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What to watch for in Tennessee tonight: From the Politics Desk
Plus, hopes in Congress for a health care deal fade.
Tennessee election updates: Voters hit polls in tighter-than-expected race
Tennessee's House District 7 was supposed to be Democrat-proof, but a progressive state representative is looking for an upset over her GOP rival.
See a show at the JER Science Center this holiday season
The James E. Richmond Science Center is in the festive spirit with a slate of full dome movies playing this month.
3 reasons to watch Tennessee's special election
We've arrived at the sixth special election in the House this year. Here's what to know.
Al Gore urges Democrats to send a 'shock wave' in Tennessee race
The former vice president made a rare return to the campaign trail as he delivered an impassioned plea to Tennesseans to vote for Democrat Aftyn Behn.
I tried 6 brands of packaged chocolate-chip cookies, and I was most disappointed by a cult-favorite
I tasted store-bought cookies from Tate's Bake Shop, Pepperidge Farm, Chips Ahoy, Kroger, Keebler, and Pillsbury's to see which brand is best.
Denver Broncos power rankings around the web for Week 14
The Denver Broncos continue to win in the most amazing ways. On Sunday Night Football, they needed a Nik Bonitto batted pass on a two-point try in over time to move past the Washington Commanders. At 10-2, they are one of just two double-digit win teams in the NFL after thirteen weeks of football. At […]
Live Results: Tennessee 7th Congressional District special election
Less than a month after Democrats scored a string of victories over Republicans in the Nov. 4 general election, the next test at the ballot box for both parties heading into the 2026 midterm season will be Tuesday in a Tennessee special congressional election on usually reliable GOP turf.
Meredith Whitney Sees Affordability as Top Political Issue
Meredith Whitney Advisory Group CEO Meredith Whitney warns about the debt of the "avocado toast" generation and sees affordability being the top political issue in 2026. She speaks on "Bloomberg Open Interest." (Source: Bloomberg)
2025 Week 14 QB Fantasy Rankings: Sleepers, Streamers, Busts
See the top projected fantasy quarterbacks for Week 14. Our rankings highlight the best QB options to start in your fantasy football lineup.
Missouri sports betting post launch: Here's how to sign up today
Missouri sports betting is now live. See what Sportsbook offers and promos you can use to sign up officially today.
Section III high school sports schedule for Dec. 2
See which Section III teams are competing today.
Business listings: See 27 new businesses in Central NY
See a list of filings in Onondaga, Madison and Cayuga counties.
Science Explains Why You Wince When Watching Another's Pain
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, Dec. 2, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Ever wonder why you instinctively wince when you see physical harm come to a TV or movie character on screen? There’s a scientific explanation for why we flinch when watching painful events, even though we know it’s not ...
50% Copper Tariffs Have Tennessee Small Business on Edge
A small, specialty manufacturer in Tennessee struggles to survive as semi-finished copper tariffs strain their operations.
GOP pessimism grows over any deal to extend expiring health care subsidies
Senate Republicans don’t see a bipartisan deal to extend enhanced health insurance premium subsidies coming together before the Christmas deadline, given the complexity of the issue and a growing f…
It seems inevitable that Sam Altman will bring ads to ChatGPT. When will it happen — and what will they look like?
Everyone believes ads are going to end up in ChatGPT. But we don't know when or how — and it's possible Sam Altman doesn't either.
Tennessee special election stirs Democratic hopes and Republican fears of an upset
Tennessee’s 7th congressional district is usually an easy win for Republicans. But Tuesday’s special election gives Democrats hope for an upset as they test just how far their recently successful message of affordability can take them.
Why Republicans are sweating Tuesday’s special election in ‘Trump Country’
The surprisingly competitive race in Tennessee’s ruby-red 7th Congressional District is a high-profile test of voters’ attitudes about the president’s agenda.
Democrats and Republicans are pouring money into a special election in Tennessee. Here's why
Tuesday's special election for Tennessee's 7th Congressional District between Democrat Aftyn Behn and Republican Matt Van Epps has attracted outsize attention and spending from both parties.
