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\"Star Wars\" franchise has a rocky road back to relevance [Unscripted column]
I regret having to say it, but my main thought while leaving the new “Star Wars” movie was that Disney is far, far away from a galaxy that contains any
Melvine Malard: Man United Women star steals spotlight for France
Manchester United Women had numerous players in international action throughout the course of Friday. Three United stars were called up for England’s giant matchup versus Spain in World Cup qualific...
England vs New Zealand- Match preview and team news
England enter the absolute final stage of their World Cup preparations on Saturday when they face New Zealand in Tampa in a penultimate warm-up friendly.This crucial clash at the Raymond James Stadium...
Scenes From Thursday’s LARSO Health Fair ‘Stronger Together
Scene from the LARSO Health Fair at Betty Ehart Senior Activity Center. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com Scene from the LARSO Health Fair at Betty Ehart Senior Activity Center. Ph…
Notre Dame 2026 Player Profile: Defensive End Keon Keeley
After a detour through Alabama, the former elite recruit Keon Keeley finally arrives at Notre Dame. Can the powerful edge rusher refine his raw technique to anchor the Irish defense?
The Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment Gala recap
SHIFTER's Emmy Carlos Rayman shares the sights and sounds from The Hollywood Reporter Women In Entertainment Gala in Toronto.
President Donald Trump urges MLB to institute a salary cap: 'They should have done it a long time ago'
'You don't have a sport' if you don't have a salary cap, Trump said
Scientists sound the alarm as dangerous amoebas spread globally
Scientists warn that free-living amoebae may be an underappreciated public health threat, capable of causing deadly infections and shielding other dangerous microbes from water treatment. Climate change and aging infrastructure could help these resilient organisms spread more widely in the years ahead.
Atomic City Quilts Seeks New Business Partners For Los Alamos Store
Quilt fabrics and more at Atomic City Quilts. Courtesy photo Scene from the Atomic Quilts store in Los Alamos. Courtesy photo Scene from the Atomic Quilts store in Los Alamos. Courtesy photo ATOMIC…
Little Rock church break-in highlights mental health concern among homeless
What began as a late-night security alarm at Mercy Church in Little Rock ended with a large police response and a renewed call from church leaders to address mental health and homelessness in the c…
Mo Salah getting familiar with the Browns players in Cleveland
Mo Salah getting familiar with the Browns players in Cleveland
President Trump sides with MLB owners on issue of hard salary cap
“If you don’t have a salary cap, you don’t have a sport," Trump said.
Tuchel will not let Tampa pitch affect selection
England head coach Thomas Tuchel says reports about the state of the pitch at the venue for his side's friendly against New Zealand will not influence team selection.
Thomas Tuchel ‘concerned’ about Florida pitch
England manager Thomas Tuchel says he is “concerned” about pictures he has seen of the pitch at the Raymond James Stadium in Florida where England will play New Zealand.England play New Zealand in...
How Elon Musk is redefining executive compensation
CEO pay packages have reached extraordinary levels, and Elon Musk stands far above everyone else with a compensation package valued at roughly $132 billion, The New York Times reports. Musk’s compensation is almost entirely stock-based rather than salary or cash bonuses, receiving shares only if Tesla achieves a series of ambitious long-term performance targets tied […]
Office of Economic Development continues to provide small business energy efficiency grants
“Reducing energy use benefits individual businesses and strengthens our community as a whole as we reduce our reliance on the electrical grid,” said Kauaʻi County Office of Economic Development Director Nalani Bru.
AI business 'operating system' with its own GPU hub planned in Malaysia
Planned Galactic OPC platform pairs AI agents with NVIDIA-powered GPU infrastructure and a physical hub to help entrepreneurs run key business functions.
Remote work is taking its toll on the mental health of American workers, researchers find
Working from home comes with some major pluses. It's more flexible, there's no more pesky commute, work-life balance improves, and you can even stay in your pajamas all day if you want. But according ...
Five Science Fiction Movies to Stream Now
In this month’s picks, fatal fungi and killer calamari. Plus, lots of zombies (and a few podcasters).
