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Alien hunters update guidance on sharing news of possible intelligent life
Experts stress need for transparency while aiming to prevent premature announcements and protect scientists
Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’
Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions
BevNET Live: Everwell Health showcases science-backed functional beverage ingredients
Wellness ingredients supplier Everwell Health will be showcasing its “Ingredients for Life” portfolio of functional beverage solutions for caffeine-free energy, concentration, protein, and weight loss at the upcoming BevNET Live event next week in New York City, US (June 10–11). Everwell Health experts will be present at the show, highlighting how the company’s ingredients can help formulators create differentiated beverages that meet growing consumer demand for convenient, multifunctional, and health-focused beverages.
Sexism and bullying keeping women out of careers in sport, MPs told
Women coaches routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite qualifications, say experts
Mental health expert breaks down mixed reactions to Bakersfield hostage crisis
KBAK CBS 29 and KBFX Fox58 are the news leaders for Bakersfield, California and serves surrounding communities including Oildale, Lamont, Shafter, Wasco, Buttonwillow, Maricopa, Tehachapi, Arvin, California City, Delano, McFarland, Ridgecrest and Taft.
CT-FFR standardized in new SCCT-SCAI consensus statement
FFR-CT literature has reached a state of maturity where experts can comfortably start to provide guidelines to the wider community.
WOSU PRESENTS: Politics and a Pint
WOSU is excited to host another lively political discussion in a casual setting. Grab a pour at Seventh Son Brewing and engage with our expert panel about the upcoming general election, current news, issues and topics. Admission is $10. Seventh Son will generously donate $1 of every beer and Kitty Paw hard seltzer purchased from the sunroom bar to support WOSU's mission (must mention that you are a guest of WOSU). Panelists scheduled to appear are:Mike Thompson, host of WOSU TV’s Columbus on the Record and political podcast SnollygosterAmy Juravich, host of WOSU’s All Sides with Amy JuravichMark Ferenchik, WOSU News DirectorSarah Donaldson, Ohio Public Radio Statehouse Reporter
Plaque imaging, AI and structural heart disease in the spotlight at SCCT 2026 meeting
Coronary plaque imaging is an area many experts believe is driving a shift toward earlier detection and prevention of heart disease.
Arts and Entertainment Agenda, June 4-11
Hotel Jerome’s Twilight Tarot, June 4 Hotel Jerome’s new Twilight Tarot series will take place weekly at 8 p.m. Thursdays in the Garden Room starting June 4. A local expert tarot card reader will guide...
Amy Cotton, RWJBarnabas Health Senior Vice President of Quality and Safety, Honored by Becker’s Hospital Review
Amy Cotton, DNP, APRN, CPHQ, FAAN, Senior Vice President of Quality and Safety at RWJBarnabas Health, was honored as one of just 145 patient safety experts to know nationwide by Becker’s Hospital Review.
White House Plan to Vet Grants Puts Climate Science in Jeopardy
The Trump administration’s proposal to tighten political control over federal grants would hinder research, experts say.
Travel Health Tips: How to Avoid Getting Sick
Learn how to prevent illness while traveling, including cruise and flight tips, immune support, and hantavirus safety tips from health experts.
Alphabet's capital raise signals the end of low capex, high earnings business model: Expert
Blind Squirrel Macro's Rupert Mitchell hints at how investors may be underestimating a key transition underway when Big Tech moves to capital-intensive AI infrastructure operations. This move, the veteran capital market banker suggests could reshape the market dynamics that helped fuel U.S. equity outperformance over the past decade.
Public health experts sound alarm on Kenya Ebola facility
Presented by Planned Parenthood{beacon} Health Care Health Care PRESENTED BY The Big Story Infectious disease physicians sound alarm on Kenya plan Several prominent in…
Political expert links Platner popularity to ‘Trumpification of American politics’
WABI TV5 News at 5:00
How loneliness became major public health issue
U.K., U.S. experts trace rise in awareness through research, political involvement, pandemic
Networks are everywhere. These experts helped make them a science
During NetSci 2026, two of leading network scientists break down how the field began, and why it almost didn't.
Analysis | What to know about Trump’s immunity deal with the IRS
It’s “a legal absurdity,” said one expert.
Political expert links Platner popularity to ‘Trumpification of American politics’
University of Maine’s Political Science chair Mark Brewer offered WABI three reasons for Platner’s sustained support to this point.
A new AI-powered computer worm could prove to be the stuff of cybersecurity nightmares
University of Toronto researchers built a worm powered by open-weight AI that adapts to its targets. Experts say it changes the math on cybersecurity defense
Health experts share tips for repelling mosquitoes
Scientists lose critical climate record as ocean observatory will go dark under Trump funding cuts
An expert said it’s a crippling loss of information.
Health data: Ethics and equity at the heart of research
Experts meeting at the Vatican call for stronger ethical governance and greater fairness in the collection, use, and sharing of health data and ...
Sports Is The ‘Antithesis Of AI,’ JPMorgan Expert Says, And Team Valuations Will Surge
The craze will lead to “fabulous” investment opportunities in live events, according to the bank’s Asset & Wealth Management CEO.
Apple Announces Europe's First Developer Center
Apple today announced it will open Europe's first Apple Developer Center in Berlin later this year. The facility joins existing Developer Centers in Bengaluru, Cupertino, Shanghai, and Singapore. Apple said the Berlin center, located in Mitte district, will offer developers throughout Europe in-person sessions, workshops, and one-on-one appointments in multiple languages, with consultation areas and dedicated labs staffed by Apple experts.
A 23-year-old got candid about how medication ruined her sex life. How common is that?
SSRIs can be life-changing for people struggling with mental health issues, but for others, these drugs caused PSSD. What is it? Experts explain.
The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science
With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!
Brene Brown Explains Why Social Media Hurts Our Mental Health
In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, author Brené Brown explains one common misconception about social media that always leaves us wanting more.
First rural health grants in MS include building, technology upgrades
Mississippi unveiled the first initiatives funded by the Rural Health Transformation Program after experts said it was the least transparent state.
We finally know enough about how the brain breaks to focus on fixing it, experts say
The Allen Institute in Seattle says scientists have now learned enough about how the brain works to start fixing it when it breaks.
‘Cancer crisis’: Experts warn of impending global shortage of radiology professionals
Researchers project that the global healthcare workforce will need approximately 750,000 more radiologists by 2050.
International medical graduates represent nearly 25% of diagnostic radiologists in US
Recently policy changes under the Trump administration "highlight potential vulnerability in relying on this as a supply of radiologists," experts write in Academic Radiology.
Waiting times for healthcare in Europe: The worst countries ranked
Waiting times for treatment in some European countries can run for years. This has real consequences for patients, experts warn. Euronews Health takes a close look at waiting times across several categories.
Breaking down New York's proposed redistricting amendment
A constitutional amendment poised for first passage in the New York state Legislature this week could help Democrats gain up to four congressional seats in 2028 if ultimately approved by voters, experts say.
Can You Delay Menopause? Experts Explain What's Actually Possible
Trendy treatments like rapamycin and red light therapy claim to delay menopause, but the science behind ovarian aging is complicated.
Political play or budget fix? Competition for JPL's management comes at a fraught moment
A competitive contract isn’t necessarily a bad thing, experts say. But the administration’s anti-science record raises suspicion.
Policy experts offer differing views on health care for all at HJ26
During Thursday's plenary at Health Journalism 2026, policy experts discussed whether the government should guarantee health care for all.
Most Business Owners Are Leaving Money on the Table. This Bar Expert Figured Out Why.
How Bar Design Essentials author Tobin Ellis is helping operators stop prioritizing look over workflow to unlock peak-volume profits.
A New Declaration Warns AI Could Threaten the Foundations of Mathematics
AI is reshaping math—and how mathematicians work. That's fine, but experts want some clear standards.
