Bookmarks (818)

Echoes of the ancient past in scenes of the Nile valley in 1925, at the dawn of anthropological filmmakingBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Sitting in a videoconference is a uniformly crap experience. Instead of corroding our humanity, let’s design tools to enhance itBy Robert O’TooleRead at Aeon

‘What does sex mean to you?’ Intimate tales from relationship counselling lay bare the ages-old hazards of romantic loveBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

By conquering young minds, the writing of J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis worked to recapture a world that was swiftly ebbing awayBy Maria Sachiko CecireRead at Aeon

Is a great team more than the sum of its players? Complexity science reveals the role of strategy, synergy, swarming and moreBy Jessica Flack & Cade MasseyRead at Aeon

If dementia is like a pair of cutters, trimming down the brain’s tree of knowledge, then music is for John a stubborn branchBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Urban ethnographers do more harm than good in speaking for Black communities. They see only suffering, not diversity or joyBy Robyn AutryRead at Aeon

‘I’m just measuring myself with myself’: how one Sufi practitioner seeks transcendence at his local ping pong tableBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The neuroscience of peripersonal space explores how you create, defend or relax the buffer zone between you and the worldBy Frédérique de Vignemont & Colin KleinRead at Aeon

The footballer Eric Cantona says he doesn’t regret kicking and punching a fan: does that make him an existentialist?By Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America, embodying both its tumult and its promiseBy Vaughn ScribnerRead at Aeon

The ability to stir new life into being, all across the Universe, compels us to ask why life matters in the first placeBy Betül KaçarRead at Aeon

From urban London to rural Wales, these are the games that children play when the streets are their playgroundBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Is hard data the only path to scientific truth? That’s an absurd, illogical and profoundly useful fictionBy Michael StrevensRead at Aeon

If trauma can be passed down from parent to child, could new therapies blunt the transgenerational epigenetic inheritance?By Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The bodies and brains of fathers, not just mothers, are transformed through the love and labour of raising a childBy James K RillingRead at Aeon

As the ground spins beneath their feet and Frank Sinatra croons ‘My Way’, Yoann Bourgeois’s dancers tumble in and out of loveBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

A violinist plays in a concentration camp. A refugee carries a book of poetry. Art sustains us when survival is uncertainBy Sarah FineRead at Aeon

Biologists balk at any talk of ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’ – but a bold new research agenda has put agency back on the tableBy Philip BallRead at Aeon

‘If the absence of people unravels you … /Lean into loneliness like it is holding you’ – a poetic reflection on life in lockdownBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Franz Brentano, philosopher and psychologist, was an iconic teacher eclipsed by his students, Freud and Husserl among themBy John A GoldsmithRead at Aeon

Bircan longs to learn her grandmother’s native Kurdish but the language is still suppressed in Turkey. Will Anik teach her?By Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The new field of social genomics can be used by progressives to combat racial inequality or by conservatives to excuse itBy Erik ParensRead at Aeon

A week’s worth of museum trips animated into a whirlwind survey of human artefacts from the Bronze Age to the Information AgeBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The dance of love and lore between grandparent and grandchild is at the centre, not the fringes, of our evolutionary storyBy Alison GopnikRead at Aeon

Immorality, sexism, politics, war: the polychromatic Indian epic pulses with relevance to the present dayBy Audrey TruschkeRead at Aeon

Why did the Universe begin? Nobel prizewinner Roger Penrose details an astonishing origin hypothesis of a cyclical, forgetful UniverseBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The urge to align our minds and emotions with those we care for, whether they are near or far, makes our species uniqueBy Hayden KeeRead at Aeon

A retired teacher, who coaxed poetry from her pupils, embarks on a mission to find out what became of a beloved studentBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Viruses are active agents, existing within rich lifeworlds. A safe future depends on understanding this evolutionary storyBy David Waltner-ToewsRead at Aeon

A biological trick or a meaningful pursuit? How philosophers from Buddha and Schopenhauer to Simone de Beauvoir saw loveBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

For Hegel, human nature strives through history to unchain itself from tradition. But is such inner freedom worth the cost?By Jon StewartRead at Aeon

Security is one thing to a Black mother in a favela, another to a politician keen on law and order. They should be the sameBy Olúfẹ́mi O TáíwòRead at Aeon

Near Area 51 in Nevada, UFO enthusiasts gather in their hundreds, seeking meaning and connection – human or otherworldlyBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The Harrisons’ eco-art told stories about the apocalypse, pointing to a future where we’d all have to be survival artistsBy W Patrick McCrayRead at Aeon

Once used to hide subversive messages, the Renaissance technique of anamorphosis proved everything is a matter of perspectiveBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

A generation of pagan bureaucrats amassed wealth and status while Roman emperors Christianised the world around themBy Edward WattsRead at Aeon

Ten-year-old Pien – small, industrious and fighting to survive – finds kinship with the honeybees she keepsBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The language of touch binds our minds and bodies to the broader social world. What happens when touch becomes taboo?By Laura CrucianelliRead at Aeon

Vanessa and Virginia – intimates in art, adversaries in love. Can we ever transcend the primal envy of the sisterly bond?By Lily DunnRead at Aeon

War hero or entitled opportunist? An alternative history of Winston Churchill combines claymation and biting iconoclasmBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Against the capitalist creeds of scarcity and self-interest, a plan for humanity’s shared flourishing is finally coming into viewBy Dirk PhilipsenRead at Aeon

How a friendship between a straight psychology professor and her gay student busted the myth of homosexuality as an illnessBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Cancer is part of multicellular life. Now the riotous growth of crested cacti show how humans might adapt to live with itBy Athena AktipisRead at Aeon

‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to make contact with another civilisation?’ Carl Sagan’s 1977 lecture on how to message aliensBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

The Western canon has no shortage of fascists. But can the far-Right make ‘literature’ worthy of the name?By Andrew MarzoniRead at Aeon

Hannah Arendt enjoyed her solitude, but she believed that loneliness could make people susceptible to totalitarianismBy Samantha Rose HillRead at Aeon

Born of a collaboration between people, time and microbes, fermentation is a spiritual matter for the food writer Sandor KatzBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon

Psychological science can now measure and nurture wisdom, superseding the speculations of philosophy and religionBy Igor GrossmannRead at Aeon

A cityscape built from colourful blocks of sound: see how a person with synaesthesia experiences John Coltrane’s musicBy Aeon VideoWatch at Aeon