Aeon Magazine

Old relationships should fade like a photograph, not haunt your social networks forever. Claire L Evans on love in the internet age. Read by the author.

Without plant or animal, night or day, and the sun spinning slowly in a cold sky. Could you stand the mental hypothermia? Stephen J Pyne on the empty world of Antarctica. Read by Sam Dresser.

From pickled sharks to compositions in silence, fake ideas and fake emotions have elbowed out truth and beauty. Philosopher Roger Scruton on our fake culture. Read by Sam Dresser.

Leaving Europe as a young woman, Martine Batchelor found her life transformed by an encounter with Buddhist meditation. Read by Sara Masters.

Rituals bind us, in modern societies and prehistoric tribes alike. But can our loyalties stretch to all of humankind? Harvey Whitehouse takes us from Çatalhöyük to Misrata, Libya in search of ritual's meaning. Read by Sam Dresser.

Mucking out the pigs together can be just as helpful to recovering addicts as a 12-step programme or medical therapy. Tobias Jones on the hard work of beating addiction. Read by Sara Masters.

Sherlock was right – new research shows that understanding another person requires detachment as much as warmth. Maria Konnikova on Sherlock Holmes and empathy. Read by Sam Dresser.

A new generation of researchers is heading into the weird world of psychedelic drugs. It could change their minds. Eric Davis plumbs the depths. Read by the author.

A reading of John Burnside's essay The Visitor. Published by Aeon Magazine

Astro-tourism, air travel and nifty apps gave Venus’s 2012 transit a democratic edge over astronomy’s historic heroism. Dava Sobel reflects on the last transit of Venus we'll see in our lifetimes. Read by Dallas Campbell.

How I found my way out of depression, thanks to the writings of the English eccentric who brought Buddhism to the West. Read by the author.

An Afghanistan veteran asks that the battle for justice on the home front be treated as seriously as his experience of war.