Mexico Political Risk Hits Peru Level as Sheinbaum Support Sags
Mexico’s political risk has crept up to levels seen in Peru, as Mexicans voice mounting frustration over cartel-fueled crime, corruption and a stagnant economy.
Athletics intent on joining sport’s Goliaths but knows it has long way to go
Jon Ridgeon is overseeing World Athletics’ reach for a younger audience but has to battle it out with football and F1
Lions vs. Cowboys Injury Report
See who's in and who's out for the Week 14 matchup between the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys on December 4, 2025.
Section III high school sports scoreboard, stats leaders for Dec. 1
See results from Section III teams.
Go behind the scenes at a successful Marin County estate sale business
From modest items to billionaires’ collections, this nearly 29-year-old San Rafael company has evolved from auctions to consignment with a model that seeks to help families find new homes for…
Steam Machine is a Dream Come True But There's Already a Massive Problem
Steam Machine sounds like a great option for those who want to get into PC gaming, but there seems to be a catch
Apple just named a new AI chief with Google and Microsoft expertise, as John Giannandrea steps down
The move is being characterized as a shake-up, but was seemingly inevitable in retrospect.
Here's a list of the 15 must-see high school basketball games of the season
The list starts with a Catholic League showdown Friday
‘Heartbreaking:’ Snow shutters some stores on Small Business Saturday
Local retailers see mixed results as the weather forces closures and reduces foot traffic.
Science teacher bringing lessons to life with a touch of magic
Alexus Ables uses magic and real-life experiences to draw her students in to learning.
Does Congress see war crimes in Venezuela?
Amid reports Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike on a Venezuelan boat, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine about how Congress is handling oversight of the Pentagon.
Trump’s quest for political retribution is impeding the Justice Department : The NPR Politics Podcast
President Trump has vowed to seek retribution from his perceived political enemies and to reward his political allies. We discuss how that focus is playing out at the Justice Department, where career prosecutors and other civil servants are no longer calling the shots. How does this partisan shift affect major court cases, from redistricting in Texas to James Comey’s prosecution?This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.
THE WEEK OF DEC 1, 2025
- Senate releases DOE funding proposals - House to examine competition with China in space - OSTP seeks input on accelerating science
Trump says 'whole world is watching' Tennessee race as GOP works to avert disaster
President Trump told Tennesseans "the whole world is watching" as Republicans work to avert a disaster in a closely watched special election.
Jeffries seeks to raise pressure on GOP centrists over expiring health care subsidies
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is pressing centrist Republicans to help Democrats extend ObamaCare tax credits before they expire at the end of the month. Jeffries has offered…
College basketball rankings see Michigan soar in USA TODAY Sports coaches poll
A dominant performance in Las Vegas during the week of Thanksgiving has Michigan rising in the USA TODAY Sports men's basketball poll.
Johnson and Trump Try to Avoid an Upset House Loss in Tennessee
Speaker Mike Johnson put the president on speakerphone during a Monday stop in the state, underscoring the unusual amount of national attention on a House special election.
You can get an LG B5 OLED for less than $900
We haven’t seen a better OLED deal during Cyber Monday
I toured the White House to see Melania Trump's Christmas decorations. The East Wing is no more, but the display was still dazzling.
First lady Melania Trump unveiled the 2025 White House Christmas decorations centered on the theme "Home Is Where The Heart Is."
Staff Spotlight: Adan Delval, College of Arts and Sciences
Adan Delval is the program manager with the Department of Computer Science where he oversees two National Science Foundation grants: the S-STEM Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships to...
Seen but not forgotten: How citizen science helps document biodiversity in remote Borneo villages
When I, Erik Meijaard, worked as a wildlife consultant for a timber concession in Borneo, I often chatted with the logging truck drivers—and quickly realized that some of them knew far more about local ...
Live updates: Trump administration news and the latest on Ukraine, Venezuela
President Donald Trump will hold a meeting at the White House this evening about next steps on Venezuela, sources told CNN, as his administration also seeks a peace deal in Ukraine. Follow for live updates.
10 US cities where home values are actually increasing
Home prices may be falling in many cities, but some homeowners are still seeing their property values rise in these US cities.
AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Tennessee's special congressional election
Less than a month after Democrats scored big victories in the Nov. 4 general election, voters in a heavily Republican Tennessee congressional district will fill a vacant seat Tuesday in the closely divided U.S. House
Rams upset by Panthers; Chargers win, but Justin Herbert is injured
The Rams are no longer the top seed in the NFC after losing, while the Chargers win, but Justin Herbert breaks his left hand.
Bar, commercial and industrial: See 21 latest business, apartment, land sales ($2K to $1.2M)
See a list of property sales in Onondaga County other than residential homes.
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.
Section III high school sports schedule for Dec. 1
See which Section III teams are competing today.
African American Small Business Foundation Inc. Launches Giving Tuesday Initiative
The African American Small Business Foundation Inc. is seeking Giving Tuesday donations to support its 2026 initiatives.
Too much focus on national issues has left TN suffering
Too many Tennesseans get outraged over national controversies while ignoring the local issues that impact their daily lives.
No. 17 Tennessee pledges to learn from loss, challenges Syracuse
After a pair of impressive wins in the Players Era men's championship, No. 17 Tennessee makes the trip to upstate New York to meet Syracuse in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday.
Frankie Stark sees no end in sight for growing coffee business
Erie's Stark family are partners in a coffee shop and the owners of a roasting company and two office coffee delivery firms.
Charleston Southern visits UT Martin after Blaine's 23-point game
Charleston Southern Buccaneers (5-4) at UT Martin Skyhawks (5-2) Martin, Tennessee; Tuesday, 12 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Charleston Southern faces UT Martin after Brycen Blaine scored 23 points in Charleston Southern's 74-62 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Skyhawks have gone 2-0 at home.
The Streaming Wars: How Audiences Are Changing the Entertainment Industry
The entertainment industry has always evolved alongside technology, but never at the pace we have seen over the past decade. The rise of streaming services has completely transformed how audiences consume film and television. Viewers have gone from waiting for scheduled programming to having instant access to thousands of shows and movies at any time. […]
Crystal Palace 1-2 Man Utd
We asked for your thoughts after Sunday's Premier League game between Crystal Palace and Manchester United. Here are some of your comments: Palace fans Theo: We've not got the squad depth to cope with Europe and the Premier League. You could see the defenders were tired and losing concentration, and so it's no surprise both goals we conceded came in the second half.
'Jeopardy!' recap: What happened on Nov. 28, 2025
See who played "Jeopardy!" on Nov. 28, who won, the Final Jeopardy! outcomes and final scores.
How Recent Changes Are Shaping the Story Behind Beauty Health's Valuation
Beauty Health stock has recently seen its price target adjusted, with the fair value estimate holding steady at $1.93 despite some shifts in underlying assumptions. The primary driver behind this update is a lowered discount rate, which reflects analysts' increased confidence in management's ability to reduce risk and reinforce revenue stability. Stay tuned to learn how you can follow new developments and better understand the evolving narrative behind Beauty Health's valuation. Analyst Price...
Rising levels of hate forcing women out of Swedish public life, says equality agency
Country seen as champion of equal rights faces reckoning after senior politician says she felt compelled to quit
Atlantic Physical Therapy Shore Sports Insider Final 2025 Football Top 12 Rankings
Who made the cut? See the final Atlantic Physical Therapy Top 12 rankings for the 2025 Shore Conference football season.
Rams still hold dominant advantage for 1-seed
Despite loss to Panthers, Rams will still probably earn the NFC’s top seed
Music City Miracle: A look at an unusually contentious election in the Volunteer State
Tennessee special election results could test Trump's strength ahead of 2026 midterms as Democrat Aftyn Behn challenges Republican Matt Van Epps.
Fortnite's latest live event drew in 10.5 million players to see Godzilla, Hatsune Miku, Homer Simpson, and countless other characters fight a giant squid man
I imagine this is what watching Avengers: Endgame would have felt like to my grandfather.
Nebraska, Kentucky, Texas and Pitt earn top seeds in NCAA volleyball tournament
Nebraska lost just one set in 20 Big Ten matches and just seven sets in a regular season that included 12 wins against ranked teams.
