It ignited life on Earth, propelled evolution, and now signals climate change. Yet what sparks lightning remains a mystery | Continue reading
To reason is not only to decide: what if reason is simply the power to do the right thing in the right circumstances? | Continue reading
Neurofeedback can put thoughts in your head and help you conquer phobias – even when you’re unaware of what it’s doing | Continue reading
The great split between science and philosophy must be repaired. Only then can we answer the urgent, fundamental problems | Continue reading
Too much theory and not enough history leads contemporary economists to make poor predictions | Continue reading
As of 2019, some 20 British nationals have left home to join the fight against ISIS in Syria. Eight have died in the process. What’s leading Britons – mostly young civilians – to abandon the relative comforts of home and fight on the frontlines alongside people with whom they had … | Continue reading
Neurofeedback can put thoughts in your head and help you conquer phobias – even when you’re unaware of what it’s doing | Continue reading
Too much theory and not enough history leads contemporary economists to make poor predictions | Continue reading
When your reasons are worse than useless, sometimes the most rational choice is a random stab in the dark | Continue reading
Elections are flawed and can’t be redeemed – it’s time to start choosing our representatives by lottery | Continue reading
In classical ballet, a pas de deux (‘step of two’ in French) is a duet that showcases the skills of masterful dancers. This BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated short from 1968 marries two distinct kinds of virtuosity – the innovative cinematography of the late Scottish-Cana … | Continue reading
Like the emperor’s new clothes, genetic ancestry kits provide a story tailored to flatter the vain and the status-hungry | Continue reading
The great split between science and philosophy must be repaired. Only then can we answer the urgent, fundamental problems | Continue reading
One of the earliest references to the modern Tooth Fairy – that enigmatic trader of cold, hard cash for defunct deciduous teeth – is found in a 1908 ‘Household Hints’ item in the Chicago Daily Tribune:If he takes his little tooth and puts it under the pillow when he goes to bed, … | Continue reading
When Descartes untangled mind from matter, he ushered in an age of disenchantment that did nothing for our mental health | Continue reading
The influential Scottish-born psychiatrist R D Laing established an innovative approach to alleviating psychological anguish when, in 1965, he co-founded the Philadelphia Association. The organisation, which still operates in London, is centred on a communal approach to wellbeing … | Continue reading
New parents face intense moral pressure from every quarter to breastfeed their babies. But sometimes bottle is best | Continue reading
Neither wholly a theologian nor a pure scientist – how Carl Jung’s collective unconscious inspired Alcoholics Anonymous | Continue reading
Neither wholly a theologian nor a pure scientist – how Carl Jung’s collective unconscious inspired Alcoholics Anonymous | Continue reading
Farmed animals have personalities, smarts, even a sense of agency. Why then do we saddle them with lives of utter despair? | Continue reading
Women loved Bergson’s philosophy of creativity, change and freedom, but their enthusiasm fuelled a backlash against him | Continue reading
Why is it so enjoyable to drink something that sets off little explosions in your mouth? On the physics of carbonation | Continue reading
An unusually inventive instance of digital art, A Brief History of Almost Everything in Five Minutes is a sped-up excerpt from the hour-long multichannel video installation Deep Meditations. The London-based, Turkish-born visual artist Memo Akten created the piece by entering bro … | Continue reading
Once local and irregular, time-keeping became universal and linear in 311 BCE. History would never be the same again | Continue reading
An unusually inventive instance of digital art, A Brief History of Almost Everything in Five Minutes is a sped-up excerpt from the hour-long multichannel video installation Deep Meditations. The London-based, Turkish-born visual artist Memo Akten created the piece by entering bro … | Continue reading
Emotional labour today is like brain work last century. Safe from automation, will it be outsourced and professionalised? | Continue reading
Once local and irregular, time-keeping became universal and linear in 311 BCE. History would never be the same again | Continue reading
‘In this great ocean, many have found still another island, which is called Vinland, since there grow wild grapes. But beyond, everything is filled with intolerable ice and terrible fog.’ – Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (c1070)Up until the 1960s, the e … | Continue reading
Women loved Bergson’s philosophy of creativity, change and freedom, but their enthusiasm fuelled a backlash against him | Continue reading
Through climate engineering and gene drives, we are consciously remaking Earth’s metabolism. Welcome to the synthetic age | Continue reading
Practising the Greek virtues of wisdom and courage is one thing. But being cheerful the American way borders on psychosis | Continue reading
The smart stay smart while the dumb get dumber: why streaming schoolchildren by ability fails to benefit the majority | Continue reading
Caddisflies are popular on the fly-fishing scene, where anglers do their best to emulate the stream-scavenging creatures in their mature form. But like most aquatic insects, caddisflies actually spend the vast majority of their lives underwater in their larval stage, where they c … | Continue reading
The smart stay smart while the dumb get dumber: why streaming schoolchildren by ability fails to benefit the majority | Continue reading
As for most ancient philosophers, Lucretius saw no boundary between his scientific interests and his ethical claims | Continue reading
‘I get tickles... like on the first day I saw him and fell in love with him.’Maribel is in love – or, at least the innocent version of it that a nine-year-old might experience. Sitting in her bedroom in Pueblo Textil in Cuba, dressed in her school uniform, Maribel recounts her se … | Continue reading
Practising the Greek virtues of wisdom and courage is one thing. But being cheerful the American way borders on psychosis | Continue reading
Macho swagger and a hard-man mask that never slips: how prison culture can affect the individual’s sense of self | Continue reading
We can analyse how fashion works by breaking it down into networks of style elements. What role, then, for human creativity? | Continue reading
Coordinated to correspond with Canada’s centennial, the 1967 International and Universal Exposition (Expo 67) is widely considered as one of the most notable and successful World’s Fairs ever held. The retro-futuristic residues of the mega-event can still be experienced where it … | Continue reading
Existence precedes likes: when personal agency is digitised by Big Data, it creates an online blueprint for humanity | Continue reading
The brain makes no distinction between a broken bone and an aching heart. That’s why social exclusion needs a health warning | Continue reading
Growing up in the port city of Haifa, now in northern Israel, the Jewish Israeli filmmaker Iris Zaki rarely developed relationships or engaged in meaningful conversations with her Arab neighbours. In her short The Shampoo Summit, Zaki sets out to broaden her perspective of the ci … | Continue reading
Strolling paw to foot with Yuni in the Rockies, I wonder: will be ever know the difference between a wolf and a dog? | Continue reading
As for most ancient philosophers, Lucretius saw no boundary between his scientific interests and his ethical claims | Continue reading
Science today is an intricate, collaborative, global enterprise. Nobel prizes for individual scientists are an anachronism | Continue reading
We give mice and dogs ethical protections, so why not AIs? On the future conditions for robot rights | Continue reading
Artists in the miniatures world tend to focus their passion for detailing on period pieces fit for museum displays, drawing rooms or libraries. However, the British miniaturists Kath Holden and her mother Margaret Shaw of Delph Miniatures in Bradford, Yorkshire, have carved out t … | Continue reading