Sally Davies

Idea/

Automation & Robotics

Robot cognition requires machines that both think and feel

Luiz Pessoa

Essay/

Medical Research

Viral rescue

When antibiotics fail, could phage therapy succeed? The germ’s-eye view of infection might open up revolutionary treatments

Emily Monosson

Idea/

Physics

Why symmetry gets really interesting when it is broken

Anthony Phillips

Idea/

Sleep & Dreams

The lucid dreaming playbook: how to take charge of your dreams

Denholm Aspy

Essay/

History of Science

What is good science?

Demanding that a theory is falsifiable or observable, without any subtlety, will hold science back. We need madcap ideas

Adam Becker

Idea/

Computing & Artificial Intelligence

Dungeons and Dragons, not chess and Go: why AI needs roleplay

Beth Singler

Essay/

Law & Justice

Facing time

Behind bars in Texas, I saw masculinity in all its violence and vulnerability. Was this the war that men had primed me for?

Steven Powers

Essay/

Race

How to see race

Race is a shapeshifting adversary: what seems self-evident takes training to see, and twists under political pressure

Gregory Smithsimon

Essay/

Political Philosophy

A history of alienation

In the postwar period it was understood to be the fundamental malaise of modern life. Why aren’t we ‘alienated’ any more?

Martin Jay

Essay/

Ethics

The outsider

As a philosopher, I can’t conceal my class. But I prefer the counsel of my grandmother to platitudes about ‘impostor syndrome’

Amy Olberding

Idea/

Bioethics

May the odds be ever in your favour? The politics of prognosis

Joel Michael Reynolds

Essay/

History of Ideas

Two’s a crowd

Zany and earnest, political yet puckish, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari were philosophy’s most improbable duo

Edward Thornton

Idea/

Data & Information

Are ‘you’ just inside your skin or is your smartphone part of you?

Karina Vold

Essay/

Future of Technology

Algorithmic wilderness

Robo-bees and drone-seeded forests: can technology mend our broken relationship with the natural world?

Henry Mance

Idea/

Future of Technology

The tech bias: why Silicon Valley needs social theory

Jess Bier

Essay/

Human Evolution

To automate is human

It’s not tools, culture or communication that make humans unique but our knack for offloading dirty work onto machines

Antone Martinho-Truswell

Idea/

History of Science

What a fossil revolution reveals about the history of ‘big data’

David Sepkoski

Essay/

Ecology & Environmental Sciences

The African Anthropocene

The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are – too often, the ‘we’ of the world is white and Western

Gabrielle Hecht

Idea/

Philosophy of Science

You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time

Elise Crull

Idea/

Gender

Gender is dead, long live gender: just what is ‘performativity’?

Will Fraker

Essay/

Philosophy of Mind

Are you sleepwalking now?

Given how little control we have of our wandering minds, how can we cultivate real mental autonomy?

Thomas Metzinger

Essay/

Evolution

Evolution unleashed

Is evolutionary science due for a major overhaul – or is talk of ‘revolution’ misguided?

Kevin Laland

Idea/

Biology

Biodiversity isn’t just pretty: it future-proofs our world

Elizabeth Boakes

Essay/

Philosophy of Mind

Getting in the groove

Music reminds us that the mind is more than a calculator. We are resonant bodies as much as representing machines

Jenny Judge

Essay/

Neurodiversity

The autism paradox

How an autism diagnosis became both a clinical label and an identity; a stigma to be challenged and a status to be embraced

Bonnie Evans

Idea/

Gender & Sexuality

Men want beauty, women want wealth, and other unscientific tosh

Marcel Zentner

Essay/

Biology

The minds of plants

From the memories of flowers to the sociability of trees, the cognitive capacities of our vegetal cousins are all around us

Laura Ruggles

Idea/

Neuroscience

‘Let the soul dangle’: how mind-wandering spurs creativity

Julia Christensen, Guido Giglioni & Manos Tsakiris

Idea/

Philosophy of Science

Black holes are simpler than forests and science has its limits

Martin Rees

Essay/

Philosophy of Science

Metaphysics of metamorphosis

The swarming, ever-changing character of the living world challenges our deepest assumptions about the nature of reality

John Dupré

Support Aeon

‘I learn more about how to think about the world from Aeon than probably any other publication I regularly read.’

Edited by Sally Davies

When antibiotics fail, could phage therapy succeed? The germ’s-eye view of infection might open up revolutionary treatments

Demanding that a theory is falsifiable or observable, without any subtlety, will hold science back. We need madcap ideas

Behind bars in Texas, I saw masculinity in all its violence and vulnerability. Was this the war that men had primed me for?

Race is a shapeshifting adversary: what seems self-evident takes training to see, and twists under political pressure

In the postwar period it was understood to be the fundamental malaise of modern life. Why aren’t we ‘alienated’ any more?

As a philosopher, I can’t conceal my class. But I prefer the counsel of my grandmother to platitudes about ‘impostor syndrome’

Zany and earnest, political yet puckish, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari were philosophy’s most improbable duo

Robo-bees and drone-seeded forests: can technology mend our broken relationship with the natural world?

It’s not tools, culture or communication that make humans unique but our knack for offloading dirty work onto machines

The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are – too often, the ‘we’ of the world is white and Western

Given how little control we have of our wandering minds, how can we cultivate real mental autonomy?

Is evolutionary science due for a major overhaul – or is talk of ‘revolution’ misguided?

Music reminds us that the mind is more than a calculator. We are resonant bodies as much as representing machines

How an autism diagnosis became both a clinical label and an identity; a stigma to be challenged and a status to be embraced

From the memories of flowers to the sociability of trees, the cognitive capacities of our vegetal cousins are all around us

The swarming, ever-changing character of the living world challenges our deepest assumptions about the nature of reality

Recent conversations

Support Aeon

‘I learn more about how to think about the world from Aeon than probably any other publication I regularly read.’

Subscribe to our newsletter

Daily/weekly updates on everything new at Aeon.

Edited by Sally Davies

When antibiotics fail, could phage therapy succeed? The germ’s-eye view of infection might open up revolutionary treatments

Demanding that a theory is falsifiable or observable, without any subtlety, will hold science back. We need madcap ideas

Behind bars in Texas, I saw masculinity in all its violence and vulnerability. Was this the war that men had primed me for?

Race is a shapeshifting adversary: what seems self-evident takes training to see, and twists under political pressure

In the postwar period it was understood to be the fundamental malaise of modern life. Why aren’t we ‘alienated’ any more?

As a philosopher, I can’t conceal my class. But I prefer the counsel of my grandmother to platitudes about ‘impostor syndrome’

Zany and earnest, political yet puckish, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari were philosophy’s most improbable duo

Robo-bees and drone-seeded forests: can technology mend our broken relationship with the natural world?

It’s not tools, culture or communication that make humans unique but our knack for offloading dirty work onto machines

The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are – too often, the ‘we’ of the world is white and Western

Given how little control we have of our wandering minds, how can we cultivate real mental autonomy?

Is evolutionary science due for a major overhaul – or is talk of ‘revolution’ misguided?

Music reminds us that the mind is more than a calculator. We are resonant bodies as much as representing machines

How an autism diagnosis became both a clinical label and an identity; a stigma to be challenged and a status to be embraced

From the memories of flowers to the sociability of trees, the cognitive capacities of our vegetal cousins are all around us

The swarming, ever-changing character of the living world challenges our deepest assumptions about the nature of reality

Recent conversations