solve their problems

Abigail Desmond & Michael Haslam

Mist-covered city skyline with a calm, reflective body of water in the foreground under a grey sky.

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Pleasure and pain

Eulogy for silence

Tinnitus is like a constant scream inside my head, depriving me of what I formerly treasured: the moments of serene quiet

Diego Ramírez Martín del Campo

A close-up of an orange and black butterfly perched on a leaf with a soft, pastel-coloured background.

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History of ideas

Chaos and cause

Can a butterfly’s wings trigger a distant hurricane? The answer depends on the perspective you take: physics or human agency

Erik Van Aken

Image of a human colon highlighted in blue, with a contrasting yellow-orange background, taken using a medical imaging technique to show the internal structure.

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Illness and disease

Getting past ‘it’s IBS’

While science illuminates the gut-brain relationship, doctors remain ignorant and dismissive of patients with gut problems

Xi Chen

Two embryos, colourised in shades of pink, orange, and purple, against a black background. The embryos have distinguishable head, body, and tail regions.

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Biology

Building embryos

For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway

John Wallingford