Bookmarks (713)

Why we don’t feel pain in dreams, and other brain puzzles that neuronal assemblies might help neuroscientists unlockBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Partly of the earth, partly of our body, the shoe sits on the edge of an ontological threshold. Where can it transport us?By Randy LaistRead at Aeon

Plato’s timeless ‘allegory of the cave’, brought to life with retro-surreal animation and Orson Welles’s narrationBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

For the warriors and wanderers who became the Aztec people, truth was not singular and history was braided from many voicesBy Camilla TownsendRead at Aeon

The ignorant pundit is absolutely certain; the true expert understands their own limits and how to ask the right questionsBy Andrew Little & Matthew BackusRead at Aeon

An elegant meditation on the intersections of streets, stories and social forces that give shape to a Barcelona squareBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Before death became a source of disgust and denial, Europeans cheerfully painted with – and ingested – human remainsBy Michael PressRead at Aeon

How the American Museum of Natural History grappled with its controversial statue of Roosevelt before pulling it downBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Brain-to-brain interfaces promise to bypass language. But do we really want access to one another’s unmediated thoughts?By Mark DingemanseRead at Aeon

‘My battery is low and it’s getting dark’: the sights and sounds of life on Mars before Oppy the rover’s expedition endedBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Being an employee is a threat to your liberty. But while firms exist, compulsory unions are a basic safeguard of freedomBy Mark R ReiffRead at Aeon

Our planet is a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea. Can we learn what lies beyond our own horizons of perception?By Katie MackRead at Aeon

A deadpan glimpse of life aboard a cruise ship, where rituals of excess and organised fun have built a $45 billion industryBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

From Ancient Egypt’s deltas to Edinburgh’s crags and peaks, the city pushes back against the dream of human separatenessBy Sam GrinsellRead at Aeon

Before he pioneered the eight-hour workday, in 1832 Robert Owen tried to reboot currency with his banknote per working hourBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The charge of ‘feminist bias’ is used to besmirch anyone who questions sexist assumptions at work in neuroscienceBy Cordelia FineRead at Aeon

‘Once we are gone, the art of hand weaving itself will die’ – inside the workshop in Kerala still making textiles by handBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Philanthropy is vital – but its mechanisms are as intricate and troubling as the baroque structures of high financeBy Katharyne MitchellRead at Aeon

If language began with gestures around a campfire and secret signals on hunts, why did speech come to dominate communication?By Kensy CooperriderRead at Aeon

The developing cityscape of 1920s New York, framed by Walt Whitman’s poetry and set to a new score, commissioned by AeonBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

By rejecting sampling in favour of exhaustive enumeration, communist China’s dream of total information became a nightmareBy Arunabh GhoshRead at Aeon

Jamie is empathetic and funny – and a ‘complete mystery’ to those who love him. The challenge and blessing of Down’s syndromeBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Breaking free of the 9-to-5 was originally a feminist project. So how did it become part of oppressive 24/7 work culture?By Sarah StollerRead at Aeon

Revisiting the footage of the day in 1969 when a Haida village came together to raise its first totem pole in a centuryBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Neuroscience is finding what propaganda has long known: nostalgia doesn’t need real memories – an imagined past works tooBy Felipe De BrigardRead at Aeon

An operation to remove a brain cyst changed Matthew’s identity. Who will he become after the next round of surgery?By Ben Platts-MillsRead at Aeon

Want to understand homelessness? Witness one woman’s experience of living on London’s streets firsthand, filmed on an iPhoneBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

In Hermann Hesse’s novels, as in his life, self-discovery walked a tightrope between deep insights and profound solipsismBy M M OwenRead at Aeon

A surveillance camera, ‘computer vision’ software and a motorised curtain cause a provocation of privacy in a Berlin streetBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

How a utopian vision of Black freedom and self-government was undone in a world still in thrall to slavery and racismBy Marlene L DautRead at Aeon

The science of climate change has a history that dates back centuries, not decades, and was first begun by a womanBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Like sea monsters on premodern maps, deep-space images are science’s fanciful means to chart the edges of the known worldBy Surekha DaviesRead at Aeon

In awe we hold fast to nature’s strangeness and open up to the unknown. No wonder it’s central to the scientific imaginationBy Helen De CruzRead at Aeon

For decades, Peter lived alone in a Welsh valley – until he found friendship with a fellow ‘dropout’, a sheep he named BenBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

European empires were addicted to opium smoking. Then their own agents launched a moral crusade to prohibit itBy Diana S KimRead at Aeon

Trawling for memories in the wreckage of the deep sea, recovered early 20th-century films offer haunting glimpses of historyBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

For philosopher Henri Bergson, laughter solves a serious human conundrum: how to keep our minds and social lives elasticBy Emily HerringRead at Aeon

Is a red apple proof that all ravens are black? Marc Lange on Carl Gustav Hempel’s counterintuitive paradox of confirmationBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Our system for diagnosing mental disorders doesn’t work. The transdiagnostic model offers a humane, clinically sound alternativeBy Melissa BlackRead at Aeon

They’re not cuddly, they don’t behave at all like us – yet they are sentient. Why fish belong in the moral communityBy Michael WoodruffRead at Aeon

To avoid deportation from the US, Vicky Chavez and her kids moved into a church. They’re still in lockdown, two years onBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Being good is hard. How an ancient Indian emperor, horrified by the cruelty of war, created an infrastructure of goodnessBy Sonam KachruRead at Aeon

The cognitive neuroscientist Anil Seth talks to Aeon about consciousness as a prediction, not a perception, of ‘reality’By Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

From the Black Death to polio, the most dangerous pathogens have moved silently, transmitted by apparently healthy peopleBy Wendy OrentRead at Aeon

This playful British short from 1968 combines lab footage, stop-motion animation and humour to show how dentures are madeBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

How did the city of elegant classicism give birth to an explosive modernism, threatening to destroy its very traditions?By Alexander CarpenterRead at Aeon

Women’s pain is often medically overlooked and undertreated. But the answer is not as simple as ‘believing all women’By Elizabeth BarnesRead at Aeon

Welcome inside the lab that’s using biofeedback from heartbeats and brainwaves to create experimental new music therapiesBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Dark matter is the most ubiquitous thing physicists have never found: it’s time to consider alternative explanationsBy Ramin SkibbaRead at Aeon

Today’s police state is rooted in Bentham’s utilitarian ideas, and exists to protect capitalism more than safety or justiceBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon