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Donnelly to hear plans for Boulder Creek apartments, entertainment venue

Plans for a commercial entertainment venue and more than 100 homes, apartments, and cabins along Boulder Creek will go before the Donnelly City Council next week. The proposal calls for 97 apartments, 14 recreational cabins, three short-term rentals, and a clubhouse on a 22.8-acre property at 203 Eld Ln. An existing home on the site […]

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Jan 22 • 6:14 PM EST • Entertainment • valleylookout.com
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Florida's Black lawmakers denounce attorney general's opinion as damaging political stunt

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — An opinion by Florida's Republican attorney general calling into question the constitutionality of dozens of state laws which support minority contracting and promote diverse appointments ignores that racial discrimination still exists and could harm the state's Black residen...

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Jan 22 • 3:08 PM EST • Politics • wral.com
Mysterious Giants Could Be a Whole New Kind of Life That No Longer Exists

It’s like nothing around today.

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Jan 21 • 10:03 PM EST • Science • sciencealert.com
Making large language models reliable data science programming copilots for biomedical research

Nature Biomedical Engineering - AI is a powerful tool for facilitating data science programming in biomedicine. This study benchmarks the performance of existing tools and introduces a reliable AI...

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Jan 21 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • nature.com
Life’s chemistry may begin in the cold darkness of space

New experiments reveal that protein precursors can form naturally in deep space under extreme cold and radiation. Scientists found that simple amino acids bond into peptides on interstellar dust, long before stars and planets exist. This challenges the idea that complex life chemistry only happens on planets. It also boosts the odds that life-friendly ingredients are widespread across the universe.

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Jan 21 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Coventry Village rolls out $200,000 in American Rescue Plan small business grants

Individual grants are available in sums from $15,000 to $75,000, for new or existing businesses

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Jan 20 • 4:04 PM EST • Business • cleveland.com
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First Entertainment CU launches digital brand in Atlanta

The newly launched digital credit union, CineFi, aims to serve creative professionals in the Atlanta area as well as First Entertainment's existing member base in Los Angeles.

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Jan 20 • 2:35 PM EST • Entertainment • americanbanker.com
Building the data infrastructure for next-generation materials science

Materials research generates vast amounts of data, but the information often exists in manufacturer-specific formats and the terminology is inconsistent, making it difficult to aggregate, compare, and ...

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Jan 19 • 10:11 AM EST • Science • phys.org
TechPowerUp Best of CES 2026

The 2026 International CES was an extravaganza of new technology and previously unseen innovation with existing tech. We sift through our exhaustive, on-ground coverage of the show to pick our Best of CES winners.

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Jan 19 • 9:00 AM EST • Technology • techpowerup.com
This tiny power module could change how the world uses energy

As global energy demand surges—driven by AI-hungry data centers, advanced manufacturing, and electrified transportation—researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have unveiled a breakthrough that could help squeeze far more power from existing electricity supplies. Their new silicon-carbide-based power module, called ULIS, packs dramatically more power into a smaller, lighter, and cheaper design while wasting far less energy in the process.

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Jan 19 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
'Custodes Are Not Space Marines' — Games Workshop Addresses 'The Telemon in the Room' and Explains Warhammer Lore Behind New Female Miniatures

Games Workshop has published a Warhammer lore explanation for the existence of female Custodes following a new miniature range announcement on Friday.

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Jan 19 • 6:56 AM EST • Technology • ign.com
Commentary: My travel nightmare made me realize that self-service culture is capitalism’s greatest con

The digital age has made us a DIY economy in which millions of jobs no longer exist not because computers do the work, but because the work has been shifted, via computers, directly onto the consumer.

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Jan 19 • 6:00 AM EST • Entertainment • latimes.com
Gap Inc. GAP Valuation Check As New Chief Entertainment Officer Expands Fashiontainment Ambitions

Why Gap’s new entertainment push matters for shareholders Gap (GAP) is reshaping its brand playbook by appointing Pam Kaufman as Chief Entertainment Officer and opening a Los Angeles office, aiming to plug its apparel labels more deeply into entertainment and pop culture. For you as an investor, the key question is how this new Fashiontainment focus, built around content, licensing, and collaborations, fits alongside Gap’s existing value profile and recent share performance, and what it could...

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Jan 17 • 2:17 PM EST • Entertainment • simplywall.st
Small businesses in N.Y. finding resources with development centers

Small business development centers offer services to help new and existing companies.

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Jan 16 • 6:34 PM EST • Business • spectrumlocalnews.com
The ‘Great Healthcare Plan’ Leaves Open Questions for People with Pre-existing Conditions

President Trump announced a health care framework that leaves open key questions, including those about out-of-pocket costs, premiums, federal spending, and health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

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Jan 16 • 8:13 AM EST • Health • kff.org
Animal Crossing's 3.0 Update Just Killed Existing Hotel Businesses

Players spent years faking luxury hotels, until the 3.0 update made them real.

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Jan 16 • 8:00 AM EST • Technology • gamespot.com
Trump’s health care plan excludes those with preexisting conditions

Trump is rolling out what he’s calling the “Great Healthcare Plan,” in efforts to make health care more affordable — but not everyone is included.

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Jan 16 • 6:44 AM EST • Health • newsnationnow.com
Meta Is Shutting Down Its Quest For Business Program

Meta is shutting down its Quest for business program in 2030, ending sales of commercial SKUs next month, and reducing existing subscriptions to $0/month.

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Jan 16 • 6:37 AM EST • Business • uploadvr.com
Legendary Entertainment Enters Strategic Partnership With Tokyo Broadcasting System

Tokyo Broadcasting System and Legendary Entertainment have entered into a non-exclusive agreement to source and develop Japanese IP. As part of the agreement, TBS has acquired $150 million of equity from the company and existing shareholders of Legendary, representing a small minority ownership stake in Legendary. Following the transaction, the remaining equity continues to be owned by Legendary …

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Jan 15 • 4:48 PM EST • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Avi-Go Business Aviation Data Platform Adds AI Search Bot and Expands Scope

Singapore start-up offers alternative to existing charter marketplaces

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Jan 15 • 12:29 PM EST • Business • ainonline.com
Lawmakers move to defund Wyoming Business Council ahead of budget session

by Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile The primary budgeting arm of the Legislature voted Tuesday to defund the Wyoming Business Council, the state’s top economic development shop since 1998. Following a motion by Powell Republican Sen. Dan Laursen, the Joint Appropriations Committee agreed to zero out the council’s budget, leaving $2 million to administer existing loans. Though the […]

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Jan 15 • 9:05 AM EST • Business • county17.com
Citizen science

Citizen science, also called community science, is a common term for a wide range of participatory practices involving scientific data collection and analysis.Citizen science is important for science, research and policy, and has multiple benefits for society and for participants themselves by expanding knowledge, increasing awareness and fostering stewardship.While some scientists remain cautious about the quality of citizen science data, acceptance within the broader scientific community is steadily growing.Measures to strengthen the role and impact of citizen science include enhancing policy and funding support, continued training of educators and leveraging existing data collection technologies.

