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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

Infrared image of the Milky Way shows a glowing red band of stars across a blue background, indicating cosmic dust and gas.

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History of science

The light beyond sight

Only a tiny sliver of the Universe’s light can be seen by human eyes. But today we’re catching glimpses of the invisible

Corey S Powell

A rocky cliff with natural caves and green vegetation growing on the surface.

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Human evolution

The other Homo sapiens

We are just one branch of a diverse human family tree. Aside from Neanderthals, who were they – and why did we replace them?

Nick Longrich

A silhouetted figure sitting on a chair behind frosted glass partitions in a waiting room with overhead lights.

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Illness and disease

Permission to be ill

It took months for my functional neurological disorder to finally be diagnosed. It’s a condition that must be recognised

Kevin Aho

Enhanced image of Ceres’ surface showing a bright crater and stars in space.

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Space exploration

Have they been here?

When we look for extraterrestrials, we often peer into the depths of space. But alien life might be closer than you think

Ravi Kopparapu & Jacob Haqq Misra

Photo of the Phaistos Disc, an ancient clay tablet with spiral symbols, on a black background.

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Language and linguistics

The lonely life of a glyph-breaker

The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever see that happen again?

Francesco Perono Cacciafoco

Four girls sitting on a riverbank, sitting in two groups of two; three upright and one lying down, with backpacks and bags nearby.

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Neurodiversity

Autism’s missing women

Long believed to be particularly associated with males, new research is revolutionising our understanding of autism

Gina Rippon

Dried ground leaves being poured from a scoop into a container indoors.

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Addiction

The kratom question

Millions are turning to an unregulated herbal extract to curb their opioid addiction. But do the risks outweigh the benefits?

Xi Chen

Photo of a crowd with a focused young woman looking to the side, surrounded by blurred faces in the foreground.

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Personality

The highly sensitive person

Those with this little-known trait think more deeply and feel more empathy. But they also deal with significant challenges

Elaine Aron

Photo of two surgeons in blue scrubs and masks focused on a procedure, with one surgeon’s glasses reflecting the surgery.

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Medicine

When I lost my intuition

For years, I practised medicine with cool certainty, comfortable with life-and-death decisions. Then, one day, I couldn’t

Ronald W Dworkin

Photo of children playing in the desert in windy conditions, with sand swirling around them and smiles on their faces.

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Childhood and adolescence

Hegemony and childcare

Early childhood development interventions in the Global South is a huge industry built on highly questionable assumptions

Francesca Mezzenzana & Gabriel Scheidecker

Black-and-white photo of the Moon’s surface with craters, with a distant Earth visible on the horizon in space.

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Space exploration

How the Moon became a place

For most of history, the Moon was regarded as a mysterious and powerful object. Then scientists made it into a destination

Danny Robb

Aerial photo of a winding river through lush green rainforest with dramatic cloud formations in the sky above.

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Public health

Hearts and brains

Humans always end up with clogged arteries, right? That’s not what the lives of the Tsimane in the Amazon basin tell us

Ben Daitz