Full-length Replay: Big Ten Women's: Tennessee at UCLA
The No. 14 Lady Volunteers (5-1) head to Pauley Pavilion to challenge the No. 3 Bruins (7-1).
Entertainment Industry Sees Two 'Triple Wedding Rushes' in 2025
Entertainment Industry Sees Two Triple Wedding Rushes in 2025 Celebrity trios married April 20 and November 30, sparking wedding chaos buzz
Reps Unite To Seek Increase In Space Science, Exploration Spending
A bipartisan House group has urged congressional appropriations leadership to fund certain space and science offices at the levels proposed by the Senate.
Cities put science in the spotlight
When three European cities launch an initiative next year to boost scientific excellence and collaboration, much of the action is likely to take place in public spaces rather than in the laboratory.That is welcome news for Ana Marušić. A medical doctor and professor at the University of Split Medical School in Croatia, Marušić champions close connections between “town and gown” to encourage citizen involvement in research, raise public health awareness and ignite young people’s interest in science. “Responsible research and innovation cannot be done in an ivory tower, answering only the questions that are relevant for scientists,” explains Marušić, who chairs the Department of Research in Biomedicine and Health and leads the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine. “The role of the university is to be a medium for transferring new discoveries in science to society, but also to listen to society about what is important and what is needed.”Three cities united by scienceMarušić’s efforts stand to gain traction through Science Comes to Town (SCTT), a new European project to highlight science’s role in society and strengthen cross-border collaboration in research, innovation and sustainability. With funding from the European Commission, three cities—Split, Brest (in France) and Kiel (in Germany)—plan more than 1,000 public events, workshops and competitions for citizens of all ages, researchers, businesses and policymakers. The year-long project kicks off in Spilt on 20 January with a conference involving partner institutions, community representatives and European policymakers. The three cities may be geographically far apart, but they share much in common. All are located on coasts and are home to top regional research institutions that are part of SCTT. Among the project's partners, the University of Western Brittany in Brest, Kiel University and the University of Split belong to the SEA-EU university alliance, uniting nine European coastal academic institutions to advance research, student exchanges and sustainable development. “These universities have a very strong connection between gown and town,” explains Marušić, who is one of Split’s SCTT ambassadors. “It's very important that these universities are there for the community so that we can learn from each other and grow together.”Tackling Europe’s STEM shortagesSCTT will also reinforce efforts to address Europe’s widening gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Studies show that nearly eight out of ten small- and medium-sized businesses cannot find enough workers with the skills required in advanced computing and artificial intelligence (AI)—hindering initiatives to boost European innovation and competitiveness. In healthcare, the European Commission has estimated a shortfall in medical professionals of 1.2 million, due to fewer young people joining the field and an ageing population that needs more care.Strengthening knowledge and dialogue can also help build trust between scientists and the public at time when disruptive technologies are reshaping research and clinical practice, but are also sparking questions about ethics and accuracy. With experience in the classroom and in clinical epidemiology—a discipline involving monitoring and controlling public health problems—Marušić sees the potential risks of over-reliance on AI and chatbot answers for both research and learning. “AI is a very good tool, but one has to be very critical about it,” she adds. “Delegating brain activities will definitely diminish your neural capacities because you are not developing the circuitry that is important for higher-level cognitive engagement.” She stresses the importance of critical thinking and encourages students to use AI as a researcher’s tool to reinforce rather than supplant human discretion and brainpower.The power of outreachSplit’s experience in bringing scientists and the public together has provided a platform for discussing research ethics and explaining science in simple terms. Local efforts to expand health literacy and awareness have helped reduce cardiovascular disease among women, according to Marušić’s research. The city’s university also hosts events to introduce schoolchildren to science, using hands-on experiments to spark curiosity.Marušić’s own love of science began with an interest in studying molecular biology. “But my parents told me, why don't you study medicine?” she recalls. “I said, OK, why not? And that was the best decision that I made.” Marušić is not a practicing physician, but teaches anatomy and public health. She also co-edits ST-OPEN, an overlay university journal that works on capacity building for research publishing among students and their supervisors. Balancing teaching, research and editorial work, she is a strong advocate for medical studies, urging high school students to consider medicine “because later on it gives you a really wide perspective about human life and about society” as well as many career opportunities.As SCTT prepares to bring science into daily life in 2026, Marušić hopes that it will build permanent bridges between scientists and citizens across Europe. “We can be a showcase for making collaboration with the community stronger to share knowledge, attract young talent and integrate critical and scientific thinking into everyday life,” she explains, adding that "collaborating with businesses to improve cities and communities is also an important aspect of this project."Science|Business, which connects policymakers, academics and industry through its news reporting, analysis and events, is an SCTT partner.
