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A bill to simplify nurse licensing is tangled in Alaska politics, putting rural health funding at risk
If passed, Alaska would join more than 40 other states in a shared licensing process. The aim is to address the state’s nursing shortage, but nurse unions are pushing back.
Choreographing molecular design with TANGO
Nature Computational Science - A reward function (TANGO) is developed to enforce building blocks in generative artificial intelligence and leverage the synthesizability of high-value materials.
Friends Said His Business Idea Was the ‘Stupidest Thing.’ Then He Sold Over 290 Million: ‘I Watched Their Jaws Drop’
This product began as the founder’s personal hack to stop his headphones from tangling.
Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC Won't Be Cheap, Leaked Pricing Shows
Ford's powerful new Pony Car could cost $103,490 before taxes and fees.
Pokémon Pokopia has only just released, but players are already starting to figure out Minecraft-like automatic builds and logic gates
Pokémon Pokopia players are starting to figure out automatic builds that remind us of Minecraft's humble beginnings.
Trump Tries to Quiet Claims Among Supporters That Israel Dragged Him Into War
Many of President Trump’s allies have urged him and his Make America Great Again movement to shift away from their close ties to Israel and military entanglements in the Middle East.
Review: Kal Penn taught me that life is a game of balance
Kal Penn shares his experiences balancing Hollywood and politics, emphasizing the importance of joy and understanding in a polarized world.
Sweet Meets Heat: Health-Ade Debuts Strawberry Mango Chili, a New 'Swicy' Flavor
Health-Ade, the makers of bubbly beverages that support a happy and healthy gut, is turning up the heat this season with the launch of Strawberry Mango Chili, the newest kombucha in its lineup. Juicy strawberry meets sun-ripened mango and a dash of chili for a flavor that's both bold and balanced. This bubbly dancer tangoes between sweet and spicy, delivering a refreshing sip with a subtle kick.
Tariffs Confound Small Businesses Again
Chocolate makers and fig-paste importers are facing a tangle of unknowns, including whether to seek refunds for tariffs invalidated by the Supreme Court.
Politics Unplugged Podcast: Paul Bentz on latest polling
Arizona pollster Paul Bentz joins with exclusive polling data on the heated Democratic primary in Congressional District 1, where Amish Shah holds a commanding lead, but nearly half of voters remain undecided. We discuss what voter registration trends mean for 2026, why affordability tops every other issue, and whether Democrats can replicate their 2022 success. Then, Dennis and Colin debate this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees—from Joy Division to Mariah Carey to Wu-Tang Clan—and reveal which acts truly deserve a spot.
Chrysler 300 Dusts Two Georgia State Patrol Mustangs
One of the most notorious high-speed police forces met its match in this white Chrysler
Scientists Finally See Quantum Computer Failures as They Happen
A new ultra-fast monitoring system reveals that quantum computer qubits can change from stable to unstable in mere milliseconds.
Oliver Grant, a Business Architect of the Wu-Tang Clan, Dies
He was behind the scenes with Wu-Tang Clan, the New York rap group, since its founding and helped expand its reach with a fashion line.
Register Now – Developing Leadership Through Sport Symposium (April 14)
AURORA - The Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA), in partnership with the CU-Boulder Center for Leadership, is excited to invite member schools to participate in the "Developing Leadership Through Sport" Symposium. This symposium is an opportunity to align athletic leadership mission with practical strategies, research-based insights and statewide collaboration. Student-athletes will leave with tangible tools they can implement immediately within their teams and school communities.
Boulder’s bleak oil-and-gas legal entanglements
Good neighbor policy in the fossil-fuel-energy industry stops at Boulder’s door. If any other county or municipality decides to rumble with Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy over their legal exposure to climate lawsuits, those entities will no doubt face “Bleak House” type legal entanglements also. Charles Dickens’ Bleak House records the estate case of Jarndyce […]
At HIMSS26, eClinicalWorks will introduce new AI API tool for EHRs
Its CEO says healthcare organizations must "mobilize" their electronic health record systems, using AI-enabled platforms to get tangible value from all the data they've been collecting for two decades.
Getting hands-on with LEDs and logic to make science tangible in the classroom
How do you make the complex reality of chips and electronics accessible to a broad audience? TU/e researcher Elles Raaijmakers believes an educational game can do just that. In the game I.C. Tycoon (working ...
Matthew Driscoll passionately praises Jerome Tang after Kansas State win
K-State interim coach Matthew Driscoll spoke of his love for Jerome Tang after the Wildcats won in their first game after Tang's firing.
Sports Daily: Jerome Tang’s firing could get messy for K-State
We get more information on the Jerome Tang firing, and things could get messy.
Majorana qubits decoded in quantum computing breakthrough
Scientists have developed a new way to read the hidden states of Majorana qubits, which store information in paired quantum modes that resist noise. The results confirm their protected nature and show millisecond scale coherence, bringing robust quantum computers closer to reality.