Norm Lewis to headline Studio Tenn’s ‘One Night Only’ gala
Middle Tennessee’s premier nonprofit professional theatrer company, Studio Tenn, welcomes the return of its annual fundraising gala, “One Night Only: Summer Starlight Serenade” to Liberty Hall at The Factory at
Galaxy S27 Pro To Feature Another Upgrade That’ll Make It Samsung’s Best Seller, But The Galaxy S27 Ultra Is Sadly Being Left Out
A new rumor talks about yet another upgrade making it to the Galaxy S27 Pro, and at a lower price, it’s bound to resonate with buyers
Family Entertainment Thrives As Legoland Invests In Growth
Legoland has invested in more than a new Galacticoaster. They are investing in the guest experience in an attempt to drive growth.
Alaska Science Forum: Research team seeks answers from a changing river
A shifting climate is bringing big, sudden changes to the Kuskokwim River and the people who rely on it
How ASUS Is Bringing AI into Healthcare Workflows
Move from pilot to production with ASUS AI Hub and NVIDIA NemoClaw. Deploy scalable, secure on-premises enterprise Agentic AI with robust data governance and custom knowledge RAG workflows.
Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide Latest: Why Samsung Is Betting Big
New Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide details reveal key specs ahead of July 22 Unpacked release date. Here's what we know and what it means for buyers.
Report: Brentford have launched £43m bid to sign forward
Brentford Close In on Record Move for Cologne Star Said El MalaBrentford appear to be edging closer to completing one of the most eye catching deals of their summer, with reports from Bild suggesting ...
Chinese Hit 'Dear You' Sets Global Theatrical Run Via Damai
Lan Hongchun's Teochew dialect family drama opens June 18 across Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.
Trump administration escalates legal push for medical records of trans minors
Parents said in court papers they’re worried that having records disclosed could expose them to retaliation by the Trump administration.
This no-phones theater chain now asks visitors to order food by phone. The reviews aren’t good.
Alamo Drafthouse, which built its brand on a strict ‘no phones’ policy, is now asking patrons to use their devices to order from the menu.
In the Smoky Mountains, a volunteer effort aims to document every species
For citizen scientists, counting thousands of species is one way to monitor climate change in America's most biodiverse national park.
JWST Measures Mass Of Most Distant Dormant Black Hole – Shattering Previous Record By 15 Times
JWST and gravitational lensing allowed scientists to resolve an area in the distant universe equivalent to looking at a "coin on the surface of the Moon."
Norway's crown princess placed on listed for lung transplant, palace says
Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit has been placed on a waiting list for a lung transplant after a further deterioration of her health, the royal household said in a statement on Friday.
Texas health officials warn of New World Screwworm after confirmed case in Zavala County
Texas health officials urge precautions after confirming a New World Screwworm case in a South Texas calf, warning of risks to animals and rare human infections.
Why Mogadishu clashes are deepening Somalia’s political crisis again
Tensions over Somali elections escalate into violence, leaving Mogadishu residents grappling with fear and disruption.
Alex Rodriguez Bashes Competitive Imbalance: ‘The American League Stinks'
Alex Rodriguez didn't hold back on his criticism of the Boston Red Sox and the American League.
In a First, Scientists Precisely Edit Human Embryo Genes
Researchers relied on a newer gene-editing technique that may make it possible to engineer embryos, a prospect that has long alarmed bioethicists.
Omaha Police discuss increase in mental health calls, shots fired on officers
After seven officer involved shooting in the metro in the past eight months, OPD's crisis negotiators share how they are working to prevent and de-escalate a growing number of calls.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8 to have both Exynos and Snapdragon chips
Which one you get will depend on where you're located, apparently. We've already heard that Samsung would be using the Exynos 2600 SoC in the upcoming...
Decades in the making, Deb Haaland's political rise spurs both inspiration and scrutiny
Former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s political career has been defined by historic milestones
Decades in the making, Deb Haaland's political rise spurs both inspiration and scrutiny
SAN FELIPE PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — As the sun peeked over the Sandia Mountains, Deb Haaland was at a familiar spot, the tribal community where she used to work, waving at motorists and encouraging them to stop and vote in New Mexico’s primary.
Opinion: UFC is cutting corners
The Ultimate Fighting Championship's releases of Ketlen Vieira and Daniel Marcos show how much the UFC is struggling with finding a balance between entertainment and competition, writes Dayne Fox.