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Jan 15 • 8:40 AM EST • Science • iucn.org
Scientists “resurrect” ancient cannabis enzymes with medical promise

Scientists have uncovered how cannabis evolved the ability to make its most famous compounds—THC, CBD, and CBC—by recreating ancient enzymes that existed millions of years ago. These early enzymes were multitaskers, capable of producing several cannabinoids at once, before evolution fine-tuned them into today’s highly specialized forms. By “resurrecting” these long-lost enzymes in the lab, researchers showed how cannabis chemistry became more precise over time—and discovered something unexpected: the ancient versions are often more robust and easier to work with.

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Jan 15 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
A month after launch, Bully Online mod "is shutting down forever" and being scrubbed from existence as dev assures "this was not something we wanted"

Bully Online's project lead previously dismissed concerns about legal trouble from Rockstar and Take-Two, but if this is what it looks like, he may have spoken too soon

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Jan 14 • 7:42 PM EST • Technology • gamesradar.com
Forget the Startup Grind — Millennials Are Taking a Shortcut to Business Ownership

Buying an existing business and stepping into its leadership has become a popular way to get a foot in the door to ownership.

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Jan 14 • 6:00 PM EST • Business • entrepreneur.com
Republicans Advance Stock-Trading Bill With Limited Restrictions

The bill would allow lawmakers to keep their existing stock and continue to sell it if they provide seven to 14 days of notice. Democrats called it a “gift to insider traders.”

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Jan 14 • 2:19 PM EST • Politics • nytimes.com
Congress Defies Trump on NASA Science Budget

The space community is breathing a sigh of relief after lawmakers rejected Trump proposed cuts.

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Jan 14 • 10:00 AM EST • Science • bloomberg.com
11 years of growth: Health Sciences dean reflects on career ahead of retirement

University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences Dean Scott Lephart didn’t come to UK to simply maintain what existed. He committed to building something that could not be ignored. Now, as the college continues to expand, Lephart’s retirement marks a moment to reflect on how vision and collaboration reshaped the college and is strengthening health care across Kentucky.

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Jan 14 • 3:00 AM EST • Health • uknow.uky.edu
11 years of growth: Health Sciences dean reflects on career ahead of retirement

University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences Dean Scott Lephart didn’t come to UK to simply maintain what existed. He committed to building something that could not be ignored. Now, as the college continues to expand, Lephart’s retirement marks a moment to reflect on how vision and collaboration reshaped the college and is strengthening health care across Kentucky.

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Jan 14 • 3:00 AM EST • Health • uknow.uky.edu
PS1 Ridge Racer Poised for PS5, PS4 via PS Plus Premium

When superior arcade version already exists

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Jan 14 • 12:00 AM EST • Technology • pushsquare.com
Disneyland Park attendance reaches 900 million over 70 years in business

Over its 70 years in existence, 900 million people have visited Disneyland, according to a new documentary.

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Jan 13 • 6:15 PM EST • Business • latimes.com
Apple confirms Pixelmator for iOS will no longer receive updates

Apple just announced Pixelmator Pro for iPad, but there’s bad news for the existing Pixelmator app for iOS.

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Jan 13 • 2:11 PM EST • Technology • 9to5mac.com
Dell tells staff to ready for biggest changes in company history: memo

Dell has existed for 42 years, but the coming changes are the biggest transformation in company history, according to COO Jeff Clarke.

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Jan 13 • 2:01 PM EST • Business • businessinsider.com
5 reasons why transformative science needs to be open to all

The world is facing existential risks to us all. Science can help us solve many of these challenges, but we need to invest in it, trust it and share it.

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Jan 13 • 2:36 AM EST • Science • weforum.org
Santa Barbara’s Rent Freeze: Politics First, Housing Second

Cities that adopt strict rent freezes see reduced housing supply, less reinvestment in existing units, and declining housing quality over time.

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Jan 12 • 7:35 PM EST • Politics • independent.com
The America First Global Health Strategy and Pooled Procurement

To help inform the U.S. America First Global Health Strategy, which includes an emphasis on commodities and pooled procurement, we reviewed eight existing global and regional pooled procurement mechanisms

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Jan 12 • 4:30 PM EST • Health • kff.org
2026 Best of Business

WBJ’s Best of Business awards are centered around one concept: referrals. Businesses will attract and retain new customers in all sorts of ways, but most will tell you the best way is to get your existing clients to do it for you. A recommendation from a trusted source goes a long way whenever a company leader is looking for a lawyer, an accountant, a place for lunch, a venue for a large event, or a fun place to take employees as a reward for all their hard work. Now in its 13th year, WBJ’s Best of Business awards are essentially recommendations from trusted sources for the organizations to best help your companies succeed. As we do every year, WBJ compiled this list of winners by asking our readers to vote in the various categories. From Nov. 1-28, more than 2,160 votes were cast. The top votegetters are the winners of this year’s 54 categories. To celebrate these winners and to meet the best of the best, I invite you to attend WBJ’s Best of Business awards event at 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 28 at the Beechwood Hotel in Worcester. Part celebration and part hyperactive networking event, the Best of Business awards is a unique experience in the local economic scene. Always a good time, the room is full of potential contacts, who can all help your business achieve that next level of excellence. You can register here. – Brad Kane, editor

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Jan 12 • 12:02 PM EST • Business • wbjournal.com
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Lawmakers could keep existing stocks under new GOP trading ban bill

House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that forcing lawmakers to divest their stock holdings could deter some people from running for Congress.

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Jan 12 • 11:10 AM EST • Business • businessinsider.com
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A blossoming Texas medical marijuana industry adds new businesses, products and patients

The Texas Department of Public Safety has issued provisional licenses to nine new medical marijuana operators while existing ones have started opening new manufacturing and cultivating facilities.

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Jan 12 • 6:00 AM EST • Business • texastribune.org
NRF | How CVS Health and Magalu transformed their businesses into ecosystems

NRF 2026: Leaders from the brands discuss the importance of integrating technology and leveraging existing assets

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Jan 11 • 7:00 AM EST • Health • nrf.com
Macias Family Health Center opens in National City

The 40,000-square-foot facility consolidates existing San Ysidro Health operations in the area.

