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Some Buy Telescopes. These People Build Them From Scratch.
For a century, amateur telescope makers have gathered at the Stellafane convention to celebrate their craft. Will the event last another 100 years?
VIDEO: Shop Local at the RI Small Business Village at Providence…
GoLocalProv.com is the “go to” local Web experience that breaks the biggest local stories – sports, news, business, weather, news, politics, arts,…
Apple Store Pickup for iPhone Duo Starting to Resume But Very Limited
The option to reserve an iPhone Duo for Apple Store pickup is starting to return on Apple's online store, with the system live again in countries such as Australia, China, Japan, and South Korea. Unfortunately, our spot check revealed extremely limited availability right now, with few to no time slots available for all configurations.
RI Small Businesses vs. Costco, Foulkes and Raimondo
GoLocalProv.com is the “go to” local Web experience that breaks the biggest local stories – sports, news, business, weather, news, politics, arts,…
Main Line Health ups malpractice reserves
Plus, Villanova has 12 interns working in and around the Vatican.
Stranger Than Heaven: The Final Preview of the Yakuza Team’s Ambitious, Decades-Spanning Action-Adventure
in a new three-hour demo, I got to play Stranger Than Heaven from the start, see a bit of its decade-spanning story in action, and explore the different towns that represent each time period. That also meant getting real familiar with how to throw hands in the re-tuned combat, and it feels like I've done a complete 180-degree turn on RGG Studio's next game. Meaning, I’m now all-in on the Yakuza team’s latest.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 – Detailed Impressions of the Necron and AdMech Factions
I had a great time getting chromed up with the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Necrons in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4. The campaign story really starts to come together in some interesting ways in its second chapter. And the ways both of these factions control space differently feel like engaging and welcome additions to the roster compared to the more straightforward playstyle of Orks and Space Marines.
University of Lynchburg to host free pediatric health fair on Oct. 25
Families are invited to the University of Lynchburg’s Pediatric Health Fair on Sunday, Oct. 25, from noon to 4 p.m. at the University of Lynchburg Pavilion, which is located behind the Brewer and Rainsford townhouses.
Oregon State expert to lead soil health workshop
Oct. 29 event free for farmers; Registration deadline Oct. 22 The registration deadline is fast approaching for a free soil health training in Aumsville, Ore. The event, held by Oregon […]
Perot Museum Of Nature And Science Unveils $185 Million Expansion
The expanded campus is scheduled to open in late 2028
Criminal Justice Reform Isn’t Dead, Despite GOP Attack Ads
A familiar tough-on-crime election strategy is making a comeback, even as Republican and Democratic lawmakers keep passing reforms across the country.
The Creative Arts Economy: A Local Business Beat Hiding Plain Sight
Long before TimeLine Theatre opened the doors to its new home in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood earlier this year, PJ Powers and Mica Cole had a vision for something much more than a state-of-the-art show venue. For Powers, the theatre’s co-founder and Cole, executive director, the goal was to transform a shuttered warehouse into a living...Read More
Building the Business Beat from the Ground Up
With the U.S. economy facing the most complex and fast-changing environment in recent history, the business beat has never been more vital in newsrooms tasked with distilling a constellation of forces for local communities. Costly tariff policies, labor crises tied to immigration enforcement, and breaks in the global supply chain are testing both local businesses...Read More
Plague is stoppable. The next health threat may not be.
The word plague is scary. Centuries ago, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people and changed the course of history. Plague still kills people around the world, and the word still evokes catastrophe. New fears of plague surfaced on October 2, when a lab worker in Irkutsk, Russia, died of pneumonia. Reports suggested that she may have contracted plague through a laboratory exposure. Understandably, people were alarmed. On October 7, the World Health Organization called for the Russian Federation to be transparent about what it knew. WHO issued an update on October 10. Russian authorities told WHO that testing did not identify plague and that investigations found no laboratory release. WHO said confidence in its risk assessment remained limited and that further clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory information was needed. The cause of the woman’s illness remains unknown, and WHO says a laboratory-associated exposure cannot be excluded. As I explained in a recent interview, this incident is very unlikely to lead to a pandemic. Plague is still active, including in the U.S., which sees a handful of cases each year. But it is a disease we can prevent and treat. Plague doesn’t spread readily, and it responds to antibiotics. The standard response—isolate the patient, trace contacts, and administer antibiotics and monitor for symptoms among contacts for seven days—works. We have even planned for antibiotic-resistant plague. At CDC, we developed a playbook for antibiotic-resistant plague and ran exercises on how to find and stop it. CDC guidance anticipates engineered resistance and recommends two different classes of antibiotics if there’s reason to suspect it. There is no evidence that resistance—or even confirmed plague—is involved in this incident. We have thought through how to address plague, but we’re not ready for the next major health threat that emerges from a lab or from animal spillover to humans. What should concern people is how little stands between the world and the next pathogen to get loose. Since peak COVID, epidemic preparedness has fallen off the political agenda, but the risk is greater than ever. More labs handle dangerous pathogens with more ways to make those pathogens deadlier, and more people live and work in close contact with animals. There are actions we can take now: We need better lab safety in every country. The number of labs that work with dangerous pathogens has increased worldwide over two decades, but there’s no enforceable international standard and no inspection regime; the Biological Weapons Convention, fifty years on, still has no verification mechanism. Labs that study dangerous germs need strong safety systems, training, and oversight. We need to reduce spillover events. Three in four emerging human infections start in animals, and there’s a lot we can do to reduce spillover risk, but the world is doing very little of it. Live-animal markets are one place to act. For instance, closing live-bird markets helped control H7N9 influenza in China. Reducing opportunities for people to encounter infected animals can prevent infections before they become outbreaks. In The Formula for Better Health, which is now out in paperback along with the hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook versions, I argue that labs do too many risky experiments with too many dangerous pathogens in too many institutions, and that every experiment should first answer one basic question: Is the likely benefit greater than the risk? Spillover risk can also be reduced: In the book, I discuss how Brazil cut its deforestation rate by 70% from 2004 to 2012 while increasing agricultural production and reducing risky contact between people and forest animals. We need faster detection and response. Delay costs lives. Strong surveillance, good labs, and trained responders can turn a single case into a small cluster of infections instead of an epidemic. Resolve to Save Lives has worked for nearly a decade to help countries find and stop outbreaks faster. The 7-1-7 target, which Resolve to Save Lives developed with partners in Uganda and elsewhere, provides a clear standard: detect within 7 days, notify within 1 day and complete all essential early response actions within 7 days. In Uganda’s Kasese district, for example, a review of a measles outbreak using 7-1-7 identified shortages of accessible funds, fuel, and vehicles that delayed the response. District leaders established funds they could access quickly. When, a few months later, the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever appeared, the district detected it in three days, notified authorities in one, and mounted an effective response in two. Only one case was confirmed, and the patient survived. Because funds were available before the emergency, authorities were prepared and able to act. This kind of preparation can’t wait until the next crisis begins. Plague is an old disease we that know how to stop. The next threat may be harder to recognize, harder to treat, and easier to spread. Safer labs, less risk of spillover, and faster outbreak detection and response need sustained investment now, while we still have time to prevent the next emergency. Share
The Fatal Flaw of 911
A new book argues that as long as 911 defaults to police, people in mental health crises will be at risk for violent confrontations.
WWF LPR Living Planet Report 2026
October, 2026.- For the launch of WWF’s Living Planet Report 2026, NOMINT worked closely with WWF to create a creative
Opinion: ICE is making it harder for local police to do their jobs
Increased ICE operations are “squeezing” local law enforcement officers.
Bleached Coral Rebounded After Touching Healthy Coral, Study Finds
After sick corals were placed in direct contact with healthy ones of the same genetic make-up, they recovered at “incredible” speed, scientists found.
From Tariffs to Broken Supply Chains, Small Business Owners under Siege
Punishing U.S. tariff policies have fractured once-reliable supply chains, pushing vulnerable small businesses to retrench in an increasingly complex economic environment, entrepreneurs and advocates told the National Press Foundation’s Local Business Fellowship program. The widespread uncertainty has shriveled profit margins, forced layoffs and has small business owners seeking new manufacturers in remote corners of the...Read More
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sets a Mars Driving Record
Advances in self-driving technology have made it easier to traverse distant worlds.
Jeff Bezos Thinks Politicians Are Blaming the Wrong Culprit as Socialism Gains Ground
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is weighing in on the growing appeal of socialism, arguing that some politicians are pointing fingers at the wrong culprit. In an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier that air...
Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2026
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2026 was awarded to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford and “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.”
Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2026
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2026 was awarded to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford and “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.”
Who Were the Vikings? 21 Graves Weave a Tale of Hunters, Nomads and Sorceresses.
“The Sea-King and the Sorceress” examines the lives and deaths of the diverse people who called themselves Vikings.
The Presidential Prayer Team
Each day, we invite you to join us in prayer for our national leaders. As mandated by 1 Timothy 2:1-2, we encourage prayer for those in positions of authority.
Some Gboard users suddenly can't type capital letters
A strange Gboard bug is preventing some users from typing capital letters, and the beta version may be the culprit.
Main Line Health booked a $134 million increase in medical malpractice reserves in fiscal 2026
The large medical malpractice reserve helped turn what would have been a $75 million operating profit into a $33 million loss for the 12 months that ended June 30, Main Line officials said.
The Presidential Prayer Team
Each day, we invite you to join us in prayer for our national leaders. As mandated by 1 Timothy 2:1-2, we encourage prayer for those in positions of authority.
I Played 6 Hours of Phantom Blade Zero and Can’t Stop Thinking About It
After half a day playing Phantom Blade Zero, it’s gone from mostly not on my radar to to the top of my wishlist this fall, and I truly cannot wait to dive back in later this month to see if it can deliver beyond those first handful of hours. At least for now, though, just about everything I’ve seen and played has made me more convinced that this is going to be one of the coolest action games of 2026.
Most Fort Smith Board members avoid questions about Flock cameras
It’s unknown if Fort Smith will join a growing number of Arkansas cities taking action to end or curtail the use of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras. City Director...
Breast cancer survivors join together as CHI Health St. Elizabeth shines pink for October
CHI Health hosted its 16th annual ladies night on Wednesday, celebrating those impacted by the disease as they gathered to support one another.
Living Planet Report 2026
Every plant, animal, fungus and microorganism on Earth is part of a single living system, and we are part of it too. Biodiversity, the variety of life and the ecological relations
Comptroller’s report shows that as mobile sports gambling rises, so do concerns
NYS Deputy Comptroller Maria Doulis explains how the popularity of mobile sports gambling is growing with concerns about problem gambling.
Best The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time deal: Save $10 on Nintendo Switch preorders
Save on the physical edition of this hotly-anticipated remake.
Nobel Prize in Physics 2026
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 was awarded to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”
German and US scientists win Nobel medicine prize for work on light and brain
They will share a prize sum of 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).
New Research Strengthens the Link Between Warming and Extreme Weather
A growing body of attribution research shows that human-caused warming is increasing the likelihood or severity of many extreme weather events.
Troy council passes law setting standards for use of Flock cameras
One provision requires the city to delete all data from the license plate reader (LPR) technology within 72 hours.
East Bay tech and life science hub is bought by New York City investors
Price for property is far below its assessed value and loan.
East Bay tech and life science hub is bought by New York City investors
Price for property is far below its assessed value and loan.
Five Good Texans Questions with Blogging the Boys
We catch up with David Halprin of Blogging the Boys for five questions
Rural Health Transformation Fund: RX or Placebo?
NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis Director Alana Knudson and Virginia's Director of Rural Health Transformation Heidi Hertz briefed NPF fellows about the obstacles and opportunities in federal rural health policy.
Political sign theft becomes latest accusation in ongoing Spartz-Ford feud
While the culprit appears to be at-large, the Spartz campaign is already pointing fingers at backers of her Democratic opponent, state Sen. J.D. Ford.
NPF Names 32 Journalists for October 2026 Local Business Journalism Fellowship
The National Press Foundation has selected 32 journalists from across the country to participate in the October 2026 Local Business Journalism Fellowship in Chicago, Illiniois.
RI Approves Health Insurance Rate Increases of 3% to 18%
GoLocalProv.com is the “go to” local Web experience that breaks the biggest local stories – sports, news, business, weather, news, politics, arts,…
Understanding American Healthcare: A Deep Dive for Reporters
Christy Ford Chapin of the University of Maryland Baltimore County presented findings from her 2015 book to provide journalists with historical context for their healthcare reporting.
Newly discovered iron minerals might hold primordial water from when Earth formed
Researchers may have found a missing link in how Earth's mantle gets wet: newly discovered iron minerals that can store water at the extremely high temperatures and pressures present near our planet's core.
Family business takes Mexican dining and one-stop shopping to next level at El Primo Produce
El Primo Produce & Restaurant in Norristown is the ultimate 'one stop shop'.
Dr. Georges C. Benjamin: Health For All Is True National Security
Dr. Georges Benjamin of the APHA advised NPF fellows about political division that hamper healthcare quality and access and says the U.S. needs a healthcare system that includes everyone.
On This Mexican Island, Raccoons Make and Play With Toys (and Also Sip Margaritas)
Scientists observed a family of pygmy raccoons near a Cozumel beach club learning from one another how to craft balls from paper, an indication that the animals have a culture.
“Keep Youth Sports About the Kids,” by Stephen Borelli, USA Today Columnist
The story above is shared as part of Little League’s #LLProudParent content series, sharing first-person reflections on their experiences with their child in the Little League program.
Oregon forest health improves slightly in 2025, but don't celebrate
Tree survey finds fewer acres damaged by drought, disease, pests and storms An Oregon Department of Forestry aerial survey indicates Oregon tree health improved in 2025, with a slight dip […]
Hayden Panettiere's death was caused by the toxic effects of fentanyl and other drugs, ruled 'accidental'
The Greenville County Coroner's Office said that the 36-year-old's cause of death has been ruled as "toxic effects of fentanyl, 4-ANPP, Alprazolam, Methocarbamol and Quetiapine." The manner of death h...
Marietta/Belpre Health Department holding diaper drive through September 30
Health department collecting diapers and wipes for local families.
University of Arkansas graduation rates reach record highs
The University of Arkansas said Thursday (Sept. 17) that its six-year graduation rate reached a record high of more than 73%, and its four-year graduation rate hit an all-time high...
Could independent monitors rein in lucrative business subsidies?
A state-appointed monitor reduced public subsidies for a business project in Orange County. Could this model work elsewhere?
The Presidential Prayer Team
Each day, we invite you to join us in prayer for our national leaders. As mandated by 1 Timothy 2:1-2, we encourage prayer for those in positions of authority.
Marietta/Belpre Health Department hosting ‘Diaper Drive’ to support families
MARIETTA – The Marietta/Belpre Health Department is hosting a “Diaper Drive” through Sept. 30 to further its diaper bank program started in May, and will support local families and organizations that provide diapers to those in need. Donations are accepted from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 304 Putnam St. Cammie Loane, registrar and financial […]
Scientists Fuse Human Neurons Into the Brains of Mice
The studies may help reveal the causes of brain disease in people and point the way to treatments. But researchers already are calling for new ethical guidelines.
