Category Archives: Science

How trance states forged human society through transcendence | Aeon Essays

Ethiopian Orthodox Christians pray on the last day of ‘Abiy Tsom’, fifty-five days of fasting ahead of Easter, at Medhane Alem Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 7 April 2018. Photo by Minasse Wondimu Hailu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Whether via music, dance … Continue reading

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The Physicist Who Travels Across Disciplines, Space and Time

A playful polymath who is prone to leaping from string theory to Proust in mid-conversation, Vijay Balasubramanian of the University of Pennsylvania is a physicist, computer scientist and neuroscientist. He has made fundamental contributions to theories of black holes and … Continue reading

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Why Genetic Engineering Can’t Do Everything (Yet)

[…] We’ve made some great strides in understanding the human genome, but before we can tackle genetic engineering, we have some “chicken and egg” problems to figure out. Hosted by: Hank Green […]

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Groundbreaking earthquake discovery: Risk models overlook an important element | News,  University of Copenhagen

Haitian earthquake. Photo: Getty GEOLOGY Earthquakes themselves affect the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, which in turn could impact on future earthquakes, according to new research from the University of Copenhagen. This new knowledge should be incorporated in computer models … Continue reading

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Marta Halina: Charting Animal Cognition

How a ‘periodic table’ of animal cognition could help us get past our biases when assessing the minds of nonhuman beings. More on this video: aeon.co/videos/how-a-periodic-table-of-animal-intelligence-could-help-to-root-out-human-bias Watch more on Aeon: aeon.co/video Subscribe: vimeo.com/aeonvideo Interviewer: Sally Davies Producer: Kellen Quinn Cinematographer: … Continue reading

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Timing the first human migration into eastern Asia | PubMed Central

Roscoe Stanyon,1 Marco Sazzini,2 and Donata Luiselli2 Figure 1 A simplified scenario of early human migration routes and dates. Modern humans originated in Africa, probably around 200,000 years ago (200 KYA). One or more routes out of Africa are possible, … Continue reading

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A coral reef love story | Ayana Elizabeth Johnson | TED

Over the course of hundreds of scuba dives, marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson fell in love — with a fish. In this ode to parrotfish, she shares five reasons why these creatures are simply amazing (from their ability to poop … Continue reading

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The elegant physics experiment to decode the nature of reality | Aeon Essays

Photo by Andrea Buso/Gallery Stock How a sunbeam split in two became physics’ most elegant experiment, shedding light on the underlying nature of reality   Imagine throwing a baseball and not being able to tell exactly where it’ll go, despite … Continue reading

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5 Times Evolution Should Have Planned Ahead

Natural selection can lead to some pretty amazing adaptations, but sometimes the resulting traits aren’t the most efficient solutions to the problems at hand. With the bar set to “good enough,” here are some features that arose from evolution which … Continue reading

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How Do We Read? It’s Magic (Almost)

[…] Reading. You’re doing it right now. I bet you don’t even have to think about it. But have you ever wondered what’s happening in your brain to turn all these weird symbols into meaning? This video will teach you … Continue reading

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