Sally Davies
Senior Editor, Aeon+Psyche
Sally is a writer and editor with interests spanning science, philosophy, feminism and the arts. She was digital editor of FT Weekend and the technology and innovation correspondent for the Financial Times. Sally founded the Libreria bookshop in east London as its director, and was on the original editorial team of Nautilus Magazine. She can be found on Twitter @daviesally.
Written by Sally Davies
Edited by Sally Davies
essay
Metaphysics
We are interwoven beings
A dragon needs the clouds and the wind in order to fly. What happens when we too relinquish individualistic reasoning?
Mercedes Valmisa
essay
Evolution
Fortune favours the shrewd
Attaining and maintaining power lies at the heart of almost all animal societies. And it’s as devious as human politicking
Lee Alan Dugatkin
essay
Evolution
What on earth is a xenobot?
The more we understand how cells produce shape and form, the more inadequate the idea of a genomic blueprint looks
Philip Ball
essay
Ethics
Through the eyes of another
It’s impossible to shed our individual biases. So the best way to establish objectivity is by taking on new perspectives
Heidi Maibom
essay
Evolution
Connected-up-brains
Bat friends, monkeys sharing, and humans holding hands: the brains of social animals synchronise and expand one another
Sofia Quaglia
essay
Quantum theory
Quantum Wittgenstein
Metaphysical debates in quantum physics don’t get at ‘truth’ – they’re nothing but a form of ritual, activity and culture
Timothy Andersen
essay
Stories and literature
Kafka the hypochondriac
Franz Kafka believed illness was at the root of his writing yet he embraced wellness fads with hearty vigour
Will Rees
essay
Cognition and intelligence
Modular cognition
Powerful tricks from computer science and cybernetics show how evolution ‘hacked’ its way to intelligence from the bottom up
Michael Levin & Rafael Yuste
essay
Design and fashion
The Waste Age
Recognising that waste is central, not peripheral, to everything we design, make and do is key to transforming the future
Justin McGuirk
essay
Evolution
Promethean beasts
Far from being hardwired to flee fire, some animals use it to their own ends, helping us understand our own pyrocognition
Ivo Jacobs
essay
Space exploration
Decolonising the cosmos
Instead of treating Mars and the Moon as sites of conquest and settlement, we need a radical new ethics of space exploration
Ramin Skibba
essay
Human evolution
Homo imaginatus
Imagination isn’t just a spillover from our problem-solving prowess. It might be the core of what human brains evolved to do
Philip Ball