Marietta/Belpre Health Department hosting ‘Diaper Drive’ to support families
MARIETTA – The Marietta/Belpre Health Department is hosting a “Diaper Drive” through Sept. 30 to further its diaper bank program started in May, and will support local families and organizations that provide diapers to those in need. Donations are accepted from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 304 Putnam St. Cammie Loane, registrar and financial […]
NPF Selects Cerys Davies, Paighten Harkins to Attend Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists
Cerys Davies of the Los Angeles Times and Paighten Harkins of The Salt Lake Tribune won NPF's fellowships to the 2026 Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists.
Video: Opinion
President Trump’s unpopularity is a threat to Republican candidates across the country. But that’s not stopping him from promising $5,000 checks to voters and telling them to pretend he’s on the ballot. The Opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie argues that these efforts to woo infrequent voters are not only harmful to the party but also “profound political malpractice.”
Albany County Flock case fuels push for ALPR guardrails
An Albany County sheriff's investigator is accused of conducting more than 4,000 unauthorized Flock camera searches. The case is renewing debate over privacy, police oversight, and proposed statewide rules for license plate readers.
RAMSA’s Chicago Museum of Science & Industry renovation plans move forward
On September 10, Chicago’s Landmark Commission approved renovation plans by Robert A. M. Stern Architects for the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
Jesus Garcia named new math and science principal at South Jamaica charter school
Jesus A. Garcia has been named the new principal of Advanced Math and Science IV at United Charter High Schools (UCHS) in South Jamaica, which is part of one
Tiny Invaders Are Ravaging Our Forests. The Trees May Be Gone by 2040.
A surge in insect attacks is already underway, and mild winters are the culprit.
Enbridge to Buy Tallgrass Crude Pipeline Business for $2.55 Billion
Enbridge is expanding its U.S. crude pipeline network with a major Rockies-to-Cushing acquisition.
Scientists Discover the Earliest Evidence of Drug Use in Really Old Teeth
A hunter-gatherer who lived in Indonesia as early as 25,000 years ago may have regularly sucked on betel nuts to release their psychoactive properties.
Scientists Who Study Sleep and Narcolepsy Win Prestigious Lasker Award
The two researchers have won a prestigious Lasker Award. Their findings laid the groundwork for a new drug that addresses the sleep disorder’s root cause.
The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice
Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn.
Political Prisoners Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Javad Vafaei, and Mohammad Hassani Mark PMOI’s 61st Anniversary
PMOI political prisoners Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Javad Vafaei, and Mohammad Hassani commemorate the 61st anniversary of the founding of the PMOI.
A ‘Social Network’ follow-up and a ‘Hunger Games’ prequel headline fall movies
Audiences can also catch “Practical Magic 2,” “Sense and Sensibility” and a transformed Tom Cruise on the big screen.
Junior Livestock Show hosts meat science webinar series
The Junior Livestock Show of Spokane will host a webinar series about meat science and beef industry opportunities, led by Texas Tech University professors. Blake Foraker will speak about meat […]
Study A.I. Consciousness? The Bots Would Like a Word With You.
Given access to email, A.I. agents have started reaching out to the philosophers and researchers exploring deep questions about them.
Interview with the Enemy: Dallas Cowboys
David Halprin joins us for Week 3 of IWTE: Preseason Edition.
NPF Names 33 Journalists for October 2026 Local Business Journalism Fellowship
The National Press Foundation has selected 34 journalists from across the country to participate in the October 2026 Local Business Journalism Fellowship in Chicago, Illiniois.
Some Scientists Have ‘Magic Hands’ in the Lab. This A.I. Is Learning Why.
Even the most adept researchers may not know exactly what they do to get successful results. An A.I. model is trying to figure it out by watching every move.
Common factors leading to malpractice lawsuits in radiology
"Understanding the scope and characteristics of malpractice claims is essential for guiding policy decisions and risk mitigation efforts," experts write in RSNA's Radiology.
