Here’s a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal play? - by Mathilde Tahar-Malaussena Read at Aeon | Continue reading
A playful collage of audio interviews captures candid and revealing reflections on love, sex and marriage in Sierra Leone - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Fifty years ago it was one of India’s poorest states, now it is now one of the richest. How did Kerala do it? - by Tirthankar Roy & K Ravi Raman Read at Aeon | Continue reading
In the remote Himalayas, ice stupas are an elegant yet desperate response to climate change, and a plea to the world to care - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Oscar Wilde is an icon of gay liberation from secrecy. But his life and his sexuality were not so simple – nor so binary - by Sam Mills Read at Aeon | Continue reading
‘If I’m gonna to be this person, I gotta live by morals and standards’: how one man left his old life behind to start anew - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Humans have a superpower that makes us uniquely capable of controlling the world: our ability to understand cause and effect - by Mariel Goddu Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Join a ‘computer dating’ meetup in 1966 in this short video to see what has – and hasn’t – changed in tech-assisted dating - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
The future of food is nutritious and sustainable – if we can overcome our instinctual revulsion to insects and lab-grown meat - by Alexandra Plakias Read at Aeon | Continue reading
‘My dad will be gone by the time I reach him’ – a filmmaker captures the first time their father forgets who they are - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
When medieval scholars sought to understand the nature of angels, they unwittingly laid the foundations of modern physics - by Rebekah Wallace Read at Aeon | Continue reading
How three communities on North America’s west coast find meaning by interacting with the flight paths of migratory seabirds - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Millions are turning to an unregulated herbal extract to curb their opioid addiction. But do the risks outweigh the benefits? - by Xi Chen Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Cambridge, home of analytic philosophy, was also a hotbed of psychical research. How did this spooky subject take root? - by Matyáš Moravec Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Two Indian storytellers give intersecting and conflicting accounts of the same Hindu myth in this dazzling animation - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries to annex their neighbours - by Kerry Goettlich Read at Aeon | Continue reading
A glimpse at the lives of preteen influencers Peyton and Lyla in rural Alabama as they switch between performance and reality - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
In the mountains of South Africa, the dispossessed locals bear the burden of the green economy without sharing in its gains - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences - by Benjy Barnett Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy is dynamic and challenging, but also elegant and lucidly written: she is the thinker of our time - by Brandon Robshaw Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Snippets from a full day in a 24-hour diner make up this 13-minute short, offering a brief yet rich glimpse into diverse lives - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Those with this little-known trait think more deeply and feel more empathy. But they also deal with significant challenges - by Elaine Aron Read at Aeon | Continue reading
‘Designed to be ignored’ – uncover the surprisingly fascinating origins of background music in this video essay on Erik Satie - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Glimpse into the daily life of a female shaman who hosts ayahuasca ceremonies for tourists in the Peruvian Amazon - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
For years, I practised medicine with cool certainty, comfortable with life-and-death decisions. Then, one day, I couldn’t - by Ronald W Dworkin Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Byung-Chul Han’s relentless critiques of digital capitalism reveal how this suffocating system creates hollowed-out lives - by Josh Cohen Read at Aeon | Continue reading
One in three parasitic species is in danger. Here’s why humans may need to power through the ‘ick’ to save them - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Early childhood development interventions in the Global South is a huge industry built on highly questionable assumptions - by Francesca Mezzenzana & Gabriel Scheidecker Read at Aeon | Continue reading
What is the meaning of ‘now’? An Italian physicist takes us on a journey to the edges of our understanding of time - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
The consulting office reflects the personality of the therapist, while also subtly shaping the experience of their patients - by Anna Parker Read at Aeon | Continue reading
When Lars von Trier seeks applications for a ‘female girlfriend/muse’, a filmmaker puts forward her 72-year-old lesbian neighbour - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Since states are founded on violence and expulsion, their existence is always bound up in thorny questions about justice - by Andrew F March Read at Aeon | Continue reading
We can now create compelling experiences of talking with our dead. Is this ghoulish, therapeutic or something else again? - by Amy Kurzweil & Daniel Story Read at Aeon | Continue reading
River bank or bank account? How chatbots learned to make the quantum leap to context by training on billions of prompts - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Though natural selection favours self-interest, humans are extraordinarily good at cooperating with one another. Why? - by Saira Khan Read at Aeon | Continue reading
In this immersive portrait of play, children transform the streets of Havana into a racetrack with handmade ‘chivichanas’ - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
When I moved to India for work, I found that rape was a cultural feature of the country, as deeply embedded as caste - by Evelyn Fok Read at Aeon | Continue reading
‘I think that freedom everywhere, anywhere is love.’ Father Giles, a monk for 47 years, shares his radical view of freedom - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Nothing lasts forever: not humanity, not Earth, not the Universe. But finitude confers an indelible meaning to our lives - by Thomas Moynihan Read at Aeon | Continue reading
In order to bridge the yawning gulf between the humanities and the sciences we must turn to an unexpected field: mathematics - by Gordon Gillespie Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Striking slow-motion footage captures the awesome evolutionary diversity – and handy usefulness – of a lizard’s tongue - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
For most of history, the Moon was regarded as a mysterious and powerful object. Then scientists made it into a destination - by Danny Robb Read at Aeon | Continue reading
‘Will you send us our wages for the time that we served you?’ A freed slave answers his old master’s request to come back - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that its greatest practitioners were bachelors - by Ellie Robson Read at Aeon | Continue reading
A ceramicist puts a playful twist on Italian Renaissance pottery with dirty jokes, emojis and colourful commentary on menopause - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
By understanding the pernicious myths surrounding poverty, we can make progress towards a lofty goal: dignity for all - by Anirudh Krishna & Dirk Philipsen Read at Aeon | Continue reading
Humans are both the gravest threat and the greatest hope for the survival of the rare hoolock gibbons in northeast India - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading
Moral panics about erotica have coursed through the country’s history. Why do so many Americans think of porn as harm? - by Rebecca L Davis Read at Aeon | Continue reading