Once the dust has settled

After the closure of a mine that once gave the town its name, the residents of Asbestos long for its industrial past - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Dominion

To take care of the Earth, humans must recognise that we are both a part of the animal kingdom and its dominant power - by Hugh Desmond Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

The last great stigma

Workers with mental illness experience discrimination that would be unthinkable for other health issues. Can this change? - by Pernille Yilmam Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

The bug you didn’t know you were eating

The otherwise unremarkable insect from Mexico that’s used to make the most dazzling and coveted crimson colour - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Quantum dialectics

When quantum mechanics posed a threat to the Marxist doctrine of materialism, communist physicists sought to reconcile the two - by Jim Baggott Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

That Yorkshire sound

An animated day-in-the-life of this historic English county travels from market to dale to capture its northern essence - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Folk music was never green

Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree - by Richard Smyth Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Plunge into a black hole

This NASA simulation lets viewers into the extraordinary spectacle of entering a blackhole (minus the spaghettification) - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

A United States of Europe

A free and unified Europe was first imagined by Italian radicals in the 19th century. Could we yet see their dream made real? - by Fernanda Gallo Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

On Jewish revenge

What might a people, subjected to unspeakable historical suffering, think about the ethics of vengeance once in power? - by Shachar Pinsker Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Birches

‘So was I once myself a swinger of birches’ – Robert Frost reads his celebrated poem on yearning for the freedoms of youth - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Building embryos

For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway - by John Wallingford Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Ur heinous habit

The target of a sextortion scam upends the experience by soliciting his friends’ views on masturbation and shame - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Sitting on the art

Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own - by Emma Crichton Miller Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Irani bag

Men and women can’t touch in Iranian cinema, so filmmakers creatively work around the ban by using props as a go-between - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Learning to be happier

In order to help improve my students’ mental health, I offered a course on the science of happiness. It worked – but why? - by Bruce Hood Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Acid media

How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD - by Erik Davis Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

[Closer captions]

Captioning dialogue is one thing; captioning sound is another. This is how the artist Christine Sun Kim would do it - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Last hours of an organ donor

In the liminal time when the brain is dead but organs are kept alive, there is an urgent tenderness to medical care - by Ronald W Dworkin Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Hypatia of Alexandria

Meet Hypatia of Alexandria, a rare female – and moderate secular – public intellectual, who was murdered by religious zealots - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Decoupling

We need to find a way for human societies to prosper while the planet heals. So far we can’t even think clearly about it - by Ville Lähde Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

A portrait of Arthur Erickson

Profile of the pioneering Canadian architect whose modernist designs disintegrated boundaries between structure and place - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Why make art in the dark?

New research transports us back to the shadowy firelight of ancient caves, imagining the minds and feelings of the artist - by Izzy Wisher Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Do liberal arts liberate?

In Jack London’s novel, Martin Eden personifies debates still raging over the role and purpose of education in American life - by Nick Romeo Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

Witch: a tag that shapes social networks

A novel study in rural China suggests that witchcraft accusations may have arisen as a means of damaging female competitors - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

India and indigeneity

In a country of such extraordinary diversity, the UN definition of ‘indigenous’ does little more than fuel ethnic violence - by Dikshit Sarma Bhagabati Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 7 months ago

The skatebook

‘60 per cent community, 40 per cent skateboarding’ – a portrait of London’s growing skate scene on animated sketchbook pages - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Alien life is no joke

Not long ago the search for extraterrestrials was considered laughable nonsense. Today, it’s serious and scientific - by Adam Frank Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

My blonde GF

‘This girl, this woman, this… me?’ Helen shares her horrifying experience of being deepfaked for pornography - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Reimagining balance

In the Middle Ages, a new sense of balance fundamentally altered our understanding of nature and society - by Joel Kaye Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

What would Thucydides say?

In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian - by Mark Fisher Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Here, hopefully

For an aspiring nurse, staying in the US holds out the precarious promise of a life far from China’s strict gender norms - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Emergency action

Could civil disobedience be morally obligatory in a society on a collision course with climate catastrophe? - by Rupert Read Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Cracking chirality: the mystery of mirror molecules

There’s a mystery of mirror molecules at the origin of life on Earth – and these scientists may have solved it - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Return of the descendants

I migrated to my ancestral homeland in a search for identity. It proved to be a humbling experience in (un)belonging - by Jessica Buchleitner Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Anaiyyun: prayer for the whale

For an Iñupiat whaling crew north of the Arctic Circle, waiting on the ice for the migration of whales is an act of prayer - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Credit card nation

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards? - by Sean H Vanatta Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

The enchanted vision

Love is much more than a mere emotion or moral ideal. It imbues the world itself and we should learn to move with its power - by Mark Vernon Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Laura Mersini-Houghton: a quantum multiverse

Cosmologists understand what happened after the Big Bang. But what was our Universe before then? Enter the quantum multiverse - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

What is ‘lived experience’?

The term is ubiquitous and double-edged. It is both a key source of authentic knowledge and a danger to true solidarity - by Patrick J Casey Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Purple mountain

For a truly ‘naive melody’, listen as musicians try to mirror a song in realtime, accompanied by a dreamy animation - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

My elusive pain

The lives of North Africans in France are shaped by a harrowing struggle to belong, marked by postcolonial trauma - by Farah Abdessamad Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Nowruz

Jumping the fire and shaking the house: a joyful beginner’s guide to the ancient Persian celebration of spring renewal - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Philosophy is an art

For Margaret Macdonald, philosophical theories are akin to stories, meant to enlarge certain aspects of human life - by Peter West Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

How to make a map of smell

We can split light by a prism, sounds by tones, but surely the world of odour is too complex and personal? Strangely, no - by Jason Castro Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Bygone visions of cosmic neighbours

Ever since astronomers have looked to the skies, they’ve filled their knowledge gaps with wild theories of alien life - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

Conscientious unbelievers

How, a century ago, radical freethinkers quietly and persistently subverted Scotland’s Christian establishment - by Felicity Loughlin Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago

The takeover

‘God gave me enough power to fight for my rights’ – hear the voices of women across Afghanistan over a year of Taliban rule - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 8 months ago