Michigan must reject antisemitism in political discourse
The atmosphere for Jews in our state feels toxic. We feel under attack, scapegoated, misunderstood and deeply uncertain about the future
Patriots And Texans Pull Off Blockbuster Wide Receiver Trade
Patriots and Texans pull off blockbuster trade ahead of the 2026 NFL season.
I Played Two Brand New Control Resonant Missions, And Feel Foolish For Ever Doubting It
I played two brand new Control Resonant missions and feel foolish for ever doubting it. Our final preview:
Pixel 11's new HiLight feature makes its flashlight noticeably dimmer than prior models
A brightness comparison shows that the Pixel 11 Pro's camera flash and torch are dimmer than those of rivals like the Galaxy Z TriFold and iPhone 17e. The likely culprit is the same diffuser that powers the HiLight notification ring, which sits directly over the main flash LED.
83% of phone storage issues is down to two culprits — here’s how to fix it
Based on recent reader poll, this step-by-step guide shows you how to tweak simple settings on iOS and Android to clear our your bloated storage.
Mapping America’s Largest ‘Dead Zone’
In a decades-long crisis, marine life has suffered as oxygen periodically dwindles in waters along the Gulf Coast.
The Presidential Prayer Team
Each day, we invite you to join us in prayer for our national leaders. As mandated by 1 Timothy 2:1-2, we encourage prayer for those in positions of authority.
Standlee to pay $16.9 million for Anderson Hay's business
Company seeks permission for sale from bankruptcy court Anderson Hay has struck a deal to sell most of its operational assets, except its real estate, to the Standee forage company […]
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 – We Played This PvE Bug Hunt One Last Time Before Review and Found the Specialist Class to Be Where It's At
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 seems like one of those lazy Sunday games, where you kill part of an afternoon playing a couple hours with friends. It gets Aliens and understands that forty miles of bad road Cameron envisioned. As a co-op game, it’s not going to change the world. Aliens already did that. But it’s a great excuse to play around in that world again, and I’m eager to see what else LV-558 has in store.
Scientists reveal the real culprit behind the surge in dangerous flight turbulence - Futura-Sciences
Why Turbulence Is on the Rise Many travelers believe flights feel more turbulent than they used to. Atmospheric measurements prove they’re right, at least when it comes to certain types of turbulence. In fact, a particular kind of turbulence has jumped by 55% along major air routes. What’s behind this...
Trump’s Kennedy Center and ballroom fixations are political malpractice for the GOP
Republicans are facing a potentially ugly 2026 midterm election in less than three months. And nobody seems to be able — or perhaps even cares to try — to prevail upon President Donald Trump to mitigate the damage.
Journalism is key to combating bad practices in science
Watchdog science journalism has become a fundamental tool to counter scientific malpractice, such as publication fraud, abuse and political and corporate manipulation of science. A study by the Universitat ...
CBS Sports believes Youngstown State could upset Kentucky to open Will Stein Era
Is Will Stein on upset alert in his very first game as a head coach? CBS Sports believes Youngstown State could make things interesting.
