How the West made Arabs and Berbers into races – Ramzi Rouighi | Aeon Essays
When Europeans colonised North Africa, they imposed their preoccupation with race onto its diverse peoples and...
Psychedelics have the same overview effect as a space journey – Rosalind Watts, Sam Gandy & Alex Evans | Aeon Essays
Psychedelics offer a sense of expansive connectedness, just like astronauts have felt looking back to Earth...
Watch Charles and Ray Eames put their 1969 spin on one of the world’s oldest toys | Aeon Videos
The oldest spinning top ever discovered dates back some 5,500 years, meaning that we’ve been entranced...
Good citizenship depends on basic statistical literacy – David Spiegelhalter | Aeon Essays
A single statistic, or its misuse, can help upend a nation. Civic life depends on a...
How a scientific attempt to demystify Buddhist meditation yielded astounding results | Aeon Videos
In 1981, Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, set out to study the ancient...
Science is deeply imaginative: why is this treated as a secret? – Tom McLeish | Aeon Ideas
My latest book, The Poetry and Music of Science (2019), starts with my experiences of visiting...
Time seems to accelerate as we get older, but there’s a tested way to tap the brakes | Aeon Videos
Most adults seem to agree that the older you get, the quicker time flies by. This feeling...
Why the neurodiversity movement has become harmful – Moheb Costandi | Aeon Essays
The movement has good intentions, but it favours the high-functioning and overlooks those who struggle with...
How the Rosetta space probe brings a distant comet into vivid focus | Aeon Videos
In 2004, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent the Rosetta space probe to explore the comet...
Lolita understood that some sex is transactional. So did I – Tamara MacLeod | Aeon Ideas
There is a moment in Adrian Lyne’s film Lolita (1997) that is burned onto my memory....
How the Many-Worlds theory of Hugh Everett split the Universe – Sean Carroll | Aeon Essays
Hugh Everett blew up quantum mechanics with his Many-Worlds theory in the 1950s. Physics is only...
The ancient world teemed with birds; now we think with them – Jeremy Mynott | Aeon Essays
The Classical world abounded with avians – and so birds took up in the human imagination,...
How an American country music pioneer entered African mythology | Aeon Videos
In 1933, the US country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers died of tuberculosis. Just 35 years old...
On Immanuel Kant’s hydraulic model of moral education – Louise Chapman | Aeon Essays
Immanuel Kant held that moral education is hydraulic: shame squashes down our vices, making space for...
‘When it comes to the end, we all want the same things.’ Why animals need a good death | Aeon Videos
Alexis Fleming has devoted her life to providing palliative care for sick and disabled animals. At...
How time stopped circling and percolating and started running on tracks – Keerthik Sasidharan | Aeon Ideas
Reflecting on Albrecht Altdorfer’s painting Alexanderschlacht (1529), or The Battle of Alexander at Issus, the German...
From stockings to wig, this is how to dress like a proper (18th-century) gentleman | Aeon Videos
Fashion is far from frivolous, and can offer keen anthropological and historical insights into everything from...
‘Old age is a ceremony of losses’: the late poet Donald Hall on a life lived long | Aeon Videos
This short documentary from the New York-based filmmaker Paul Szynol finds the late US Poet Laureate...