How Hokusai’s Great Wave emerged from Japan’s isolation to become a global icon | Aeon Videos
Why Hokusai’s Great Wave – created amid Japanese isolation – became a resounding artistic and commercial...
Watch the elegant flow of a sheep herd, seen from the sky above Israel | Aeon Videos
A quick peek into the dynamics of herding behaviours in this mesmerising dance of sheep viewed...
Why is the English spelling system so weird and inconsistent? | Aeon Essays
Why is English spelling so weird and unpredictable? Don’t blame the mix of languages; look to...
How would a piano sound on Mars? Embark on an interplanetary sonic journey | Aeon Videos
How would a piano sound on Mars? Explore real and speculated soundscapes in this absorbing CGI...
Emergency first responders meet chaos with dissonant calm in this gripping short | Aeon Videos
Emergency first responders working the graveyard shift in San Francisco field life-or-death calls – then try...
The fractal consciousness of Dante’s Divine Comedy | Aeon Essays
At 700, Dante’s Divine Comedy is as modern as ever – a lesson in spiritual intelligence...
Not a lost kingdom but a parable – how to read Athens in Plato’s story of Atlantis | Aeon Videos
The half-gods of Plato’s Atlantis never existed, but their story still has much to teach us...
We should explore alternatives to the Standard Model of physics | Aeon Essays
Most cosmologists say dark matter must exist. So far, it’s nowhere to be found. A widely...
What do we know about social attachment and human nature? | Aeon Essays
From cradle to grave, we are soothed and rocked by attachments – our source of joy...
Albert Camus built a philosophy of humanity on a foundation of absurdity | Aeon Videos
Albert Camus’s philosophy charts a path to humanity that shows why we should learn to stop...
Why the history of the vast early America matters today | Aeon Essays
There is no American history without the histories of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. And this past...
When two punk bands came to a psychiatric hospital, beautiful chaos ensued | Aeon Videos
The chaotic and joyful musical moment in 1978 when two punk bands came to play at...
Empires, pandemics and the economic future of the West | Aeon Essays
What can the decline of the Roman Empire and the end of European feudalism tell us...
Gear up for a stylish celebration of vintage motorcycle design | Aeon Videos
Take a ride on the retro side with this stylish celebration of classic motorcycle design of...
Why disagreement is vital to advancing human understanding | Aeon Essays
Disagreements can be unpleasant, even offensive, but they are vital to human reason. Without them we...
For Simone Weil, our capacity to suffer united us all | Aeon Essays
Simone Weil: mystic, philosopher, activist. Her ethics demand that we look beyond the personal and find...
A balanced account of Nero’s life reveals the ‘editing and destruction’ of history-making | Aeon Videos
Popular culture sees Nero as a sadist. The artefacts tell a more balanced story, revealing how...
Why we need to discuss a death in the family with the children | Aeon Essays
We no longer have a clear sense of how to introduce our children to death. But...
An ode to the humble rotifer – one of nature’s simplest and strangest creatures | Aeon Videos
An ode to the rotifer – how these microscopic creatures live, die and dry out, entering...
How deep brain stimulation changes a person’s sense of confidence – Julian Kiverstein, Erik Rietveld & Damiaan Denys | Aeon Essays
Deep brain stimulation not only treats psychiatric disease – it changes the whole person, boosting confidence...
Shoddy filmmaking meets the miracle of life in a police training film turned cult classic | Aeon Videos
Shoddy filmmaking, stiff acting, clinical dialogue – yes! The cult thrill of a 1960s police training...
Our epistemic crisis is essentially ethical and so are its solutions – Richard V Reeves | Aeon Essays
Our crisis of public knowledge is an ethical crisis. Rewarding ‘truthfulness’ above ‘truth’ is a step...
Asteroid mining could pay for space exploration and adventure – Martin Elvis | Aeon Essays
Asteroids could pay for so much space exploration. We just need to mine those valuable resources...
Check in to the Hilbert Hotel, and learn why some infinities are bigger than others | Aeon Videos
Some infinities are bigger than others – to understand why, you’ll need to check in to...
When it came to sex and gender, Margaret Mead had it both ways – Elesha J Coffman | Aeon Essays
Mead, so radical about gender and sex in her early work, doubled down on the differences...
The buzzes, clanks and whirrs of prison life form a meditation on freedom | Aeon Videos
With their buzzes, clanks and whirrs, the rhythms of prison life form a meditation on conformity...
