Aeon

Now that many Americans fear we’re entering a dark period of decline, it’s useful to analyze the industrialized world’s post-War period of economic prosperity to understand what made it exceptional, and why we cannot recreate it.

Lonni Sue can paint, but not name a painting; learn new music without knowing a tune. Scientific American opinion editor Michael Lemonick explore what she’s is teaching us about memory.

Contemporary culture is obsessed with makeovers — of bodies, homes, even entire neighborhoods. But this quest for transformative authenticity often has a dark side.

Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?

Once a body part is removed from its original owner, who does it belong to? Scientists and bioethicists tend to disagree.

He’s a forgotten hippie idol, a sage of 1960s counterculture. What can we learn from Bucky Fuller’s faith in technology?

Why you’re not the only one weirded out by someone holding a bag full of taxidermy reptiles standing too close to you and smiling blankly. Scary and creepy are different things.

“Protective, omnipotent, scary and very territorial, the monotheistic God is modeled on a harem-keeping alpha male.” Can evolutionary biology shed light on theology?

Our ancestors reacted to parasites with overwhelming revulsion, wiring the brain for morals, manners, politics and laws.

A leading psychologist explains why our governing metaphor for the human brain — that it works like an information-processing machine — is all wrong.