It’s great to learn music as a child – except when it’s no fun at all | Aeon Videos
There's a romanticised view that learning music as a child is a profoundly enriching experience, that...
If you believe in nihilism, do you believe in anything? – Nolen Gertz | Aeon Essays
The risk of nihilism is that it alienates us from anything good or true. Yet believing...
Cancer is the voracious animal that early moderns imagined – Ellen Wayland-Smith | Aeon Essays
It is a crab; no, a worm; no, a wolf. Early physicians weren’t entirely wrong to...
Would you rather have a fish or know how to fish? – Jonny Robinson | Aeon Ideas
Imagine the following. You are living a life with enough money and health and time so...
Chinese New Year is a stunning spectacle of human migration in 3 billion journeys | Aeon Videos
Chinese New Year (also known as Lunar New Year), which starts on the new moon that...
How pornography works to undermine women’s freedom of speech – Guy Longworth | Aeon Essays
It’s one thing to say something. It’s quite another for a person to do (or not...
Ancient animistic beliefs live on in our intimacy with tech – Stephen T Asma | Aeon Ideas
When Alexa replied to my question about the weather by tacking on ‘Have a nice day,’...
‘I feel the weight of everyone’: Keeth Smart foiled death to make it to the Olympics | Aeon Videos
Olympic athletes have, by definition, overcome overwhelming odds. But even among such a class of people,...
Why we need an absence of noise to hear anything important – Liam Heneghan | Aeon Essays
Our cities are filled by the hubbub of human-made noise. Where shall we find the quietness...
The evidence for evidence-based therapy is not as clear as we thought – Alexander Williams & John Sakaluk | Aeon Ideas
Over the past decade, many scholars have questioned the credibility of research across a variety of...
Being a stand-up comedian is hard. It’s even harder when it’s against your religion | Aeon Videos
Have you heard this one before? An ultra-Orthodox Jew breaks the rules by going online, falls...
Find something morally sickening? Take a ginger pill – Jessica Tracy | Aeon Ideas
If I were to say that I’m thinking about having sex with my stepbrother, I guess...
A cabbie’s tour of his Welsh hometown where the jobs are gone but the stories remain | Aeon Videos
A generation ago, the Welsh valley town of Maesteg was a booming coal mining and manufacturing...
The conversation about American torture is 400 years old – William Fitzhugh Brundage | Aeon Essays
For 400 years, Americans have argued that their violence is justified while the violence of others...
What can we learn from the perennial philosophy of Aldous Huxley? – Jules Evans | Aeon Essays
Aldous Huxley argued that all religions in the world were underpinned by universal beliefs and experiences....
The ‘organic child’ ideal holds mothers to an impossible standard – Kate Cairns, Norah MacKendrick & Josée Johnston | Aeon Ideas
Last year, a widely publicised study found that eating an exclusively organic diet drastically reduces a...
The school where children make the rules and learn what they want to learn | Aeon Videos
Established in 1921 by the Scottish writer and educator Alexander Sutherland Neill (1883-1973), Summerhill School in...
How gods beat astronomers in the solar system name game – Stephen Case | Aeon Essays
How the quick thinking of internationally minded astronomers avoided stamping the solar system with petty European...