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Jan 9 • 6:08 PM EST • Health • sandiegouniontribune.com
Black business owners say proposed restrictions will harm Buchanan community

Hundreds gathered at City Hall Thursday to talk about a potential zoning ordinance impacting the Buchanan Arts District. Metro Planning Commissioners called it the classic zoning problem — trying to figure out how commercial and residential properties can coexist. The ordinance would limit the hours of operation and impose noise restrictions on future businesses in the area. It was born out of a new “Commercial Compatibility” zoning overlay created by the Metro Council earlier this fall. (Overlays add an additional set of rules to the existing restrictions in place, as a way of managing development). That overlay was sponsored by […]

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Jan 9 • 5:40 PM EST • Business • wpln.org
Vermont Health officials reaffirm existing childhood vaccine schedule in light of federal changes

Many still fear future restrictions on access and are working with the Legislature to safeguard Vermont’s ability to buy and administer the vaccines to those who want and need them.

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Jan 7 • 5:51 PM EST • Health • vtdigger.org
'How can all of this be happening?': Scientists spot massive group of ancient galaxies so hot they shouldn't exist

An inexplicably hot, fast-growing cluster of galaxies in the early universe has scientists questioning theories of galactic evolution.

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Jan 6 • 4:44 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
New MacBook accessory adds touch support to your display

A new third-party ‘Magic Screen’ accessory claims to bring touch support to existing Mac displays like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

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Jan 6 • 1:22 PM EST • Technology • 9to5mac.com
Business 2025 Year in Review

This year Berkshire County saw many new businesses open — from restaurants to local goods — as well as new owners taking over existing companies. Pittsfield Economic...

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Jan 4 • 5:50 PM EST • Business • iberkshires.com
To 'run' Venezuela, Trump presses existing regime to kneel

Trump and his top aides said they would try to work with Venezuela's new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to run the country and its oil sector.

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Jan 4 • 3:25 PM EST • Politics • latimes.com
How Louisiana plans to spend $208 million in federal funds on rural health care

Louisiana will leverage an anticipated $1 billion in federal funding for rural health care over the next five years by expanding existing training programs and creating new financial incentives for medical professionals to work in rural communities.

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Jan 3 • 6:00 AM EST • Health • lailluminator.com
Sony faces an unfixable PS5 vulnerability as BootROM keys are dumped and shared publicly

A leaked set of PlayStation 5 BootROM keys, published online at the end of 2025, has exposed core hardware-level security secrets that researchers say Sony cannot simply patch on existing consoles. While the breach does not enable an immediate jailbreak, experts warn it significantly lowers the bar for future exploits, potentially paving the way for permanent hacks, homebrew software, and widespread piracy risks.

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Jan 1 • 10:45 PM EST • Technology • notebookcheck.net
NASA’s Webb telescope just discovered one of the weirdest planets ever

A newly discovered exoplanet is rewriting the rules of what planets can be. Orbiting a city-sized neutron star, this Jupiter-mass world has a bizarre carbon-rich atmosphere filled with soot clouds and possibly diamonds at its core. Its extreme gravity stretches it into a lemon shape, and it completes a full orbit in under eight hours. Scientists are stunned — no known theory explains how such a planet could exist.

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Jan 1 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Oregon Health Plan to remain in network at Salem Health in 2026

Salem Health and PacificSource reached a new contract agreement to cover patients on Medicaid, a Salem Health spokeswoman said Tuesday. The news comes a day before the existing contract was set to expire.

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Dec 30, 2025 • 9:27 PM EST • Health • salemreporter.com
Small Business Specials Submission Form

COVINGTON, Ky. – As part of the City of Covington’s Bridging the Gap initiative, we're launching a roundup to help promote existing specials and discounts from our restaurants, bars, retailers, and other small businesse...

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Dec 30, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Business • covingtonky.gov
Great Falls sees business growth and development momentum heading into 2026

Great Falls experienced significant business expansion in 2025, with more than 50 new businesses opening and over a dozen existing businesses expanding throughout the region

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Dec 30, 2025 • 1:45 PM EST • Business • krtv.com
Golf Digest Honors: Recapping the best golf 'accomplishments' of 2025

Some highlights from a crazy year, from the World No. 1's existential monologue to a 4-year-old's shocking ace.

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Dec 30, 2025 • 9:28 AM EST • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Analysis | Is anything real anymore? In 2025, even sports fans started to doubt.

The integrity of games might be sports’ most precious commodity. This year’s gambling scandals have fans questioning it — a trend some view as an existential threat.

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Dec 29, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Sports • washingtonpost.com
The wine business faces an existential threat

The wine industry faces an existential threat that cuts across price points and prestige levels, supply and demand

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Dec 29, 2025 • 5:00 AM EST • Business • qz.com
Mercury: The planet that shouldn't exist

Mercury has long baffled astronomers because it defies much of what we know about planet formation. A new space mission arriving in 2026 might solve the mystery.

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Dec 28, 2025 • 5:00 AM EST • Science • bbc.com
Scientists Rule Out Existence Of Particle After 10 Years Of Research

This discovery is important because it ruled out a major possibility for new physics beyond the Standard Model.

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Dec 27, 2025 • 10:55 PM EST • Science • ndtv.com
Fusion reactors may create dark matter particles

Researchers say fusion reactors might do more than generate clean energy—they could also create particles linked to dark matter. A new theoretical study shows how neutrons inside future fusion reactors could spark rare reactions that produce axions, particles long suspected to exist but never observed. The work revisits an idea teased years ago on The Big Bang Theory, where fictional physicists couldn’t solve the puzzle. This time, real scientists think they’ve found a way.

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Dec 27, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Most experts now believe aliens exist. Here’s what convinced them | BBC Science Focus Magazine

The research is mounting up that we might not be alone in this big wide world. So what's the likelihood that aliens are out there?

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Dec 27, 2025 • 11:00 AM EST • Science • sciencefocus.com
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Vivek Ramaswamy is rebranding himself

Vivek Ramaswamy barreled into politics as a flame-thrower willing to offend just about anyone. He declared America was in a “cold cultural civil war,” denied the existence of white supremacists, and referred to one of his rivals as “corrupt.” Two years later, Ramaswamy says he wants to be “conservative without being combative.”

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Dec 27, 2025 • 6:01 AM EST • Politics • cnn.com
FanDuel Sports Network might be done…

What you need to know about the existential threat facing the Milwaukee Brewers’ network TV provider

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Dec 26, 2025 • 1:05 PM EST • Sports • brewcrewball.com
A surprising brain cleanup reduced epileptic seizures and restored memory

A new study suggests temporal lobe epilepsy may be linked to early aging of certain brain cells. When researchers removed these aging cells in mice, seizures dropped, memory improved, and some animals avoided epilepsy altogether. The treatment used drugs already known to science, raising the possibility of quicker translation to people. The results offer new hope for patients who do not respond to existing medications.