Here are responsible shareholder tactics that actually work – Ellen Quigley | Aeon Essays
Everyone on the planet has a stake in making investment more ethical. What’s new is that...
The demographic shift isn’t driving white people to the Right – Mark R Reiff | Aeon Essays
It’s become a commonplace that demographic anxiety is driving white voters to the far Right. This...
Colonialism is built on the rubble of a false idea of ancient Rome – Jamie Mackay | Aeon Essays
White supremacists fetishise ancient Rome – but antiquity was more diverse and polychromatic than racists will admitBy...
A climate activist living off-grid faces her toughest challenge yet – a new primary school | Aeon Videos
An environmental activist living off-grid in an English forest faces her toughest challenge yet – a...
Our most abstract concepts emerged as solutions to our needs – Matthieu Queloz | Aeon Essays
Truth, knowledge, justice – to understand how our loftiest abstractions earn their keep, trace them to...
The city as an emergent life form, with architecture as the skeleton and roads as veins | Aeon Videos
Roads, bridges, tunnels and trains form a grand, urban circulatory system in time-lapse footage of New...
In the fight for gender justice, criminal law should be a last resort – Aya Gruber | Aeon Essays
Feminists who see police and prisons as their natural allies are entrenching the sexism and racism...
What it’s like to have aphantasia, the inability to visualise images in the mind’s eye | Aeon Videos
How the world of emotions differs for people with aphantasia, who are unable to visualise images...
From immaterialism to obedience in the philosophy of Berkeley – Tom Jones | Aeon Essays
George Berkeley was a visionary immaterialist. And a philosopher whose views on subordination to God legitimised...
No, Mozart isn’t a brain hack for babies – here’s how music really affects intelligence | Aeon Videos
The so-called ‘Mozart effect’ is a case study in how research can get distorted and overstated...
Africa’s ancient scripts counter European ideas of literacy – D Vance Smith | Aeon Essays
European ideas of African illiteracy are persistent, prejudiced and, as the story of Libyc script shows,...
The rhythms of rural Thailand, where both food and music are sourced from the ground | Aeon Videos
Friends, family, food, music: a recipe for a good life from a Thai country craftsman living...
Aliens, science and speculation in the wake of ʻOumuamua – Matthew Bothwell | Aeon Essays
An alien-made artefact or just interstellar debris? What ʻOumuamua says about how science works when data...
How sky-high dreams launched one man’s audacious life in homemade rocketry | Aeon Videos
Meet the high-school dropout turned rocket engineer who wouldn’t let dyslexia stop him from aiming for...
Free yourself from the tentacles of pain with radical acceptance – Joshua Coleman | Aeon Essays
The painful feelings you avoid grow twisted in the dark. By facing your sorrows and struggles...
Why doesn’t philosophy progress from debate to consensus? – Chris Daly | Aeon Essays
For centuries, all philosophers seem to have done is question and debate. Why do philosophical problems...
The devils you know – how Satan became a versatile stand-in for all manner of evil | Aeon Videos
The devil in all his guises: how a minor character from the Old Testament evolved into...
For 97% of human history, equality was the norm. What happened? – Kim Sterelny | Aeon Essays
For 97 per cent of human history, all people had about the same power and access...
A filmmaker reflects on his adolescence with the help of some long-lost friends | Aeon Videos
A comic and nostalgic exploration of adolescence, and so-called adulthood, cast from a filmmaker’s middle-school yearbookBy...
Peacebuilding is an artform crafted by divided peoples – Tobias Jones | Aeon Essays
Conflicts only fully end when the delicate threads of peace have been steadily and quietly woven...
How did the NRA transform from a sporting group to a mighty political force? | Aeon Videos
An archival look into how the oldest US sporting association moved from marksmanship to reactionary politics,...
Treasure your friends, the top of your love hierarchy – Anna Machin | Aeon Essays
Sure, lovers and children are great. But friends are more than ever the heart of happiness,...
How much can science really tell us about the future of climate change? | Aeon Videos
A data-centric deep dive into the climate crisis shows the importance of rejecting fatalism when solving...
Germany became a tolerant nation only by painful, small steps – Helmut Walser Smith | Aeon Essays
Shaking off Nazism was no simple matter: the work to create a plural and peacable Germany...