Where Forensic Science Meets AI: eSleuth, Inc. Names Former ATF Director Ken Melson to Its Advisory Board
eSleuth, Inc., the AI-driven investigative platform putting the power of advanced data analysis and machine learning directly in the hands of investigators, today announced the appointment of Kenneth E. Melson, former Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to its Advisory Board. Melson brings a rare depth of expertise spanning federal prosecution, agency leadership, and forensic science policy that directly strengthens eSleuth AI's mission to transform how la
How Science Works
The 2nd Weather and Climate Livestream is now underway. It is organized by a group of early-career researchers concerned about declining funding for the field and eager to demonstrate how weather and climate research makes a difference in our lives. Last year’s event was a great success, drawing terrific press coverage including a piece in the NY Times. This year features a strong lineup of talks aimed at a general audience — I highly recommend tuning in. Share I gave a talk yesterday about How Science Works in Three Steps. You can see the short presentation here (I’ve appended a transcript below): And please tune into the livestream here. It runs through tomorrow at 6 pm ET. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Cleaned up transcript: Thank you, and thanks to everyone tuning in. I want to talk about something I think a lot of people don’t really understand: how science actually works. Arguments over any scientific topic — climate change, vaccines, you name it — revolve around competing claims. For climate change, the claims are: Is the Earth warming? Are humans to blame? What will the impacts be? Over the last 150 years, the scientific community has developed a remarkably robust method for sorting out which claims are true and which aren’t. That method is what I want to walk through. So how does science generate knowledge? If you ask a high schooler, they’ll give you the version they learned in ninth grade: an individual scientist forms a hypothesis, runs an experiment, and draws a conclusion. That’s more or less what happens at the individual level, though in practice it’s more iterative — you design, test, and refine all at once, landing on a slightly different idea each time until you reach a conclusion about whatever hypothesis you’ve ended up with. But this isn’t science. It’s only step one. Any individual scientist can make mistakes — scientists are human. Maybe there’s a bug in the code, maybe there’s an error in the experiment. Just because someone ran an experiment and reached a conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right, and scientists don’t treat a single result as settled truth. Step two is peer review, the first layer of quality control. The scientist writes up what they did and submits it to a journal, which sends the paper to other experts in the field. Those experts judge whether the methods are sound, whether it properly references prior work, and whether the conclusions actually follow from the data. Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you peer review is miserable — the comments come back brutal, often harsh, and you have to revise and resubmit, sometimes multiple times, before an editor finally accepts the paper. Peer review catches an immense amount of bad science, but it can’t catch all of it. Reviewers get sloppy or overworked, they miss obvious mistakes, and they can’t catch hidden errors — a bug in the code, a misread instrument. So a peer-reviewed paper making it into a journal doesn’t mean the paper is right. Nobody treats a single paper as the final word. That’s where step three comes in: the crucible of science. Important results get retested by the broader community. If you publish something interesting, it gets dissected. Sometimes people try to reproduce your work directly but more often they test its implications. If someone claims X is true, and that implies that Y is also true, then scientists will go check Y. If a claim survives this gauntlet long enough, it becomes accepted. That’s how we generate knowledge. Let me give an example: the ozone hole. In 1985 — and I doubt many people watching were around then, but I remember it well — Joe Farman and his colleagues published observations from Antarctica showing that a huge chunk of ozone was disappearing every year. This was shocking because most atmospheric chemists had expected ozone loss to occur at mid-latitudes and high altitudes, not over the South Pole. When scientists see something they don’t understand, they rush to explain it, and several competing hypotheses quickly appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One pointed to chlorine chemistry from chlorofluorocarbons. A second blamed nitrogen chemistry, possibly driven by solar proton events — meaning the sun was responsible. A third argued it wasn’t chemistry at all but dynamics: winds were carrying naturally low-ozone air from the lower atmosphere up into the stratosphere. Then the community went to work testing which theory could survive the crucible. Aircraft flew into the ozone hole and found no nitrogen, ruling out the nitrogen theory. Measurements showed the air in the polar vortex was descending, not rising — which would bring high-ozone air down, eliminating the dynamics theory. Meanwhile, those same flights measured enormous amounts of chlorine, strongly correlated with exactly the regions where ozone was being destroyed. That became known as the “smoking gun” paper, and it established that chlorine chemistry was the cause. Through this process, a consensus emerged. And it’s worth being clear that this consensus is organic. There’s no