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Science sleuths think they found Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA
Advances in genetics might help us see what set the Renaissance man apart.
Movie Reviews with Entertainment Correspondent Mike Marra
Airdate: January 8th, 2026 JPS Superintendent Jeremy Patterson’s Mid-Year UpdateJanuary 8, 2026Red Cross Honors Volunteers During Blood Donor MonthJanuary 8, 2026Movie Reviews with Entertainment Correspondent Mike MarraJanuary 8, 2026Meet the JTV Staff with Joe HawleyJanuary 8, 2026Ella Sharp Museum Art A’Loan Program Partners with Young Poets, Jackson District LibraryJanuary 8, 2026Homer vs Napoleon | HS…
5 years later, political divide still wide over Jan. 6
Siena University political science professor Leonard Cutler and New York law professor Jeffrey Wice discussed what it will take to bridge that divide.
Why saving money isn't enough for small business owners
Listen and subscribe to The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcast.Having enough capital is critical when running a business - but saving income isn't enough to help grow wealth... This week on The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore, Howard Enterprise founder and the Wall Street Trapper Leon Howard joins the show to answer the question: How can I use a Wall Street mindset for my business? Howard, a financial educator, shares his expert advice for entrepreneurs on how they can grow their wealth and business, and set themselves up for long term success. Yahoo Finance’s The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore takes you on a journey with America’s entrepreneurs as they navigate the world of small business. This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff
Boise State has a guard problem
Through 16 games, the Boise State Broncos have maintained their status quo on the defensive end of the floor. They have the No. 26-ranked defensive effciency with the nation’s second-highest defensive rebound rate (77.1). While they don’t typically force a ton of turnovers, Leon Rice’s squads have typically been among the sound units defensively in […]
Leonardo da Vinci's DNA may be embedded in his art — and scientists think they've managed to extract some
In a first, scientists have extracted DNA from a Renaissance-era drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, but they can't be sure that the genetic material belongs to the Italian polymath.
UMass Amherst granted millions to expand life science research and manufacturing
UMass Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences has received two grants that total over $3.5 million from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
'One Battle After Another' dominates SAG's Actor Awards with 7 nominations
Seven nods is a record
Scientists Retrieve DNA that Could Belong to Leonardo Da Vinci
The research links Y chromosomes on a sketch to a genetic group from the great’s hometown.
2023 Ames Earth Science Nuggets
Earth Science (SG) Nuggets – Menu BarHomeNuggets Home2025202420232022 2023 Ames Earth Science Nuggets Earth Science Nuggets are bite-sized, single-page summaries of recent science results, mission highlights, and outreach activities. Back to Earth Science Nuggets Overview about 2023 Ames Earth Science Nuggets march 2023 Portable, Scalable, and Re-usable Science Data Processing Software for NASA Satellite Missions march 2023 Portable, Scalable, and Re-usable Science Data Processing Software for NASA Satellite Missions May 2023 ARC manages field campaign Sub-MesoscaleOcean Dynamics Experiment May 2023 ARC manages field campaign Sub-MesoscaleOcean Dynamics Experiment June 2023 Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) produces database on trace gas and meteorological observations June 2023 Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) produces database on trace gas and meteorological observations july 2023 Earth’s protective stratosphere affected by clouds from below july 2023 Earth’s protective stratosphere affected by clouds from below August 2023 What does global land climate look like at 2 degrees warming? August 2023 What does global land climate look like at 2 degrees warming? Downloads Portable, Scalable, and Re-usable Science Data Processing Software for NASA Satellite Missions Dec 18, 2025 PDF (279.60 KB) ARC manages field campaign Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment Dec 18, 2025 PDF (333.27 KB) Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) produces database on trace gas and meteorological observations Dec 18, 2025 PDF (332.86 KB) Earth’s protective stratosphere affected by clouds from below Dec 18, 2025 PDF (464.51 KB) What does global land climate look like at 2 degrees warming? Dec 18, 2025 PDF (246.82 KB)
Portland City Councilor approves fee for large entertainment venues
The new rule was developed after Live Nation proposed a giant concert venue in downtown Portland.
Leonardo DiCaprio Mocked For Getting Marooned On Vacation With Jeff Bezos
Critics Choice Awards host Chelsea Handler just had to joke with the “One Battle After Another” star after he was MIA at another big event.
Leonardo DiCaprio on the importance of creating cinema over content at Palm Springs Film Festival
Leonardo DiCaprio emphasizes the importance of creating cinema over content at the Palm Springs Film Festival's 37th annual International Film Awards.