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Dec 25, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
The video games you may have missed in 2025

Date a vending machine, watch intergalactic television and make the most out of your short existence as a fly. Here are the best games you weren’t playing this year

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Dec 25, 2025 • 5:00 AM EST • Technology • theguardian.com
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky to be delisted on January 1, 2026 for PS4 in Japan, January 5 for PS Vita

Spike Chunsoft will delist the digital version of tri-Ace-developed RPG Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky for PlayStation 4 on January 1, 2026 at 00:00 JST in Japan, and for PS Vita on Janua…

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Dec 24, 2025 • 10:30 PM EST • Technology • gematsu.com
Bausch Health (BHC) Is Up 5.3% After US$1.6 Billion Debt Exchange - Has The Bull Case Changed?

Bausch Health Companies recently completed fixed-income exchange offers, issuing US$1.60 billion of new 10.00% Senior Secured Notes due 2032 to refinance existing senior secured notes under Regulation S and Rule 144A. This large-scale refinancing reshapes the company’s debt profile and may influence how investors assess its balance-sheet resilience and long-term obligations. Next, we’ll examine how this large US$1.60 billion debt exchange reshapes Bausch Health’s investment narrative and...

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Dec 24, 2025 • 10:17 PM EST • Health • finance.yahoo.com
Samsung Developing 'Wide Fold' With iPhone Fold-Like Design Ahead of Apple's 2026 Launch

Samsung is working on a new foldable smartphone that's wider and shorter than the models that it's released before, according to Korean news site ETNews. The "Wide Fold" will compete with Apple's iPhone Fold that's set to launch in September 2026. Samsung's existing Galaxy Z Fold7 display is 6.5 inches when closed, and 8 inches when open, with a 21:9 aspect ratio when folded and a 20:18 aspect ratio when open. Samsung has used a similar size for its prior Z Fold devices.

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Dec 23, 2025 • 2:55 PM EST • Technology • macrumors.com
The disunity of science is a feature, not a bug

Mathematical models wield miraculous power, but mistaking them for reality has trapped science in a destructive quest for a “Theory of Everything.” Physicist and philosopher Ragner Fjelland argues that this leads to bloated, Frankenstein theories kept alive by clumsy, ad-hoc amendments, which reduce rather than boost science’s power. Fjelland calls for a radical shift in our attitude: we must reorientate towards creating entirely new theories, celebrating rather than lamenting disunity and diversity in science. Science, from the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century to the present day, has more or less developed in a “reductionist” way. The fundamental assumption is that all sciences may be ordered in a hierarchy that can be represented as an upside-down pyramid. At the top we find the human sciences, and at the bottom physics. Strong (or “ontological”) reductionism maintains that all theories at one level can be completely reduced to the lower level, all the way down to theories of atoms and elementary particles, or whatever is “at the bottom.” In the end, all diversity in the world can be unified in one fundamental theory. Hence it is called a final theory, or a Theory of Everything.One of the central figures in developing the idea of a Theory of Everything is the Dutch theoretical physicist Gerard 't Hooft, who received a Nobel Prize in physics in 1999 for his work. He emphasizes the non-empirical status of the theory:There exists no closely resembling alternative theory. This means that any slight change brought about in the rules would make the theory unlikely or inelegant. The theory will be a "package deal": take it, or leave it. This should hold both for the local laws and for the boundary conditions.This endeavor is not new. On the contrary, it goes all the way back to the birth of Western philosophy 2,500 years ago. The Babylonians made regular astronomical observations during a period of 600 years, from 747 BCE until 150 ACE. They developed mathematical techniques to predict astronomical phenomena, but they made no attempts at explaining them. However, the Greeks developed models, both material and theoretical, to explain the observed phenomena.The best example is Plato’s late dialogue Timaeus. Here he introduces a divine craftsman, the Demiurge, who has constructed the universe according to an original plan. Plato seems to have thought that the original plan is what is actually real, while the material world is merely an imperfect realization of it. He therefore does not, in the Timaeus, reconstruct the material universe, but the original plan, which can then be used to explain the material universe.Plato’s aim in producing a theoretical model is to reconstruct the original plan. That is what he carries out in Timaeus—and some modern physicists have embarked on the same project. For example, Einstein’s basic attitude is reflected in the title of Abraham Pais’ biography: “Subtle is the Lord...,” echoing Einstein’s comment, “Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.” In an interview Einstein compared our situation to a child who enters a huge library. The child knows that someone has written the books, but he does not know the languages in which they are written. He suspects that there is a mysterious order, but he does not know what it is.___“We have all been working in what Husserl called the Galilean style; that is, we have all been making abstract mathematical models of the universe to which at least the physicists give a higher degree of reality than they accord the ordinary world of sensation.”Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize in Physics (1979)___This Platonist view is contrary to a widespread impression of science, symbolized by the picture of the “father” of modern science, Galileo Galilei, with his telescope. According to this impression, Galileo liberated himself from the dominating metaphysics of his day—basically Aristotelian philosophy—and constructed a telescope that he directed towards the sky, showing that Jupiter has four moons. He also performed experiments with bronze balls rolling down inclined planes and found the law of freely falling bodies.However, in other cases Galileo emphasized the unreliability of our senses. It is easy to see why. He defended Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, we are not at rest at the center of the universe, but moving at a tremendous speed through space. Why don’t we observe this motion? Galileo praises Copernicus because “with reason as his guide he resolutely continued to affirm what sensible experience seemed to contradict.” In other places he directly refers to Plato. SUGGESTED VIEWING The quest for a final theory With Michio Kaku Galileo’s Platonism goes back to his early writings. In The Assayer, published as early as 1623, Galileo compared the universe to a grand book that is written in the language of mathematics, and “its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.” Therefore, things that cannot be described by mathematics—for example, colors, smells and odors—are not real. They are merely subjective.This division into subjective and objective, advocated by Galileo and his younger contemporary René Descartes, is normally associated with a mechanistic world view, which is regarded as the opposite of Platonism. When we reduce something to, for example, molecules and atoms, we move “downwards.” In contrast, the Platonist moves “upwards,” to abstract entities. However, it only shows that when we address fundamental questions, we should be careful in applying everyday spatial metaphors like “up” and “down.”___Nature is complex, and we cannot in general construct mathematical models that adequately describe the world.___The endeavor of finding a Theory of Everything has been heavily criticized. In 2006, the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin published “The Crisis in Fundamental Physics.” He argued that one of the most fundamental principles of science is that we should only regard theories as scientific if we have the possibility to show that they are false by experiments. Although he did not refer to Karl Popper, other critics have referred to Popper and argued that a theory is not scientific if it cannot be falsified (see for example Ellis & Silk 2014).These were not the first physicists to be anti-reductionists. In 1972, the journal Science published an article by the physicist Philip Anderson with the title “More Is Different.” This is the kind of article a scientist would normally write only after he has won a Nobel Prize. However, Anderson won the Nobel Prize for physics five years later, in 1977. The article is amazing, not primarily because it argues in favor of anti-reductionism in general, but because it argues for anti-reductionism within physics itself. Anderson’s conclusion was:At each stage entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry.We may say that Plato started the “unity of science movement,” based on Euclidean geometry as the model of all knowledge. A distinguishing mark of geometry is that all possible constructions can be reduced to a few fundamental principles. We have to acknowledge that this approach has limitations. In general, we can easily model technological systems. In addition, we may construct simplified and idealized models that capture important aspects of systems, from various perspectives and for various purposes. But nature is complex, and we cannot in general construct mathematical models that adequately describe the world. In a complex system, each level has its distinct, emergent, properties that are characteristic of this level. Therefore, a complex system should be investigated at different levels and from different perspectives. Instead of exclusively pursuing a scientific ideal based on the unity of science, we should acknowledge the diversity—or even the disunity—of science.