vote, no poll, no meeting where it gets decided. Scientists go to conferences, talk to one another, and independently arrived at the same answer. It’s the ultimate free market of ideas. After the consensus was established, the peer-reviewed literature doesn’t even mention the rival theories — it simply takes chlorine chemistry as given. That’s what a consensus looks like. It doesn’t mean every single scientist agrees, but it does mean there’s no longer any legitimate debate. So where can you see what scientists actually think? It’s all in the peer-reviewed literature, which contains the entire historical record of the argument: the discovery, the competing theories, the debate, the testing, and finally the community coalescing around one answer. But there’s a lot of room for misrepresentation. You can dig up an old paper claiming the ozone hole was caused by dynamics and wave it around as if there still was a debate about the cause of the ozone hole — without mentioning that the idea was disproven long ago and that even its own authors no longer believe it. There’s a bigger problem, though: the peer-reviewed literature is written in a language I call “nerd.” It’s extremely hard to read — honestly, some of it is hard for me to follow. It takes graduate students years to work through the literature in a single field, so we can’t expect policymakers or ordinary people to do it. This is where scientific assessments come in. The most famous is the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The job of an assessment is to read and summarize the peer-reviewed literature, synthesizing what’s settled, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely debated. To ensure the assessments accurately summarize the peer-reviewed literature, assessments are written by large teams, which are far less prone to bias than individuals and which dilute the influence of any one scientist with an axe to grind. The teams are deliberately assembled to avoid stacking the deck, and the reports themselves go through multiple rounds of peer review. That rigorous process is exactly why you can trust them and why people consider the IPCC to be the gold standard of what we know about the climate system. An assessment produced through a different process may well not be credible. You can even watch the consensus evolve across assessments. Take the attribution of warming. The 1990 IPCC report said the observed warming was broadly consistent with model predictions but also comparable to natural variability — in other words, we don’t know whether humans are responsible. By 1995, it concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence — a sentence only a committee could write, and one that barely commits to anything. By 2001, most of the warming over the previous 50 years was judged “likely” due to greenhouse gases; by 2007, “very likely”; by 2013, “extremely likely.” The 2023 report says essentially the same as 2013 — there’s not much stronger language available. So, to wrap up: science is our ultimate tool for deciphering the universe — the most successful method we’ve ever developed for determining what’s true and what isn’t. Our understanding is written into the peer-reviewed literature, so if you want to know what scientists think, that’s where to look. And for those of us who don’t speak nerd, scientific assessments are the Rosetta Stone — they translate nerd into English. Let me open the floor to questions. Thank you.
Here’s what electric customers should know about the Dominion Energy sale
lorida-based NextEra Energy’s proposed $66.8 billion purchase of Dominion Energy is likely a portent of the future as power companies seek ways to increase electricity generation capacity and access to the nation’s power grid, according to two experts at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
Can marriage improve your health? Here are the benefits that experts see.
Saying “I do” may influence your cancer risk, mental health and more.
With new grant, Portage schools hopes to put mental health experts right beside classrooms
A new grant will help the Portage Community School District create an in-house clinic offering mental health support to students at school.
Pope calls for stronger health data protections in digital age
Pope Leo XIV urges experts revising the World Medical Association's Declaration of Taipei to strengthen ethical safeguards for health databases and ...
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic show promise for more than weight loss. But what’s science vs hype?
Ozempic-style drugs have been flagged as possible treatments for cancer, dementia, endo, addiction and more. An expert explains what the evidence really says.
How We’re Reimagining The Future of Health for Hundreds of Millions of People
Today’s closing of our acquisition of Eucalyptus marks more than an expansion. It's the moment scale, local expertise, and technology converge to redefine healthcare for hundreds of millions of people
These are the best pill organizers for every need, according to healthcare experts
I spoke with healthcare experts and editors to find the best pill organizers. These models are designed for travel, seniors, supplements and prescriptions.
Around 1 in 5 young people use AI chatbots for mental health advice: survey
Experts worry that some young people are turning to AI bots during mental health crises, which the tech is not made to handle. An author of the survey said regulations are needed.
Can hackers pull your fingerprints from photos on social media? Experts explain.
Claims have circulated on social media that fingerprints can be pulled from photos featuring peace signs, but experts say the risk to the average person is low.