Scientists just solved a decades-old mystery about the black hole in the middle of our galaxy
They captured an image 100 times deeper and 80 times sharper than previous maps of the region
Astros' Cesar Salazar: DFA'd by Astros
Astros' Cesar Salazar: DFA'd by Astros
Samsung Health app is getting a big AI-centric redesign ahead of Galaxy Watch 9 [Gallery]
Samsung is expected to launch its new Galaxy Watch 9 next month and, ahead of that, the Samsung Health app...
Northwestern scientists find long-elusive wind emitting from Milky Way galaxy's central black hole
Scientists have understood for years that black holes should produce wind or streams of gas as they consume matter, but a search for such a wind around the central black hole of the Milky Way galaxy had been coming up fruitless for more than 50 years.
James Webb telescope detects most distant dormant black hole, invisible in all wavelengths and weighing as much as 6 billion suns
JWST found a black hole hiding in a galaxy more than 10 billion light-years away from Earth, and used a cosmic magnifying glass to determine its mass.
Popular weight-loss diet shows surprising impact on serious mental health condition
New UC San Diego research suggests the keto diet may help reduce anorexia nervosa symptoms, with 72% of participants scoring in the recovered or normal range.
Samsung LSI’s Price Gouging Pushes Exynos 2600 To $270/Unit, Forcing Samsung Mobile To Bank On Qualcomm For The Galaxy Z Flip 8
Samsung Mobile is reportedly reducing the share of the Exynos 2600 chip within the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 8 amid runaway silicon costs.
York City accept Hearts offer for Fagan-Walcott
York City accept what would be a club-record, seven-figure bid for defender Malachi Fagan-Walcott from Heart of Midlothian.
Franklin Primary Health Center and Fox 10 offer free men’s health screenings
Two-day event provides free PSA, blood pressure, BMI, blood sugar and vision screenings.
Tracking malaria in Central America | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Paulo Manrique, PhD ’26, is making novel discoveries about the transmission of malaria in Central America, helping the region’s health ministries develop molecular surveillance capacity to monitor and combat the disease.
Researchers say this new Trump rule could destroy American science as we know it. They’re fighting back
By Ella Nilsen, Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — Scientists across multiple disciplines are sounding the alarm after the White House proposed taking
Researchers say this new Trump rule could destroy American science as we know it. They’re fighting back
By Ella Nilsen, Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — Scientists across multiple disciplines are sounding the alarm after the White House proposed taking greater control over how scientific research gets funded and allowing political appointees to decide whether to approve scientific grants. Critics of the proposed rule say it would codify the administration’s attempts to destroy
Researchers say this new Trump rule could destroy American science as we know it. They’re fighting back
Scientists across multiple disciplines are raising the alarm after the White House proposed taking greater control over how scientific research gets funded and allowing political appointees to decide whether to approve scientific grants.
Grand Rapids-based construction firm plans new Kalamazoo office at WMU business park
Owen-Ames-Kimball Co. purchased the property for its new office last year.
Photos and Video: The Gilded Age Cast, Daryl Roth, Yoshiki Honored by Entertainment Community Fund
Performers included Lea Michele, Julie Benko, Ben Levi Ross, Primo Thee Ballerino, Jonathan Burke, Stark Sands, and more.
Samsung's Updated Health App Unsurprisingly Comes With New AI-Powered Features
Samsung will roll out an update for its Health app before launching its new Galaxy Watches.
Grind City Amp aims to build on early success in Memphis
Grind City Amp in Memphis officially opened April 22, with a performance by the Alabama Shakes.
Peru’s Politics Are a Disaster, but Does It Matter?
Peru’s runoff election, on June 7th, will decide which of two candidates—down from 36, in the first round of voting—becomes the next President. The economy may not notice.
Software company Teradata pauses raises, says budget is going to AI
Cloud software firm Teradata has told employees not to expect annual salary raises in 2026, and says it is putting the money towards AI instead.
Samsung monthly updates: June 2026 security patch gets detailed
Samsung has detailed its June 2026 security patch update for Galaxy smartphones, tablets, and other Android-based devices.
Man City consider legal action after Haaland claim
After a candidate in Real Madrid's presidential election unveils an Erling Haaland shirt on live TV, Manchester City dismiss the suggestion their striker will move to Spain.