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Dec 23, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • iai.tv
Certified Incubator Success Stories: Meridian Technology Center North | Small Business University - Oklahoma Department of Commerce

The Small Business University is designed to empower existing small business owners with the skills needed to thrive through classes, workshops and resources.

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Dec 22, 2025 • 11:59 AM EST • Business • okcommerce.gov
Health literacy

WHO fact sheet on health literacy, including key facts, overview, existing inequalities, the importance and social benefits of health literacy, and WHO's response.

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Dec 22, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Health • who.int
8 Google Docs add-ons you didn't know existed but will change how you work

Google Docs is way more powerful than you think

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Dec 20, 2025 • 8:00 AM EST • Technology • androidpolice.com
Trump Mobile's T1 still doesn't exist, but the company is now selling refurbished phones

The T1 smartphone from Trump Mobile remains non-existent vaporware, but the company is still finding new ways to take people's money.

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Dec 18, 2025 • 2:17 PM EST • Technology • engadget.com
Scientists spent 10 years chasing a particle that wasn’t there

After a decade of painstaking measurements, scientists have delivered a major plot twist in particle physics: a long-hypothesized “mystery particle” likely doesn’t exist. Using the MicroBooNE experiment at Fermilab, researchers analyzed neutrinos from two powerful beams and found no evidence for a sterile neutrino, ruling it out with 95% certainty.

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Dec 17, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Fallout 5 Will Exist in a World Where 'The Stories and Events of the Show Happened or Are Happening,' Todd Howard Confirms

Fallout 5 will indeed take into account the canon events of the Fallout TV series, Bethesda development chief Todd Howard has confirmed.

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Dec 17, 2025 • 12:10 PM EST • Technology • ign.com
Angie Nixon still mulling political future as 2026 nears

Compounding Nixon’s Senate hopes, and likely fueling her delay in making a decision, is a difficult, if not nonexistent, path to victory statewide.

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Dec 16, 2025 • 10:33 AM EST • Politics • floridapolitics.com
Mental Health Matters, People with Mental Illness Matter Too

Personal Perspective: Amid the mental health positive catchphrases, deep-rooted prejudice still exists toward people living with serious mental health conditions.

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Dec 14, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Health • psychologytoday.com
Beneath the icy face of Alaska, a long theorized ‘connector fault’ may be revealed in the wake of major earthquake

After a magnitude 7 earthquake ripped under Hubbard Glacier earlier this month, scientists believe a “connector fault” may exist between established cuts in the thick planetary crust.

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Dec 13, 2025 • 3:08 PM EST • Science • adn.com
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The politics of being pro-Israel

Last week, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore stood before a crowded room of Jewish attendees just outside the nation’s capital, and proclaimed: “Today, I want to be loud and clear, that Maryland stands with the Israeli people and we support their right to exist in the region with the same sense of safety and security that... Read More

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Dec 12, 2025 • 6:22 AM EST • Politics • jewishinsider.com
Superbet Group becomes Super Technologies, shaping the future of digital entertainment ecosystems

BUCHAREST, Romania, Dec. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Superbet Group, a leading company in the global technology and entertainment space, announces its rebrand as Super Technologies. The new identity, which will be simply known as Super, reflects the company’s evolution, its expanded vision for the future, and its commitment to building innovative solutions for a rapidly changing world. At the same time, the company will continue to operate its commercial brands across existing territories, with

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Dec 11, 2025 • 7:15 AM EST • Entertainment • uk.finance.yahoo.com
GOP Senators Will Counter Democrats’ Bid to Preserve Health Care Subsidies

Senate Republicans plan to offer a proposal that would create a new payment for people with bare-bones health coverage, clashing with Democrats who are pressing for an extension of existing tax credits.

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Dec 9, 2025 • 6:21 PM EST • Health • nytimes.com
Search for Life Should Be Top Science Priority for First Human Landing on Mars, Says New Report

When astronauts set foot on Mars, it will be one of humanity’s greatest milestones, marking the start of a new era of discovery on another planet. A new National Academies report identifies the highest priority science objectives for the first human missions to Mars and says searching for evidence of existing or past life on the planet should be the top priority.

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Dec 9, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • nationalacademies.org
Google Says First AI Glasses with Gemini Will Arrive in 2026

Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it’s working to create two different categories of artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses to compete next year with existing models from Meta Platforms Inc.: one with screens, and another that’s audio focused.

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Dec 8, 2025 • 1:00 PM EST • Technology • bloomberg.com
Trinity College bans political activism over chalkboard messages

FIRE calls on Trinity to end its investigation into the matter and remove any existing policy prohibiting “political activism within academic settings.”

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Dec 8, 2025 • 12:57 PM EST • Politics • thefire.org
Time might not exist – and we're starting to understand why | BBC Science Focus Magazine

The closer we look at time, the stranger it gets

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Dec 7, 2025 • 9:00 AM EST • Science • sciencefocus.com
Cosmic knots may finally explain why the Universe exists

Knotted structures once imagined by Lord Kelvin may actually have shaped the universe’s earliest moments, according to new research showing how two powerful symmetries could have created stable “cosmic knots” after the Big Bang. These exotic objects may have briefly dominated the young cosmos, unraveled through quantum tunneling, and produced heavy right-handed neutrinos whose decays tipped the balance toward matter over antimatter.

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Dec 7, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Pope Leo sings. So should we. Science says it's good for us.

