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If objects could speak

If objects could speak

Subtitles for this video are available by clicking the CC button at the bottom right of the video player. Museums across the globe have come under...

yesterday 50

Aeon

Aeon Video

Madeleine

Madeleine

After moving from Brazil to Canada, the animator Raquel Sancinetti befriended a woman named Madeleine who, aged 102, was 67 years her senior....

yesterday 40

Aeon

Aeon Video

Island of the hornbills

Island of the hornbills

In this captivating short film from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Indonesian conservation biologist Yoki Hadiprakarsa and the US wildlife...

yesterday 30

Aeon

Aeon Video

Long live the aeonophiles!

Long live the aeonophiles!

Listen to this essay If you had to nominate the slowest, longest-living organisms on Earth, what would you picture? Among the vertebrates, some...

yesterday 60

Aeon

Karen G Lloyd

Green dominion

Green dominion

Listen to this essay In the United States and elsewhere, it’s often taken for granted that the Catholic Church is a conservative institution with...

yesterday 50

Aeon

Mike Mariani

A life of joy and work

A life of joy and work

Listen to this essay Recently, I visited a part of my neighbourhood where there’s a park. The green space was hived off by concrete walls, iron...

yesterday 50

Aeon

Najla & Asad Nariman

Being in the world: from Plato to Heidegger

Being in the world: from Plato to Heidegger

Since Plato, a dominant strain of Western philosophy has understood human beings primarily as rational thinkers, a view typified by René...

14.12.2025 40

Aeon

Aeon Video

Roads of the Roman Empire

Roads of the Roman Empire

An intricate system of roads connected the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire, which at its height in the 2nd century CE spanned modern-day...

14.12.2025 10

Aeon

Aeon Video

Undefinable yet indispensable

Undefinable yet indispensable

Listen to this essay We tend to think of religion as an age-old feature of human existence. So it can be startling to learn that the very concept...

14.12.2025 40

Aeon

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Can machines suffer?

Can machines suffer?

Listen to this essay ‘Seal Pup on Beach.’ That’s what the makeshift sign read, on a wooden post along Ireland’s eastern coastline. At the...

14.12.2025 60

Aeon

Conor Purcell

Maternal paradox

Maternal paradox

Listen to this essay In the early 2020s, a trend called ‘gentle parenting’ gained popularity among millennial parents, and I quickly found my...

10.12.2025 100

Aeon

Sherry Chan

How Robert Frost writes a poem

How Robert Frost writes a poem

Perhaps the most famous work by the US poet Robert Frost, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ (1923) exemplifies his style with its vivid...

10.12.2025 90

Aeon

Aeon Video

The empty ideology

The empty ideology

Listen to this essay When African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Cameroon claimed independence in the mid-20th century, they inherited...

10.12.2025 10

Aeon

Gabriel Asuquo

Medieval moons

Medieval moons

Listen to this essay With its enchanting glow and its mysterious darkness, the Moon has been a deep and abiding symbol for many people from around...

08.12.2025 20

Aeon

Ayoush Lazikani

Why are moths drawn to flames?

Why are moths drawn to flames?

Moths – and many other flying insects – being drawn to human-made light at night is something most people have observed firsthand, across history...

05.12.2025 4

Aeon

Aeon Video

Sleep is delicious

Sleep is delicious

Listen to this essay I love napping. I love napping in the summer, when rhythms are more relaxed and the guilt of taking a break less intense (if...

05.12.2025 10

Aeon

Sara Protasi

Africa’s cultural landmarks: Sikien of Koutammakou

Africa’s cultural landmarks: Sikien of Koutammakou

The traditional dwellings of the Batammariba people in Koutammakou, on the border of Togo and Benin in West Africa, are at once ‘a work of art, a...

05.12.2025 10

Aeon

Aeon Video