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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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
‘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...
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...
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...
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...
‘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...