Humans are, in effect, hardwired to sing and dance, and we likely evolved to do so. In every known culture, evidence exists of music, singing or chanting.

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Dec 6, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • ncronline.org
Weekend reads: ‘The fall of a prolific science journal’; Clinical trials by ‘super-retractors’; ‘How to Study Things That May Not Exist’

Giving Tuesday was this week, and, like many organizations, we asked for your support. The work we do is funded in part by your donations. If you value our work in rooting out scientific fraud and …

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Dec 6, 2025 • 6:00 AM EST • Science • retractionwatch.com
Eurovision has faced political boycotts before – how does the latest compare?

Decision by four countries to pull out over Israel’s inclusion is significant for the contest but crisis may not be existential

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Dec 5, 2025 • 10:52 AM EST • Politics • theguardian.com
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Atropos Health Expands Oncology Precision Medicine Capabilities with Publication of New AI Algorithms for Rare Disease and Integration of ASCO Guidelines

PALO ALTO, Calif., December 05, 2025--Atropos Health, a pioneer in translating real-world clinical data into personalized real-world evidence (RWE) and insights, today announced the publication of additional AI tools for patient monitoring for existing paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)—a rare, serious blood disorder. The progression monitoring tools are in addition to the previously-published algorithm to improve earlier diagnosis that was announced prior.

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Dec 5, 2025 • 9:37 AM EST • Health • finance.yahoo.com
Sony's All-In on Exciting PS5 Action RPG The God Slayer, Despite an Xbox Version Existing

An unusual re-reveal

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Dec 5, 2025 • 2:00 AM EST • Technology • pushsquare.com
Lessons from the Past: Responsible Science and Astrobiology

In a recent paper, a team of SETI and astrobiology specialists examines four controversial claims about the existence of extraterrestrial life. From these, they present recommendations for scientists and science communicators when addressing future claims of discovery.

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Dec 4, 2025 • 3:10 PM EST • Science • universetoday.com
Merz in Danger With Business Warning Germany Is in ‘Free Fall’

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s unwieldy ruling alliance with the Social Democrats is facing an existential crisis of its own making that could trigger its demise after only seven months in office.

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Dec 4, 2025 • 12:00 AM EST • Business • bloomberg.com
Sterile Neutrino Prediction Muddled by Latest Experiments

Two papers challenged the existence of theorized particles called sterile neutrinos that might account for mysteries like the cosmos’s dark matter.

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Dec 3, 2025 • 11:00 AM EST • Science • nytimes.com
What Josh Shapiro Believes

The Pennsylvania governor has spent his life preparing to lead an America that might no longer exist.

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Dec 3, 2025 • 6:00 AM EST • Politics • theatlantic.com
For Gen Z, cash isn't king. It's a joke.

'It's money that doesn't exist": Gen Z is treating cash like fake money.

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Dec 2, 2025 • 4:09 AM EST • Business • businessinsider.com
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Science must move from materialism to mystery

Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have told us about it are right, or maybe whether there are other alternatives. That's why I've been a fierce critic of materialism. As a scientist, I realized that they had sold us this idea that to be a good scientist you also had to subscribe to many other -isms, like materialism, reductionism, and even secularism. And so first I think one needs to unmount these -isms, and then, as is happening today in consciousness studies, we have a huge landscape where there isn't only one game in town, the idea that matter is the only thing that really exists. But because we are studying the hard problem of consciousness, it may be the case that other views of reality, like idealism, or even dualism, or other theories like dual aspect monism... these are philosophical ideas that now, I think, have room in science to be taken seriously. How does something like materialism relate to dualism or idealism? What is materialism in the first place?Well, materialism is the philosophical position that matter is the only really ‘real’ thing in the universe. And I think that worked kind of well because science started 400 years ago and Galileo made that split, I call it the foundational wound. It was a great business move.He said, let's start doing science on that portion of reality that lends itself more easily to mathematization and measurement. So, for some reason, the solidity of this table or the movement of planets lend themselves very well to this foundational idea of science. But as time went on, 400 years later, we realized that we had forgotten the other side, which is what really matters.What really matters is pain, is love, is feelings, sensation, consciousness, which is very hard to define, but very intimate. We all know what it is. It's that thing that disappears when we go into deep sleep and comes back in the morning. SUGGESTED VIEWING On the edges of knowledge With Michael Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Güneş Taylor It's what it is like to be, as Nagel said. It's the feeling of being alive. So, materialism is good to study certain things, but then when it ossifies into this ideology and then is dressed like science, now it's preventing us from understanding these key questions that are really that everybody wants to know.Why are we here? Why do we feel reality? Where do we go when we die? And so we need other ways. We need pluralism. I'm only asking for having more options on the table and taking them seriously. Why does materialism fail to explain consciousness? For example, if you were to lobotomize me, I would not be a functional human being. What do you say to someone who might think that materialism adequately explains the mind?Well, here we could speak about different things. We could talk about physics or about neuroscience. I happen to have training with both.For instance, for neuroscientists, 99% of them, I'm not included in that portion, believe that the brain can only be a productive organ. It's an organ that somehow, somewhere, consciousness emerges. It's like a lamp. And then something happens, magic happens, and then consciousness emerges.That's the position you need to be if you're a materialist because if the only really ‘real’ thing is matter, then you need to say, just give us some more time and money and we'll figure out how mind emerges or is produced from matter. There are many philosophically sophisticated ways of criticizing this.Now there's another option, which is the brain as a permissive organ. This was said by William James more than 100 years ago.Now then the brain wouldn't be like this machine, like for instance, a heat engine whose smoke is consciousness, which is what we would have in the first big model, the productive model. But in the permissive model, the brain would be a kind of a filter. And so the brain would still have a very important role in consciousness, but it wouldn't be a productive role.It would be permissive, much like a filter or much like a prism which would receive light. And - I'm speaking metaphorically - it would receive the light of the mind and then it could reflect it and refract it.Now, with these two big options on the table, I think we can make progress into what I call the edges of consciousness, which are all these experiences, weird experiences that many people have, but we don't talk about enough, like near-death experiences, precognitive dreams, synchronicities. These experiences are very important for humans and they have a place in the permissive hypothesis and they are literally impossible in the productive hypothesis. So that's yet one more reason to explore alternatives to materialism. There may be anecdotal evidence for near-death experiences, but is there robust evidence that would be accepted by the majority of scientists who subscribe to the scientific method?Sure. And the plural of anecdotes, someone said, is data.And there's a lot of data. Actually, this year is the 50th anniversary, half a century, since Dr. Raymond Moody realized that we have two ears and one mouth and started listening to what his patients had to say about their experiences while they were clinically dead.The heart had stopped, breathing had stopped in these patients. These patients would come back and tell him these amazing stories that some people may say are hallucinations, but for the patients were hyper-real, like seeing light at the end of the tunnels, seeing deceased family members waiting for them, feeling bliss.___I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain.___And so he and others started taking them seriously and writing their accounts down. And then you can do a science based on that material of experience that people have. Now, on the more objective side, more recently people have started to measure what's going on in the brain when people are clinically dead and brought back. This has opened a proper field of study, which is near-death studies.Evidence is a difficult word, because sometimes people think that when you say evidence, this is just the final proof. Evidence is like in a jury. You bring testimony, you bring pieces of data that point in one direction or another.I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain. When brains are broken or shut off, there can still be mind going on. And that's revolutionary.That would entail that when we die, it's not game over, which, by the way, is the thesis of materialism. If consciousness survives, materialism dies. It's game over for materialism if something of us continues after we die. Do you think that there is mental continuity after death?Well, I think so, and I believe so, and I could also say I may have experienced it myself, because four years ago I had a near-death experience. I was in the hospital, I lost a lot of blood, and I saw those beings at the end of the tunnel, three beings, and there was yellow light. I was in a well, I was looking upwards, and I hadn't read about NDEs by then, but when I came back from this experience, I decided I would try to integrate this also in my professional life. Not just my personal life, of course, but my professional life as a physicist and as a neuroscientist. So I may have had the experience of glimpses of what an afterlife would be, and I'm not ashamed to say it in this way, and then one can do science of it, and then one can do philosophy of it.One can think about what -isms we were discussing, what views on reality would allow those experiences to be really ‘real,’ as opposed to, well, poor guy, the brain was kind of broken, it must have been a hallucination. Do you have a view about whether individuality or “the ego” persists after death, or whether we sort of merge into some sort of cosmic consciousness instead?I don't know, but my view would be along those lines you're suggesting. I think we could speak about a kind of universal mind, and then the problem is not how we emerge from matter, but how we fragment from a more holistic consciousness into these individual eddies and then when we die, this kind of dissipates.But I'm not sure. For instance, idealism would promote that view, but then what would survive of us after these eddies just vanish and become again the big Consciousness, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't know for sure, but I would tell you I believe something of us survives.And there are other lines of research, not just near-death experience, that can address this really hard question of survival. For instance, there are children who remember previous lives. This was studied by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia for more than 50 years.___Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.___It's amazing research. He went all over the world, especially in the East, and collected all these case studies, all these stories. In plural, these were data of kids, very young age, who would describe up to 40 items that then he could go and verify.There was no internet. There was really no way the kid could know. Why would the kid say that when I was living in this other body and I was a woman and that's how my house would look like or that's how I would die, right? Again, there is evidence, not proof, but there's evidence not only that something weird and interesting is happening as we cross the threshold, but also when we come back to this life.Scientists should not be afraid of studying this, but they are because there's stigma. There's usually stigma upon the enigma, and this is so unfortunate. And one of the reasons is because of the ideology of materialism, because those things cannot be possible. What is wrong with the politics of science such that they have generated this stigma?So many things. Science is a human activity to begin with.So it falls prey to all our passions and ego and greed. That's one thing. Science is a job for the good and for the bad.You need to get a salary. You need to get grants. Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.And then, we didn't have time to unpack this, but science for many years become entangled, as I was suggesting before, to other -isms, materialism, secularism. So anything that smells like the afterlife, people may think has to do with God, and then they freak out.Anything that suggests that there's something about the mind that may not need a physical material substrate to exist, it smells like non-materialism. So, all these -isms are ideologically blocking that kind of research, and then there are all these sociopolitical constraints as to what should be studied and what shouldn't be studied.I call it the backstage of science. Sometimes we scientists or science communicators seem to speak as if the data is the only thing that matters. We say, well, data and theory.But then there's a third leg of this stool, which is all the politics that goes behind the scenes. And we often don't speak about this, and it's quite vicious and petty, and it's very real. Why is materialism so attractive to most scientists?Well, an easy answer is because we've grown up with it.It's what the educational system promotes, and that's what you hear when you go to university. So it's like growing in a culture. It feels like the air in which you breathe.So it's very hard to begin with to detect, well, maybe there's another alternative. Maybe there are other ways of doing science, other environments in which one could do science. That's one reason.And other reasons maybe are more profound, and I'm not qualified to explain them, but I could say, looking at this 400-year history of science, since it started around 1623 with Galileo's book The Assayer, that science went and coupled with all what's going on in the West.And so the fall of religion, you could say, and science presented us this new alternative that then could be coupled very well with other -isms, and this idea of growth, and then science losing its good twin brother, which was philosophy. There's a whole natural history of science starting as philosophy, kind of emancipating or breaking