Kansas State fires Jerome Tang
Tang, who is owed more than $18 million, has struggled to win despite having a hefty NIL budget in recent years
Costa Mesa girls' water polo bows out in CIF quarterfinals
The Mustangs grew a lot over the course of the season, but host Rowland rallied late for the win on Friday.
Kansas State students call for Jerome Tang’s firing before he erupts on his team after latest blowout loss: ‘I’m embarrassed’
NBA power rankings: New York Knicks rise to top 5 after trade deadline
The NBA trading deadline offered the chance for fringe competitors in both conferences to improve. Will their moves lead to tangible gains?
This Entrepreneur's Business Made $33K in Month 1 and Now Sees 6-Figure Monthly Revenue — Here's Her Secret to Success
Jacqueline DeStefano-Tangorra skipped guesswork, tested real demand and scaled a data and AI consulting firm to six figures in monthly revenue.
The New Science of Craving
We often view our cravings—whether for drugs, alcohol, food, or approval—as indictments of our character. Yet neuroscience and psychology say otherwise; here's why.
Vaulted Deep Named Honoree for the Wichita Business Journal Innovation Awards
Vaulted Deep, a waste management and carbon removal company, has been selected as an honoree for the 2026 Wichita Business Journal Innovation Awards. The award recognizes Vaulted's work modernizing waste management infrastructure while delivering tangible economic and environmental benefits for Kansas communities.
Lindsey Vonn airlifted from course after crash in final downhill before the Olympics
Vonn lost control when landing a jump in a World Cup race held in difficult conditions with low visibility and ended up tangled in the safety nets on the upper portion of the course.
The chemical genius of Katharine Burr Blodgett
The story of a woman whose discoveries in materials science quietly shape our everyday world but whose legacy was long eclipsed by the famous scientist she worked with at the General Electric Company
Grounded 2 Update: The Toxic Tangle – Available Now
The Toxic Tangle update is available now, expanding Grounded 2 with a massive new Garden biome,, new creatures and gear including a new mount, the mysterious Tang effect, and much more.
Trump's war on immigration entangles business in PR disaster and the literal site of contested arrests
In Minneapolis, hotels, restaurants and other businesses have temporarily closed their doors or stopped accepting reservations amid widespread protests.
Distant entangled atoms acting as one sensor deliver stunning precision
Researchers have demonstrated that quantum entanglement can link atoms across space to improve measurement accuracy. By splitting an entangled group of atoms into separate clouds, they were able to measure electromagnetic fields more precisely than before. The technique takes advantage of quantum connections acting at a distance. It could enhance tools such as atomic clocks and gravity sensors.
Why so many women are vitamin D deficient
Scientists are still untangling why the nutrient gap persists—and what it reveals about how women’s health is studied and treated.
Flower arranging sees Garstang men talk about their mental health
Fun events that get men together can have a "huge" affect on their mental wellbeing, a charity says.
LVMH sells greater China retail business of its DFS group to CTG
French luxury group LVMH , the world's biggest, said on Monday that it has agreed to sell its DFS travel retail business in Hong Kong and Macau, as well as its intangible assets in greater China to China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp (CTG) , a Chinese travel retail operator.
TECH & INNOVATION: When politics overrides engineering
Politics is based on projection. Engineering is based on tangible results...It would be better if the makers in the world supervised the storytellers, rather than the other way around.
I quit my $390K job to start my company. I still question my decision.
Shiyao Tang quit her $390K job at DoorDash to build a silk womenswear brand. Five months of careful planning helped her exit her corporate job.
Ford announces Mustang Dark Horse SC to compete in 2027 - Jayski's NASCAR Silly Season Site
%%title%% %%sep%% %%title%% The new Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC will debut in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2027, Ford Racing announced in a Thursday livestream.
Ford Racing announces Mustang Dark Horse SC will make NASCAR debut in 2027
The Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC will make its debut in the NASCAR Cup Series for the 2027 season, Ford Racing announced Thursday.
Mapping the science–technology translational landscape in biomedicine
Nature Biotechnology - A systematic, prospective analysis of the interplay between science and technology in biomedicine can illuminate the pathway for translating scientific insights into tangible...
Ford’s New Mustang Dark Horse SC Is the Successor to the Shelby GT500
The new Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC is powered by a supercharged 5.2-liter V-8 engine and is the successor of the Shelby GT500.
Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC Revealed: A Sinister Supercharged Pony Car
The Dark Horse SC has a supercharged 5.2-liter V8 and a seven-speed DCT. Deliveries begin this summer.
Meet The New Ford New Mustang Dark Horse SC
We get an early look at the new Mustang Dark Horse SC with a Formula 1 pro behind the wheel.
Why Ford Mustang Fans Are Still Salty The Boss 351 Beat The 429 Cobra Jet In 1971
It still burns Mustang fans that Motor Trend's 1971 comparisons say the Boss 351 was quicker than the 429 Cobra Jet because hey feel the tests weren't fair.
Full-length Replay: Big 12 Men's: K-State at Arizona
Jerome Tang and the Wildcats take on the No. 1 Arizona Wildcats at the McKale Memorial Center.