National politics are ‘killing Republicans’ in WA elections. Can that change?
“I don’t see the Republican Party being able to contend in statewide races,” one political science expert said.
Trump flips script on left, maneuvers to use foreign influence law against the them
Trump aims to use FARA and other legal tools against alleged foreign influence on the left after years of probes targeting his allies, experts say.
Kratom drink Feel Free gains popularity despite growing concerns about addiction, health impact and death
Feel Free, a kratom drink, is easy to buy and increasingly popular, even as doctors and medical experts grow more concerned about its health impacts, addiction rates and deaths.
DHS wants to block airlines from sanctuary cities. Experts say it would be chaos.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has a plan to punish cities that don’t enforce federal immigration policies
Jazz pre-draft process progressing this week
The next phase of the pre-draft process gets underway for the Utah Jazz this week. Now that the NBA combine is over and the deadline has passed for players to decide if they want to remain in the draft or return to college, it’s time for teams to take another step toward draft night. After the combine concluded, team officials and draft prospects remained in Chicago as team physicians and medical experts arrived.
Nancy Guthrie Update: Expert Discusses Human Remains Found Nearby
‘There’s a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away or hide a body,’ James T. Watson said of the Arizona desert.
Nancy Guthrie Update: Expert Discusses Human Remains Found Nearby
‘There’s a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away or hide a body,’ James T. Watson said of the Arizona desert.
Nancy Guthrie Update: Expert Discusses Human Remains Found Nearby
‘There’s a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away or hide a body,’ James T. Watson said of the Arizona desert.
FIFA World Cup 2026 odds: Futures picks, predictions, soccer best bets from proven expert
SportsLine's Martin Green reveals his FIFA World Cup 2026 picks, overall champion, group winners and top props
This Overlooked iPhone Setting Is Alarming Users. Here's How To Turn It Off ASAP.
"Having this on when you don’t need it is a bigger issue than not having it on," a cybersecurity expert said about the phone feature mentioned in several viral TikTok posts.
2026 NBA Western Conference Finals odds, predictions: Spurs vs. Thunder Game 7 picks by expert who's 140-97
SportsLine's Mike Barner has revealed his San Antonio Spurs vs. Oklahoma City Thunder best bets for Game 7 of the WCF
Sheriff, mental health experts sound alarm over loss of funding for mobile crisis teams in state budget
Mental health care experts gather to express concerns for behavioral health funding in Newsom's proposed budget.
At this Tampa brewery, science lessons come with a side of wings
Pints of Science at New World Brewery offers expert lectures over beer and bar food.
1 in 5 new moms struggle with mental health
An expert digs into the most common complications of childbirth, the pressure of modern motherhood, and the importance of a support network.
Britt Jewelry in Cleveland
Providing unique, custom-made pieces with top-notch service Some of us may have a tendency to think a jewelry store is primarily a place to walk in, see something we like, and buy it. While that is often true in today’s times, a full service jewelry store with an expert jeweler offers many more amenities. […]
Mental health expert shares message of hope during awareness month
A mental health expert in Baton Rouge is sharing a message of hope during Mental Health Awareness Month.
PSG vs. Arsenal prediction, time, odds: 2026 UEFA Champions League final picks, best bets from top expert
SportsLine soccer expert Martin Green reveals his best bets for Saturday's UEFA Champions League final featuring PSG vs. Arsenal
Thunder vs. Spurs Game 7 predictions, odds: Expert picks with NBA Finals berth on the line
It's win or go home for the Thunder and Spurs on Saturday night as the Western Conference Finals wrap up with Game 7
Contraception For Teens: Let's Talk About It
By Mahvash Madni, MD, FAAP HealthDay ReporterSATURDAY, May 30, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Contraception is not just about preventing an unwanted pregnancy. Experts say it’s also an important part of adolescent health care, helping regulate menstrual cycles, manage painful symptoms and treat some hormone-related conditions. Understanding the ...
RaiseFashion Designers on Balancing Scale with Creative Integrity
BoF speaks with six designers from RaiseFashion’s 2026 Masterclass — Daveed Baptiste, Greg Jackson, Haoran Li, Hiywet Mimi Girma, Mark Grattan and Olivia Cheng — on the pressure to scale prematurely. Plus, how access to the right mentorship, networks and expertise helps build businesses that last.