Broncos vs. Commanders score, live updates: Bo Nix, Sean Payton seek ninth straight win, Marcus Mariota makes another start in place of Jayden Daniels
Upfront: Exit Sideshow
Last month, my wife and I visited Nashville for a few days and enjoyed a lot of good food and music. It’s a long drive to and from Charlotte, though. As we made our way home, we stopped for gas and food at the famous travel-center chain Buc-ee’s in Tennessee. There is one opening in […]
Cyber Monday sees multiple Apple Watch deals drop to lowest-ever prices
Apple's full lineup of new smartwatches is on sale right now. The best Cyber Monday Apple Watch deals include discounts of up to $200.
ALL ABUZZ WITH BEES: Former science teacher and her team host do-it-yourself workshops for beekeeping and other pursuits
For Lauren Anderson, what began as a love for teaching and science has blossomed into a movement of sustainability and connection. The Arkansas native founded Calm+Confidence, a co-op that turns beekeeping into a tool for community growth -- supporting local businesses and inspiring others to see how small bee hives can make a big difference.
U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators meet as Donald Trump seeks to broker an end to the war
High-level peace talks were underway Sunday in Hallandale Beach.
Hundreds of flights have been canceled after a snowstorm struck on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has seen the most cancelations, which came at the height of the Thanksgiving travel season.
Here's what's coming to Fortnite Chapter 7: Pacific Break
10.5 million players logged on to see Fortnite's Chapter 6 finale, with another three million clocking in via livestrea…
Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro may seem desperate. But his loyalty vs punishment strategy is hard to crack
If President Donald Trump is seeking to dislodge Moduro from Venezuela, it will be a tall order after years of loyalty from operatives in that country.
'I'm having the best sex of my life' - Kathy Lette on midlife divorce and why she doesn't see it as a failure
Kathy got candid about her sex life post-divorce
I just found the best Cyber Monday laptop deal — almost $3,000 OFF a $4,000 laptop with insane specs and performance
I normally can't afford a $4,000, but thanks to Cyber Monday I can because it's now just $1,139 while stocks last. That's an almost $3,000 saving on a laptop that will see you well into the future.
Big tech's big spending in politics
Humanity has never seen anything like artificial intelligence. This new transformation technology is already changing the economy, And as Big Tech pushes for Super AI there are many calling for government oversight, regulation and protections for workers and the environment. But Big Tech is also spending big on politics to lobby so that its growth will remain unchecked.
Federal science funding that powers TN's economy is at risk
Federal science funding is already vital to research and innovation in Tennessee, but it also powers so much more.
Seen but not forgotten: How citizen science helps document biodiversity in remote Borneo villages
In Borneo’s remote villages, locals earn money by recording wildlife — reshaping conservation and redefining how communities value their forests.
Surgical Science Sweden (OM:SUS): Assessing Valuation After Intuitive Withdraws Agreement and 2026 Targets Are Pulled
Surgical Science Sweden (OM:SUS) shared that Intuitive has canceled their Memorandum of Understanding and is reverting to the previous agreement. As a result, the company will withdraw its 2026 financial targets and expects a substantial hit to next year’s license revenues. See our latest analysis for Surgical Science Sweden. News of the canceled agreement sent shockwaves through the market, with Surgical Science Sweden’s 7-day share price return at -54.01% and its year-to-date return now...
Scientists discover a hidden brain circuit that rewrites vision
MIT scientists found that what we see is strongly influenced by how alert or active we are. Parts of the brain responsible for planning and control send specialized signals that either boost or quiet visual details. These areas seem to balance each other, sharpening important information while dimming distractions. The study shows vision is constantly being shaped by our internal state.