Aeon

When new systems first appeared, they were frequently celebrated as technical marvels accompanied by parades, ribbon-cuttings and grand speeches. But they never appeared equitably.

Social scientists dismiss them, but rather than being universally inaccurate, stereotypes are often grounded in reality

String wars among physicists have highlighted just how much science needs philosophy – and not just the amateur version

‘Sports addiction’ sounds paradoxical, because we usually reserve the word ‘addiction’ for things that are recognisably bad for us, such as illicit-drug use or alcoholism, but there really is a […]

Protective, omnipotent, scary and very territorial. The monotheistic God is modelled on a harem-keeping alpha male

Dreams might not be omens or prophecies in a mystical sense, but they do have a distinct psychological predictive power

Language mirrors the distinction between male and female, as in the way we talk about the sexes as ‘opposite’, and throughout life we are encouraged to think in binary terms […]

Mimic the dance between carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and you can tap into clean solar energy and ease climate change

Our machines could become self-aware without our knowing it. We need a better way to define and test for consciousness