How older Californians can utilize resources to prioritize mental health, meaningful connections
Many older Californians are living alone and facing social isolation, but state officials and health experts say resources are available to help maintain meaningful connections.
In Harris County judge runoff, a Democratic underscores voters’ desire for new blood
Former Houston City Council member Letitia Plummer defeated longtime local politician Annise Parker to win the Democratic nomination for Harris County judge in what political experts say might be a sign of the changing of the guard.
Ask the expert: What does good mental health care look like?
MSU psychologist Dr. Crystal Cederna shares expert strategies for managing stress, identifying mental health warning signs, and finding local support.
Voters, candidates prepare for New Jersey Primary
A political expert previews the New Jersey Primary in the latest episode of Battleground Politics.
"A new era of PC": Microsoft and NVIDIA tease major announcement experts predict to be the fabled N1X chip
Microsoft and NVIDIA just hinted at major announcements at Computex and Build 2026.
White House moves to give political appointees more power over federal grants
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration on Friday moved to give political appointees more power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies, a move scientists say puts critical research funding into the hands of partisans without relevant expertise.
White House Moves to Give Political Appointees More Power Over Federal Grants
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration on Friday moved to give political appointees more power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies, a move scientists say puts critical research funding into the hands of partisans without relevant expertise. In what ...
Michigan State grows grass science for FIFA World Cup
Michigan State University experts helped supply turfgrass for soccer pitches in 16 cities across the US, Canada and Mexico for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which starts next month.
Here's the No. 1 breakfast mistake Americans make every morning, says oncologist and longevity expert
Ezekiel J. Emanuel has spent 35 years as an oncologist and expert on health policy. He shares his breakfast tips for better metabolic health, energy and longevity.
Casino experts react to Fertitta buying Caesars Entertainment
Fertitta Entertainment’s nearly $18 billion acquisition of Caesars Entertainment has casino experts speculating what changes will come to the Las Vegas Strip. W
Jameela Jamil called out the rise of 'scarily thin' celebs. Let’s talk about it
As we see more celebrities shrinking on red carpets, conversations are surging online. But can we talk about it appropriately? Experts share advice.
Ranking Member Lofgren Slams Trump Administration for Plan to Politicize Research Funding Process, Undermine Expert Review
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel amended
WHO Member States adopted a resolution to amend the ‘WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel’ (the Code) and strengthen its implementation, following Member State-led consultations in the lead up to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly. The resolution marks an important step towards the vision that everyone, everywhere can access competent and motivated health and care workers, as a foundation for both universal health coverage and global health security. Key additions to the Code focus on: inclusion of provisions on health personnel recruited internationally for employment as care workers; applicability of the Code recommendations during emergencies; and encouraging co-investment in health systems and health workforce to ensure international recruitment results in proportional benefits for source and destination countries.Since its adoption by the Sixty-third World Health Assembly in 2010, the Code has undergone three rounds of review of its relevance and effectiveness. “We welcome the resolution’s focus on sustainable and ethical mobility of health personnel,” explained Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General, Health Systems, Access and Data. “The Code’s adoption in 2010 was a landmark achievement. Following this update, we encourage all countries to enhance implementation, including by viewing co-investment as a win-win.” The additions were recommended by an Expert Advisory Group appointed by the WHO Director-General. The Expert Advisory Group’s final report noted the progress in health workforce data availability, provision of migrant health worker rights and the embedding of ethical recruitment principles in national policies. It also highlighted areas of possible improvement in the Code implementation, including support for the strengthening of health systems in source countries.The adoption of the resolution follows extensive consultations led by Member States, underscoring the continued relevance of the Code in a context of increasing international mobility of health workers and growing pressure on health systems resulting from global health emergencies and funding constraints.WHO is already taking forward actions called for in the resolution. An updated version of the ‘WHO health workforce support and safeguards list’, that guides ethical recruitment practices by identifying countries facing the most pressing health workforce challenges, will be published later in 2026. As recommended by the Expert Advisory Group, this will include additional flexibility enabling countries to indicate their willingness to allow active international recruitment, or for Member States not on the list to request tailored support and safeguards. This approach reflects a more nuanced, country-led framework that balances workforce mobility with the need to protect and strengthen health systems in vulnerable settings.“I thank the members of the Expert Advisory Group, the group of Member States who led the resolution, and all Member States for their constructive engagement,” added Dr Nakatani. “Let’s bring this spirit of collaboration to our collective efforts to implement the resolution, strengthen the health workforce and build resilient and equitable health systems.”