A PvP Analysis on Community Day Classic Empoleon
Happy New Year, dear readers! 🥳 There is barely time to catch up on the sleep lost watching New Year’s festivities 🥱 before our first event of 2026 is already upon us: Community Day Classic Empoleon is THIS weekend, Sunday the 4th, from 2:00pm to 5:00pm locally. And the only summary I think I need to provide […]
SC health officials report measles exposure at 3 new locations
According to the South Carolina Department of Public Health, 185 cases of the measles have now been confirmed across the Upstate.
Brad Pitt didn't believe Leonardo DiCaprio when he pointed out his parents on set
Leonardo DiCaprio is looking back on the time Brad Pitt mistook his parents for extras on the set of 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood': 'That's how they dress every day!'
SGMC Health Rings in 2026 with Its First New Year’s Baby
SGMC Health welcomed its first baby of 2026 on New Year’s Day. The new year’s baby, Landan Anderson, born to Cassandra Jones and Leon Anderson
Matt Szafranski of Western Mass. Politics & Insight on some of the Pioneer Valley's top political stories of 2025
All politics is local, and the Pioneer Valley is no exception. WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief James Paleologopoulos spoke with Western Mass Politics and Insight editor-in-chief Matt Szafranski about some of this year’s top political stories. They include what could be a generational divide taking shape in Springfield and beyond, and political upheaval in Northampton, where a group devoted to securing public school funding took on the city government at the ballot box...
Her Turn to Lead: How a Family Event Business Found New Life--and New Markets
Singapore-based exhibition and event agency Leon Exhibition Pte Ltd has announced a leadership transition, with second-generation leader Shuhui Mai taking the lead.
Did one line in a Leonardo codex anticipate yakisugi?
The Japanese technique of burning wood surfaces creates a protective carbonized layer in bioarchitecture.
Special edition: The year in photos: Sports highlights from 2025
FSU women’s soccer punctuated 2025 with an emphatic statement - its fifth national championship that reverberated across Tallahassee’s sports scene.
Los Angeles hosts Sacramento after Leonard's 55-point game
Sacramento Kings (8-24, 14th in the Western Conference) vs. Los Angeles Clippers (10-21, 13th in the Western Conference)
4 more African nations secure $2.3bn US health funding under America First strategy
The United States has signed four new Global Health Cooperation Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with Ethiopia, Botswana, Sierra Leone and Madagascar, marking a major expansion of Washington’s health engagement in Africa under President Donald Trump’s America First Global Health Strategy
Thinking through what may be on tap in 2026
When the three-million-year-old bones of Lucy were unearthed in an Ethiopian valley in 1974, paleoanthropologists anointed her as the Eve to all of us. Though her skull was not big enough to accommodate our larger, homo sapiens’ brain, she was a genetic hominid. Although a few bone fragments of a greater age have been discovered […]
Youngstown State visits Leonard and Cleveland State
Cleveland State plays the Youngstown State Penguins after Jada Leonard scored 25 points in Cleveland State's 82-45 win against the Puerto Rico-Bayamon Cowgirls
Former Worcester public health commissioner Leonard Morse dies at 96
Morse said the most notable event of his career was an investigation of a hepatitis A breakout that hit the College of the Holy Cross football team in 1969.
‘Dino Mommy’ Reysuka Claps Back at Critics Questioning Her Science Credentials: “I’m the Sexy Bill Nye”
A culture clash awaited Reysuka. She believed that she was about to share a fun museum picture. “I’m a paleontologist with a Ph.D. Come talk to Dino Mommy!” The selfie-taking,… The post ‘Dino Mommy’ Reysuka Claps Back at Critics Questioning Her Science Credentials: “I’m the Sexy Bill Nye” appeared first on Where Is The Buzz | Breaking News, Entertainment, Exclusive Interviews & More.
Best of Clarksville Showcases Local Businesses, Entertainment, and Family Fun - Clarksville Online - Clarksville News, Sports, Events and Information
Clarksville, TN - The 29th Annual Best of Clarksville triumphantly returned to Governor's Square Mall in October, bringing together the best businesses
Beloved social media dog Raffie dies from heart attack amid vicious assault
Beloved social media influencer dog Raffie of the Bundleofbullies TikTok account has died after a reported heart attack amid a vicious assault from another dog.