New Zealand: 2026 World Cup Squad, Fixtures and Schedule
New Zealand travel to North America for the FIFA World Cup this summer, chasing a first-ever tournament victory.The All Whites return to the global stage for the first time since 2010. This will be th...
Scientists will lose critical climate record as ocean observatory goes dark under Trump funding cuts
The National Science Foundation announced it would dismantle most of the ocean monitoring system, pulling instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027.
Beluga whales keep switching mates and it may be saving their species
Hidden beneath Arctic waters, beluga whales have long kept their family lives a mystery. By analyzing DNA from more than 600 belugas in Alaska’s Bristol Bay over 13 years, researchers uncovered a surprisingly flexible mating system: both males and females regularly have offspring with different partners over their lifetimes.
Accel Entertainment expands Louisiana footprint with truckstop casino acquisition
Accel Entertainment has expanded its Louisiana operations through the acquisition of Rice Palace Truck Stop Casino in Crowley, adding a high-volume gaming locat
Most and least expensive states for out-of-pocket healthcare spending
Utah, Virginia and California vs. Alaska, Oregon and Maine: Guess which trio’s residents spend the most on healthcare and which spend the least.
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalised, intuitive daily insights
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalised, intuitive daily insights
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalized, intuitive daily insights
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalized, intuitive daily insights
Ballad Health launches Appalachian Highlands Orthopedic Network
Ballad Health and local orthopedic physicians have launched the Appalachian Highlands Orthopedic Network, a new partnership aimed at expanding access to orthope
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…
Powering Appalachia Expo connects business owners to valuable resources
Business owners from across the Mid-0hio Valley attended an expo aimed at connecting them to valuable resources.
Drake London’s contract ranks among highest Atlanta sports salaries
Here’s how Falcons wide receiver Drake London’s contract extension — four years for $141 million — compares to the highest annual salaries in Atlanta sports history.
Alabama ruling demolishes John Roberts’ claim that justices aren’t ‘political actors’
Democratic appointees said the majority “corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.”
'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' Remains Atop U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through June 3
Universal’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie remained No. 1 on the weekly Official Film Chart — the U.K. home entertainment sales chart — through June 3 due to digital transactions. Amazon MGM Studios’ former chart topper Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling as a lone astronaut on a mission to save humanity, remained at No. … Continue reading "‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Remains Atop U.K. Home Entertainment Sales Chart Through June 3"
‘Euphoria’ Star Darrell Britt-Gibson Breaks Down Bishop’s Betrayal of Alamo
Darrell Britt-Gibson peels back the layers of his mysterious character.
‘Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra’ confirmed, likely leaving Samsung’s most interesting foldable with a boring name
Samsung is planning two Galaxy Z Fold 8 models for launch this year, and one is confirmed to have “Ultra”...
Paris match a chance to grow rugby league
Wigan Warriors' trip to Paris to face Catalans Dragons will be a perfect stage to showcase rugby league to a wider audience, says Oliver Partington.
Adams to offer master’s degree in computer science
Online program will be the ninth masters program at the university
Brentford Set to Stun Premier League With £38m Summer Transfer
Brentford Transfer News: Said El Mala Deal Signals Serious AmbitionBrentford Move Closer to Said El Mala TransferBrentford appear to be edging towards one of the most intriguing deals of the summer, w...
Aaron Judge Update: Yankees Alarm Bells Ringing
The New York Yankees are holding their breath about Aaron Judge.
Where does Derick Hall's salary rank among EDGEs after extension?
Where does Derick Hall's salary with the Seattle Seahawks rank among EDGEs after extension?
The Rabbit Hole of Everyday Questions with Emily Zhang
Emily Zhang has created dozens of YouTube videos, receiving over 300 million views on subjects from the physics of bowling to the invention of blue LED. This year she started Rabbit Hole, a channel that offers “extraordinary answers to everyday questions.” We spoke with Zhang — a 2025 winner of the National Academies’ Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications — about Rabbit Hole and her experiences with YouTube as a medium for science communication.
Scientists reverse anxiety by fixing a tiny brain circuit
A newly identified group of amygdala neurons appears to play a central role in anxiety and social behavior. Restoring normal activity in this tiny brain circuit reversed anxiety and social deficits in mice, revealing a promising new target for future treatments.