City of Palm Coast to Host “SBDC Day” for Entrepreneurs and Growing Businesses
The City of Palm Coast will host “SBDC Day” at Palm Coast City Hall, located at 160 Lake Avenue, Palm Coast, FL 32164, on July 29, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., connecting local entrepreneurs, startups, and established business owners with free expert guidance and resources from the Florida Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network.
A Neurologist’s Non-Negotiable 7 Daily Habits to Prevent Stroke
In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, Dr. Carolyn D. Brockington shares the “small steps” she takes every day to protect her brain.
What Your Pregnancy Can Reveal About Your Future Heart Health
A history of preeclampsia doesn’t mean heart disease is inevitable, but experts say it’s valuable information that can help guide prevention, postpartum follow-up and lifelong heart care.
Watch out before you microwave your leftovers in a plastic container
Microwaving food and beverages in plastic containers is ubiquitous. But experts say there are risks.
Drive-thru coffee, cryotherapy, pilates: Experts share retail trends after Las Vegas event
Dozens of Louisiana real estate expert joined more than 20,000 investors and brokers at the ICSC convention in Las Vegas last week. The lack of new shopping center space and demand from coffee drive-thru chains were the main takeaways.
What will the deal to acquire Caesars Entertainment mean for Las Vegas? Gaming expert weighs in
Abel Garcia talks to Nevada Independent senior reporter Howard Stutz about the far-reaching impacts of Fertitta Entertainment's deal to acquire Caesars Entertainment.
Casino experts react to Fertitta buying Caesars Entertainment
Fertitta Entertainment’s nearly $18 billion acquisition of Caesars Entertainment has casino experts speculating what changes will come to the Las Vegas Strip.
A silent kidney crisis is spreading far faster than experts expected
A sweeping global study found that chronic kidney disease now affects nearly 800 million people and has become one of the world's leading causes of death. Often silent in its early stages, the condition is also a major contributor to heart disease and may be even more common than current estimates suggest.
5 Health Risks From Consuming Too Much Protein
Most Americans eat more protein than they need. We asked experts what can happen if people have too much of a good thing.
Young colorectal cancer patient urges others to get screened
With colorectal cancer rates rising among younger adults, health care experts recommend regular screenings at earlier ages.
Some AI mental health apps are harmful for kids, says report—what experts say parents should keep in mind
The organization found that school-based mental health apps were safer than direct-to-consumer apps.
Young survivors of gun violence find therapy helps. But will California do more?
In California, about 2,000 youth are killed or hospitalized annually due to gun violence. Advocates and experts say getting timely mental health care to young survivors and witnesses is critical.
3 Foods a Cardiologist Always Avoids Giving His Kids
In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, a cardiologist and dad reveals which foods are off the menu in his household. “I want them to live a long, healthy life,” he says of his three children.
How accurate is the science in movies? Ciné in Athens offers answers.
Athens theater Ciné pairs popular films with expert science talks to make complex research accessible to everyone.
UT Health Tyler Receives ACC Chest Pain PCI Accreditation
Tyler, Texas (May 13, 2026) — The American College of Cardiology has recognized UT Health Tyler for its expertise and commitment in treating patients experiencing heart attack symptoms, awarding the hospital its prestigious Chest Pain PCI Accreditation. UT Health Tyler earned the accreditation after a rigorous onsite evaluation of the staff’s ability to quickly evaluate, […]
Knicks' Mitchell Robinson says 'my mental health is not the best right now'—how experts recommend dealing with stress
NBA Knicks player Mitchell Robinson recently took to social media to say his "mental health is not the best right." That's normal, say experts.