Kawhi Leonard is playing in Terminator mode
The Sporting Tribune's BJ Matthews writes that 'The Terminator' is here. No, not Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the other guy that plays basketball for that team in L.A.
US signs health agreements with African nations, warns against nonperformance
The U.S. signed four new global health memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Botswana, and Ethiopia, which total nearly $2.3 billion in funding, the State Department said on Tuesday.
Advancing the America First Global Health Strategy Through Landmark Bilateral Global Health MOUs - United States Department of State
On December 22 and 23, the United States signed four additional new, landmark global health Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Botswana, and Ethiopia, reinforcing U.S. leadership that delivers measurable results for the American people and puts America First by directly countering global infectious disease threats and reducing foreign dependence on U.S. taxpayers. […]
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.
The Science Of It - Paleontology Month Continues with a Familiar Florida Friend
The Science Of It - Paleontology Month Continues with a Familiar Florida Friend
Netflix shows Political Science professor What’s in the Box?
From thinking outside the box while teaching Political Science to guessing What’s in the Box? on the Netflix game show released in December — Leona Pallansch, Ph.D., has done it all.
Guns marketed for personal safety fuel public health crisis in Black communities
KFF Health News undertook an examination of gun violence during the pandemic, a period when firearm deaths reached an all-time high.
Rutgers Women’s Basketball Hosts Lafayette on Saturday
Scarlet Knights Round Out Nonconference Slate By Hosting The Leopards
UC San Diego defeats Loyola Marymount 67-57
LOS ANGELES (AP) Leo Beath's 15 points helped UC San Diego defeat Loyola Marymount 67-57 on Tuesday night.
Ancient bees laid eggs inside bones
A 20,000 year old fossil uncovered in a tarantula-filled cave has paleontologists stunned.
My tween kept asking to chat with her friends online. Now, in Australia, I can just say, 'it's against the law.'
Leon Spencer, an Australian dad, wants his kids to meet up with friends in person, not become products for advertisers.
Resident Evil Requiem is "like jumping into a cold bath after sitting in a hot sauna"
Resident Evil: Requiem is "like jumping into a cold bath after sitting in a hot sauna" in terms of how it splits Leon and Grace's sections, Capcom say.
Resident Evil Requiem's Leon and Grace will have differing gameplay like "jumping into a cold bath after a hot sauna"
Resident Evil Requiem's dual protagonists will represent two styles of gameplay, which its developers describe as "jumping into a cold bath after a hot sauna".
Round Up: Everything Announced At The Game Awards 2025 - All Switch 1 & 2 Reveals
The Leon and Winding Road
Capcom Finally Confirms Leon S. Kennedy Is In Resident Evil Requiem | The Game Awards 2025
After months of speculation and a revealing leak earlier this week, Capcom has finally, officially confirmed what we all knew: Leon S. Kennedy is in Resident Evil Requiem, and he's here to kick butt.
Pebble's founder introduces a $75 AI smart ring for recording brief notes with a press of a button
After rebooting the Pebble smartwatch, founder Eric Migicovsky is expanding his company's device lineup with a new smart wearable: an AI-powered smart ring known as Index 01. Named for the finger where the ring is meant to be worn, the new $75 ring is not meant to be a competitor to the always-on, always-listening AI devices, like the AI pendant Friend, but instead offers a way to record quick notes and reminders with a press of a button on the ring's side. AI only comes into play via the open source, speech-to-text, and AI models that run locally on your smartphone, via the open source Pebble mobile app. That is, if the Ring's button is not being pressed, it's not recording. (And this is a press-and-hold gesture, too, which means you can't start the ring's recording and then let go to surreptitiously record a conversation.) You can wear the stainless steel ring while in the shower, washing hands, doing dishes, or in the rain, but you would have to take it off for other water-related activities, like swimming. At launch, it's water-resistant to 1 meter. The ring is also not a fitness tracker or sleep monitor. It doesn't record details about your heart rate or health. And it's not there to be your AI friend. "I'm not trying to build some AI assistant thing," Migicovsky told TechCrunch in an interview. "I build things that solve one main problem, and they solve it really well," he explains. "I think of as external memory for my brain...that's what this is. It's always with you." Plus, the ring has been designed to be highly reliable and privacy-preserving, he says, as all your thoughts are stored on your phone, not in the cloud. There is no subscription. Migicovsky has been wearing the ring for three months now and says he cannot imagine going back to a world where he doesn't always have a memory device with him. "The problem is that, during the day, I get ideas or I remember something, and if I don't write it down that second, I