Health and Safety Impacts of Aircraft Cabin Temperatures
Excessively hot or cold temperatures in commercial aircraft may affect the health and safety of passengers and flight attendants. A new National Academies report surveys the evidence on the influence of cabin temperature and humidity on safety and recommends strategies to improve monitoring and risk management.
Elections to top science bodies test Croatia’s gender equality in research
Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16. “The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote. Some 60% of researchers in Croatia are women, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, and they perform well in international competitions. For example, of the 12 European Research Council (ERC) grants awarded to Croatian researchers, seven went to women.“So how is it possible that decision-making bodies are still dominated by men over 60, while not a single female ERC laureate is involved in the selection process?” asked Đikić. “This is not a marginal oversight; it is a structural failure.” The ministry of science did not reply to a request for comment. The awards committee is not unusual. For example, a scientific advisory body announced by the ministry of demographics in April comprises 35 men and five women. The board of the Croatian Science Foundation, newly appointed by the parliament, is a little better, with five men and two women, but still unequal. “This is especially significant because such bodies do not merely distribute prestige. They shape research priorities, funding allocation and long-term scientific development,” Marija Lugarić, chair of the parliament’s committee on gender equality, told Science|Business. “Representation here matters not only symbolically, but materially.”Referring to the awards committee and the board of the science foundation, Lugarić says that while both bodies were appointed by parliament, neither met the minimum 40% gender balance threshold that Croatian law and EU guidelines expressly recommend for public bodies.Đikić wants to see EU institutions put pressure on the government to ensure basic standards of fairness, transparency and democratic governance in science policy are met. “Meaningful change will not come without pressure,” he wrote. “It must intensify both within Croatia and at the level of European institutions. Anything less undermines the credibility of Europe’s commitment to excellence and inclusion in science.”Rudež also underlined the importance of talking and writing about this topic, “because public opinion in Croatia does influence changes in the status and visibility of women in science.”The European Commission has not yet responded to a request for comment.Good news from the academyA more positive story came from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts on 21 May, with the announcement of seven new women fellows and five men. This is the first time in the academy’s 165-year history that women have outnumbered men in a new intake.One of the new fellows, two-time ERC grantee Iva Tolić, credits the academy leadership with trying to be more modern and inclusive, representing the whole community better. “The academy is really aware that so far, before this election, there were very few women,” she told Science|Business. “So, they are actively trying to make this more equal.”Related articlesExplained: How the MSCA is close to achieving gender balanceCall for EU to leverage academic freedom in global talent raceRudež is more cautious, noting that despite the academy’s “breakthrough this year [. . .] it is still a predominantly male institution, with only 18% women.”This reflects a wider imbalance in Croatia’s research landscape. “The key levers of power in science are still in the hands of men,” she went on. “For example, all 14 rectors of private and public universities are men.”Similarly, Lugarić says a structural glass ceiling still exists in Croatian science, which is “most visible precisely where power is exercised.”She cites data from the Commission’s She Figures 2024 report, which shows that Croatia ranks second in the EU for gender equality in research and innovation overall, with an equality index of 79.6 out of 100. It is in the top five for women’s career advancement, participation in research; representation across all research sectors and for scientific publications.In stark contrast, it ranks second to last when it comes to women in decision-making positions in science. “This is not a coincidence,” Lugarić says. “It is a structural pattern.”Informal barriersThe persistent under-representation of women in the highest structures of Croatia’s academies, boards, award committees and leadership positions is not down to formal barriers, Lugarić says, but arises from more subtle obstacles such as “informal networks, persistent expectations regarding traditional gender roles and the unequal distribution of care responsibilities.”Tolić would like to see more support for young women in terms of affordable housing and child support, and higher salaries. Currently, she says, salaries in science stay low for the first 10-15 years, while housing and spaces in kindergarten are limited and expensive. “You have to work a lot, you get very little money, so it’s not great to have a family in this situation,” she says.But despite the challenges, Tolić is optimistic, saying that gender equality in research in Croatia is “definitely improving and going in the right direction.” The situation is particularly promising in biology, she adds, where most full professors, heads of department and deans of faculties are women. Lugarić, too, see the glass ceiling “very slowly, cracking,” and cites the academy election as an example that structural change is possible. Yet the situation in the national awards committee is a “stark reminder that without a conscious, systemic commitment to gender balance, progress will remain slow and uneven.”
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!
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