Menu
Aeon
DonateNewsletter
SIGN IN

Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
Save

essay

Medicine

Last hours of an organ donor

In the liminal time when the brain is dead but organs are kept alive, there is an urgent tenderness to medical care

Ronald W Dworkin

Save

essay

Neuroscience

Rethinking the homunculus

When we discovered that the brain contained a map of the body it revolutionised neuroscience. But it’s time for an update

Moheb Costandi

Save

video

Medicine

Why surgery and barbering were one occupation in the Middle Ages

6 minutes

A black and white photo of a man in doctor’s clothing posed next to a lab bench with a microscope looking directly at the camera
Save

essay

Medicine

Physician, invade thyself

Eager for medical breakthroughs, some doctors take enormous risks experimenting on themselves. Should we celebrate them?

Tom Doyle

Save

essay

Illness and disease

The war on cancer

Is it time to abandon the century-old idea that cancer is best met with a ‘fight’ from patients and their doctors alike?

Elaine Schattner

Save

video

Medicine

What is it like to be a paramedic, navigating human emergency?

17 minutes

Save

essay

Illness and disease

Are they the canaries?

People with multiple chemical sensitivity seem to be allergic to the world. What, if anything, can medicine do for them?

Xi Chen

Save

essay

Medicine

The body is not a machine

Modern biomedicine sees the body as a closed mechanistic system. But illness shows us to be permeable, ecological beings

Nitin K Ahuja

Save

essay

History of science

Shocked

With evidence for efficacy so thin, and the stakes so high, why is ‘electroshock’ therapy still a mainstay of psychiatry?

John Read

Save

essay

Illness and disease

Natural and unnatural

‘Natural’ remedies are metaphysically inconsistent and unscientific. Yet they offer something that modern medicine cannot

Alan Jay Levinovitz

Save

essay

Illness and disease

Beautiful monsters

Cancer is part of multicellular life. Now the riotous growth of crested cacti show how humans might adapt to live with it

Athena Aktipis

Save

essay

Medicine

Life and breath

There’s a strange, and deeply human, story behind how we taught machines to breathe for critically ill patients

Sarah Ruth Bates

Save

essay

Illness and disease

Stealth infections

From the Black Death to polio, the most dangerous pathogens have moved silently, transmitted by apparently healthy people

Wendy Orent

Save

essay

Medicine

The medicalised life

Why do so many see vaccines and other medical interventions as tools of social control rather than boons to health?

Bernice L Hausman

Save

idea

Medicine

Gentle medicine could radically transform medical practice

Jacob Stegenga

Save

video

Biotechnology

How harnessing the power of dogs could help scientists sniff out cancer early

7 minutes

Save

essay

Public health

It didn’t have to be this way

A bioethicist at the heart of the Italian coronavirus crisis asks: why won’t we talk about the tradeoffs of the lockdown?

Silvia Camporesi

Save

essay

Future of technology

Engines of life

At the level of the tiny, biology is all about engineering. That’s why nanotechnology can rebuild medicine from within

Sonia Contera

Save

idea

Illness and disease

Chemobrain is real. Here’s what to expect after cancer treatment

Anton Isaacs

Save

essay

Medicine

No patient is an island

How a concern to protect the autonomy of patients leads to the exclusion of families just when they are needed the most

Anita Ho

Save

essay

Animals and humans

Rats are us

They are sentient beings with rich emotional lives, yet we subject them to experimental cruelty without conscience. Why?

Kristin Andrews & Susana Monsó

Save

essay

Bioethics

Neither person nor cadaver

The body is warm, but the brain has gone dark: why the notion of brain death provokes the thorniest of medical dilemmas

Sharon Kaufman

Save

video

Biology

Singing Mozart in the MRI shows how overtone singers can hit two notes at once

1 minute

Save

essay

Wellbeing

A sage on the ward

Good nurses are attuned to the lived experience of patients. Can the theory of phenomenology add more to their practice?

Dan Zahavi