forget it," he says. The ring solves this problem, he adds, without becoming another device you need to charge. "The battery lasts for years," Migicovsky claims. Technically, the ring is said to support roughly 12 to 14 hours of recording. On average, the founder says he uses it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. At that rate, he'll get about two years of usage. When the ring's battery dies, you can ship it back to the company for recycling. When using Index, you can record up to five minutes of audio, which can be saved to the ring and synced to your phone later. This makes sense for recording briefer, personal thoughts and notes, even when you don't have your phone handy, but it wouldn't work for recording a longer chat, like a presentation, meeting, or in-person interview of some kind. The ring also supports 99+ languages and has a bit of on-device memory, in case you're not in Bluetooth range of your device, where the recording is ultimately saved and transcribed. (The raw audio is retained, too, in case the speech-to-text is garbled due to loud background noise). If you own a Pebble smartwatch or one from another brand, your recorded thought can even appear on the watch's screen so you can verify it's correct. The ring works with Pebble's mobile app, which offers notes and reminders, but can optionally integrate with your phone's calendaring system, too, or other apps, like Notion. And the ring's software is open source, which makes it hackable by the community, the founder points out. Because of its open nature, the ring's button is already programmable. In addition to the press-and-hold gesture, you can program the ring to do other things with a single or double press, like play or pause your music or control the shutter on your phone's camera. You could use it to send a message through the universal chat app Beeper, which Migicovsky also created, or you could add your own voice actions via MCP. A new approach to hardware Migicovsky acknowledges that hardware can be difficult to get right -- as the previous exit of Pebble to Fitbit showed. (Fitbit, too, was later acquired by Google in 2021). "I didn't earn any money during Pebble -- we exited, but it was not a great exit," Migicovsky admits. This year, however, he decided to reboot the Pebble project after Google open sourced the PebbleOS, which opened up the door to new hardware. With his new company, Core Devices, Migicovsky plans to do things differently. Still, the founder doesn't regret his previous choices, he clarifies. "I wouldn't have gone back and changed anything. I loved what we built. I loved what we did. I love the company that we built, but it's not the only way to build a company," he told TechCrunch. " And, speaking as an ex-YC partner, there are -- there's a time and a place for building a venture-backed startup. Some companies are phenomenal when they raise money and build a big team, and I tried that...I think what I'm doing now is trying an alternative path, which is start from profitability," he says. The new company is a small team of five, self-funded, and focused on sustainability. So far, Core Devices has shipped the Pebble 2 Duo smartwatch with a black-and-white display. Its first run sold out, and the company is now preparing to ship the upgraded version, the Pebble Time 2. The newer device, which has seen 25,000 pre-orders, is a stainless steel watch with a larger, color e-ink screen. As for the Index 01, the ring's pre-order offer ends in March 2026. After that, the price increases to $99. It currently comes in silver, polished gold, and matte black and works with iOS and Android devices. Customers can select from eight ring sizes and three colors.
PlayStation leak confirms Leon will be in Resident Evil Requiem after all
Leaked Resident Evil Requiem cover art confirms what we suspected all along - Leon Kennedy is indeed going to be a part of the game.
Confirmed: Leon S. Kennedy is in Resident Evil Requiem, PlayStation Store Leak Reveals
At long last, Leon S. Kennedy has been confirmed to appear in Resident Evil Requiem — via a leaked image on the PlayStation Store.
Eastern Washington visits Washington State following Villa's 23-point outing
Washington State hosts the Eastern Washington Eagles after Eleonora Villa scored 23 points in Washington State's 56-54 loss to the BYU Cougars
Resident Evil Requiem leak points to a second playable character, and it isn't Leon
A listing for Resident Evil Requiem's Deluxe Edition may have given away more than Capcom intended, with the suggestion of an unexpected playable character.
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.
Your iPhone Already Has iPhone Fold Software, but Apple Won’t Let You Use It
Recent exploits show iPadOS windows running on an iPhone, hinting at the future of Apple hardware and software alike—while also possibly revealing its incoming foldable phone experience.
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.
OTTAWA CHARGE STATEMENTS REGARDING HEAD COACH CARLA MACLEOD’S RECENT HEALTH NEWS
OTTAWA, ON (November 30, 2025) – The Ottawa Charge shared the following statements today regarding Head Coach Carla MacLeod’s recent health news: Statement from Charge Head Coach Carla MacLeod “I want to share some personal news: I was recently diagnos...