out from philosophy, and then marrying technology, and then marrying other social systems.From that point of view, materialism is a very convenient idea to propose. There were attempts, like the German idealists tried to do a more romantic science. But no, the idea prevailed, like Francis Bacon said: You should pursue nature through all her corners, he said, and make her spill her secrets.Our attitude towards nature in the science that dominates is very much reflecting how we treat nature in our society, in our culture, like a resource to extract secrets by force and then dominate it. How is materialism related to the notions of growth and progress? What's wrong with having a productive citizenry?This is another very interesting and very difficult question to answer.But there's this recent book coming out by Paul Kingsnorth. In it, he explains this idea of the machine and this idea of progress. And this, again, this conflation of more is better, of we need to go forward always, and convincing us that the way to do that is to continually extract more from nature. But because we don't have the religious context anymore, because God is dead, then what do we have? We have what we can do as humans with our own gadgets.It's kind of the story of the Promethean fire. We will just build anything to make ourselves God.A good example today is transhumanism. Transhumanism is this pseudo-religion dressed in technoscientific language whose goal is very religious. They promise immortality, they promise redemption, they promise transformation of the entire natural world, but it's done by human means through technology. Are you suggesting that we can't have ethics without religion?Well, we should have ethics with or without religion. That's another pruning that has happened in science. We say, forget about aesthetics, although some physicists still think that beautiful means probably true, and forget about politics. We pretend there's no backstage of science, and even let's forget about ethics.___Science needs to be in the service of mankind.___Scientists, when they become more like engineers, they're just thinking how to make things work so that they can go to the moon, go to Mars, make machines that think, but they don't think whether that's a good idea.And also consider metaphysics. Many scientists for a long time pretended, and maybe that comes from the stream of positivisms, that really one doesn't need metaphysics at all, except that materialism is always the metaphysics running the system.You see, it's not just ethics. It's the pruning of all of these, you could say, five main legs of philosophy that just makes a kind of unconscious science, a science that doesn't really know what it's doing. It's doing it very well locally, but it just doesn't know what it's doing globally. Do you think science has to have an ultimate vision and purpose behind it for it to be effective or for it to be meaningful and transformative?Yes, a way I would say that is that science needs to be in the service of mankind. And it hasn't been that. And we can see it through, you know, when we discovered the secrets of the atom, and all of a sudden, the Manhattan Project, and then we create nuclear weapons.And now we're trying to crack how machines may think, and now we're creating this mess, right? So science needs to be in service of mankind, not in service of a few ideas that maybe want to make more money or just dominate upon nature. What about planes, trains, automobiles, and modern medicine? Hasn't science served mankind by helping us develop those technologies?Yes and no. I see where you're going, and it's fair.I came here by plane, and it's a blessing. When I almost died, the surgeons did their job, and they saved my life. But these two forced choices between Luddites and Silicon Valley types, I think, of course, it's a false dichotomy.Progress, in a way, it's good, but we often don't speak about the dark side of the moon. We say the great things that progress has brought, and we don't speak about the disasters, the side effects that it has come with, and the same when we promise new technologies. We tend to think that any technology is great, that email is going to save us so much time because we don't need to write letters and send them anymore.Is that true? I spend so many hours a week writing emails. Let's just say there are great things about it and bad things about it. People like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for example, argue that we've made moral progress over time because of the Enlightenment. Do you think that's totally wrong-headed?I think he's emphasizing a side of the moon, and he does that very well, and you can find tons of plots where there's a slope going up and say it's great. But I think he should also tell the not-so-friendly story.But if your ideology is just to resist and continue to explain that the Enlightenment is the best thing ever and reason is the best thing ever… this feels to me like you're worshipping these abstractions.I'm very critical of it and also of these, again, science communicators and scientists that say, Oh, science says, in the name of science, experts say. It's like, come on, let's be careful because we can shoot ourselves in the foot by putting forth to the people an image of science that we know is not really true. Recently there's been a resurgence of spirituality and of people who say that they're spiritual but not religious, especially in the United States. If materialism is going away, what is going to fill that gap? Are we going to return to traditional religion? Do you see that being connected with the rise of the political right?I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, we could say we're in this post-materialist age and even post-secular age. One cannot come back to the past, but maybe just to contact with the roots is a good idea.What do I mean by that? I think we need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method. We need to do so in a culture where we realize humans cannot thrive in a vacuum where there's this idea that the sacred has to be removed.Now, how do we do that without bringing in back all the vices of religion? I don't know. I'm from a Catholic country.Here we are in England, so there are differences and interreligious dialogue has always been a challenge. But I think maybe a way of putting it is: after all these conflicts and branchings I was quickly alluding to, science from philosophy and then also from religion, now there's a time of reconciliation perhaps and maybe debates in the proper sense, like exchange of ideas in service of learning and getting into something higher than both poles. We need science to talk to religious people and it's interesting when people say they're spiritual and not religious.I think this is just a way of saying, no, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. But at the end of the day, religions have offered us practices and grounding that we now desperately need. Everybody can and should just meditate or pray or do whatever they want, but we're in a crisis and it's time for reconciliation. What do you say to critics that say you are merely projecting our need for meaning onto a fundamentally indifferent universe?Yeah, I know that the typical science communicator says something like this. But we're not projecting. Human beings feed on meaning.It's the other way around. If you're a materialist, because the only thing that there is is matter, all that comes next, free will, consciousness, meaning, this is a kind of illusion that we need to explain.They're just craving for meaning, but there isn't really for them. I would also like to remind my materialist friends that for decades, if not centuries, they've said in the name of science, we know that this and this and this doesn't really exist. I think now they sense they're forced to say, well, actually, we don't know. We've been saying, for instance, that there's nothing after you die, and now probably they need to admit that they don't know the answer.___We need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method.___So it's a moment to open up possibilities and also to gently but fiercely critique these claims that I think harm society. If you say in the name of science, get on with it, when your father dies, you'll never see him again. Well, what the F do you know about it? You haven't studied the literature, you haven't had any of those experiences, and basically what you're doing is you're just doing marketing on ideology. This needs to stop. Do you think that it's scarier for some people to entertain the thought that there might be life after death, compared to a materialist worldview where you just die, given that there might be consequences for unsavory behaviour?Well, death and dying is scary. It's maybe the ultimate ending. It's a limit on life, and when we're in this conquest mode, we don't like limits.And it also has, there's a shockwave backwards, so I think if you change your notion of what death is or may be, you live differently. It also has consequences, as you're saying, for the future because this is not our only goal here and we come back in whatever form. And again, different religions would say different things. I the East, they are more happy with the idea of reincarnation, and here in the West, there are other preferences. But in any case, it changes how we live, and that's really what matters.It's not about just projecting or imagining what we'll be after, but how we live now and also how we treat those who are dying. So it goes from the individual to the families, to the hospitals.Now in the near-death research I do, this has ramifications at all these levels, all the way to society.But our society is thanatophobic. It has a phobia of death. We don't want to hear about death, and this is another thing we need to put on the table and be willing to talk about it. Do you think that we might get closer to answering ultimate questions like why is there anything at all if we jettison materialism?That’s an excellent question, Simon. Two things: we should stop treating reality, I believe, as a great sudoku, as an enigma, as something that with intelligence, money, and time that we will crack and instead treat reality more like a mystery. And what you do for in front of a mystery is not to be the clever guy in a class and say “I’ll solve you” but more like “I will bow and you will transform me.”I know this sounds a bit like a scientist speaking like a mystic. But I think this reorientation is needed. In the end, we won’t crack the big questions, but they will transform us. If we free ourselves from this prison of materialism, the way we will explore these questions will be freer, more creative, and in service of mankind. Do you think exploring mystery is the reason why we are here?I think we are here because, and this pseudo-theological argument I’m making off the cuff, But the One, the Absolute, if there is such a thing, had everything except limitation. We are that absolute experiencing that contingency. It’s like an act of divine proprioception. It’s a wonderful adventure, it’s just incredible to be alive. Perhaps we have forgotten why we are here and the whole point is to experience the flesh.Let me end by saying this. I criticize materialism harshly. I bang on this dead horse, because I think it’s dead. But matter is a great mystery. So maybe my invitation is as follows: hey materialist friends, come here, let’s work on materialism 2.0! Consciousness is a mystery, but matter is also a mystery. The fact that we can have an intersubjective experience consensus, the fact that we can apply mathematics, that we can measure things... the physical world we take for granted, but it is a great mystery too.Maybe that’s related to your last question: why are we here? Why did spirit decide to incarnate? Being in the flesh may be a great thing if spirit decided to do so.Àlex Gómez-Marín, thank you very much.My pleasure.

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