Trump’s Move for Regime Change in Venezuela Threatens a New MAGA Rift
Some Republicans are asking how Mr. Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela squares with his past pledges to avoid foreign entanglements and nation building.
Alain Aspect, Nobel laureate in physics: ‘Einstein was so smart that he would have had to recognize quantum entanglement’
The pioneer of quantum computing talks about how Albert Einstein would have reacted to his experiments, the hype around the technology, and the parallels between physics and his new hobby: magic
Mr. and Mrs. Jones
Survey data shows 98% of expansion barriers stem from tangible business factors like land availability rather than imports or market manipulation.
Packers vs. Vikings bold predictions for Week 18 clash
Packers and Vikings meet in season finale with nothing tangible on the line -- except an end to Green Bay's losing streak
From Bethesda Magazine: 24 arts and entertainment events to savor this winter
Montgomery County events, arts and entertainment: Niko Moon, Cupid’s Chase 5K and Tango After Dark are on deck.
Research expenditures ranking underscores ASU’s dramatic growth in high-impact science
Arizona State University has surpassed $1 billion in annual research funding for the first time, placing the university among the top 4% of research institutions nationwide, according to the latest National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development, or HERD, survey.The milestone is a testament to ASU’s success at transforming research dollars into tangible benefits for people — from improved health care to safer communities to more powerful computer chips and more.
7 Of The Weirdest Cars Owned By Celebrities
Jay Leno's Morgan Three-Wheeler, George Clooney's Tango T600, Elvis Presley's Messerschmitt KR200, Janis Joplin's Porsche 356, Mick Fleetwood's London taxi.
Quantum science and technology: highlights of 2025
As the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology draws to a close, Margaret Harris revisits some of the year’s best work in this ever-popular field
Tangling With Entanglement And Other Big Ideas In Physics
Physicist Sean Carroll takes on back holes, Schrödinger’s cat, and other big physics concepts that had our audience wondering.
5 Of The Best Electric Vehicles Under $50k, According To Consumer Reports
Cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 6, Mustang Mach‑E, and Nissan Ariya are among the best electric vehicles under $50,000, as shown by reviews from Consumer Reports.
Ranking the top Ohio high school stories of 2025 in Columbus
The Dispatch looks back at the top central Ohio high school sports stories of 2025. See what made our list.
Quantum entanglement could connect drones for disaster relief, bypassing traditional networks
Any time you use a device to communicate information—an email, a text message, any data transfer—the information in that transmission crosses the open internet, where it could be intercepted. Such ...
The Trevor Project Condemns Federal Government Efforts to Restrict Health Care for Transgender Youth
Your Support Saves LGBTQ+Youth's Lives Every DayDonateResearch shows that access to transition-related care is associated with significantly lower rates of […]
New entertainment venue coming to Tanger Outlets in 2026
Main Event will take over a 46,189 square-foot storefront next to Off 5th Saks Fifth Avenue and Regal Cinemas.
These orcas have dolphin sidekicks. Scientists have untangled why
Scientists say dolphins and orcas have teamed up to hunt salmon off British Columbia. It’s the first time such behavior has been documented between the two mammals.
Dispatch Has A Endgame State So Rare That Not A Single Player Has Seen It Yet
There's a fourth "your Robert" outcome that's gone completely unnoticed.
Obamacare Changed the Politics of Health Care
It’s one thing for Republicans to deny hypothetical care. It’s another to take this tangible benefit away.
Obamacare Changed the Politics of Health Care
It’s one thing for Republicans to deny hypothetical care. It’s another to take this tangible benefit away.
Distrust of Trump, fear of China propel new political force in Taiwan
The Kuomintang party’s new leader, Cheng Li-wun, is pushing much closer ties with China, reflecting growing fears Washington would not help in a war over Taiwan.
The future of American science and a dispatch from ASH
This week on "The Readout LOUD": Is a new obesity drug making people lose too much weight? Plus catch up on #ASH25 and hear how the country's scientific institutions have had a bruising year.
Looking for a Used Car That's a Joy to Drive? Start with These Picks for the Best Used Sports Cars
For those looking for the best driving experience on a budget, we've compiled our favorite used sports cars—all of which have appeared on either our 10Best or Editors' Choice list.
Dec. 5, 2025: 'If you can keep it' on unprecedented politics; Maintaining Mustang; Tech firm commits to downtown
Our series continues about unprecedented politics, named for the famous Benjamin Franklin line in 1787: "A republic, if you can keep it." University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket provides historic context. Then, it takes a lot of work to keep Mustang standing strong outside DIA. Also, tech firm Ibotta makes a 10-year commitment to downtown Denver, which other businesses have fled. And the family stories behind Denver's Little Saigon at History Colorado Center.
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.
2025 Shore Sports Insider Defensive Player of the Year – Brick Memorial’s Trey Tallmadge
Brick Memorial senior linebacker Trey Tallmadge is the 2025 Shore Sports Insider Defensive Player of the Year after helping the Mustangs to a championship season