The Sports Report: Struggling Dodgers lose again
Justin Wrobleski and defensive miscues are the culprits as the Dodgers lose to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Beauty Of Settled Science
Commenters convinced me I made a subtle mis-step in my framing of Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine. My framing emphasized that social priming studies had failed to replicate, but that many other subfields of psychology hadn’t. This naturally led commenters to point to failed replications in other subfields. Although none of these were as bad as social priming, few or none were entirely problem-free. Instead of emphasizing the difference between social priming and other subfields, I should have emphasized the difference between settled science and novel research. Here are some of my favorite psychology findings: The brain is sculpted by reinforcement learning, and a key driver of this learning is a prediction-error-based algorithm located in the nucleus accumbens and implemented through dopamine. Psychedelic drugs exert their effects through 5-HT2A receptors, pointing to a role for these receptors in some sort of construct like the balance between priors and new evidence. Certain cognitive functions are localized to certain brain areas (for example, impulse control to the frontal lobes; linguistic structure to Broca’s area, linguistic meaning to Wernicke’s area. But injure one of these areas, or render a certain function useless (eg a blind person having no more use for their visual cortex), and these mappings can gradually shift - suggesting that neurons are general-purpose compute whose specialization is a contingent fact about convenience and efficiency rather than a necessity. Most personality traits and general capabilities are about 50% genetic and 50% random, with little role for family environment or childhood history, with a few notable exceptions like partisan preference. Recent research complicates this story, but the further you go from this basic picture, the gnarlier the chains of indirect causation you require. Neurons fire together in “brain waves”, whose exact frequency corresponds with the character of consciousness; These divide neurons into natural subpopulations and linked graphs. The gamma rhythm corresponds surprisingly well to items in conscious awareness. GABA receptors seem to be involved in something like relaxation. By hitting different GABA receptors in different ways, you can modulate the exact type of relaxation you produce. Hitting GABA-A directly is too powerful and can cause dangerous levels of sedation, but allosteric modulation of GABA is an incredibly fruitful strategy that underlies drugs from benzos to barbituates to alcohol. If you know your GABA-A subunits, you can target specific subtypes of relaxation; for example, Ambien hits GABA-A1 and induces sleep. Memory divides somewhat fuzzily into bins of immediate-sensory, short-term, and long-term, with separate retrieval and storage functions, and separate systems for declarative vs. procedural learning. These can be harmed selectively, usually by hippocampal injury, so that some patients can remember their life stories but not form new long-term memories, or learn new skills like bike-riding but not new facts. The exact substrate of memory is unclear but seems to involve new synaptic connections between neurons in at least some way. The ability of modern psychology and psychiatry to treat mental illness is real but limited. SSRIs work for half or slightly fewer than half of patients; antipsychotics work with extreme side effects; benzodiazpines work but produce addiction and tolerance in many (not all) people. Most supplements are stuck in Poor Quality Study Replication Crisis Hell, but melatonin and l-theanine stand out as especially promising. Psychotherapy works with moderate effect size, but (with a few exceptions) seems to be more about the relationship with the provider than the details of the therapy itself. Mental hospitalization can sometimes defuse immediate crises but work less well than mental hospitals would like, with some studies showing overall negative effects. Schizophrenia is mostly genetic, but risk also increases with prenatal infection (especially rubella) and obstetric complications; there is suggestive evidence for roles of social stress and drug use (with psychedelics and marijuana making things worse, and nicotine if anything making things better). Bipolar and schizophrenia are so closely linked on a pathophysiological level that it seems like they might be the same disease; on the clinical level, they do seem to follow two separate courses/prognoses but can sometimes surprise clinicians by eg someone who seemed condemned to permanent schizophrenia unexpectedly recovering. The brain’s native reinforcement learning algorithms cash out in the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning; different reinforcement schedules reinforce at different levels, which can be exploited by bad actors to make especially compelling products (eg slot machines). None of these are immune to doubt. A few are speculative; one or two are genuinely unorthodox. But they’re all a step above one p = 0.049 paper that might not replicate. If they get overturned, they’ll be overturned by the same sort of genuine scientific shift that replaced Ptolemy with Copernicus or Lamarck with Darwin, not some sort of sordid discovery about someone entering random numbers into a spreadsheet. In 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about The Beauty Of Settled Science: If you only care about scientific issues that are controversial, you will end up with a head stuffed full of garbage. The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science is worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like “General Relativity still governing planetary orbits” or “Phlogiston theory remains false”? So, by the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline. “Newsworthy” science is often based on the thinnest of evidence and wrong half the time—if it were not on the uttermost fringes of the scientific frontier, it would not be breaking news. Scientific controversies are problems so difficult that even people who’ve spent years mastering the field can still fool themselves. That’s what makes for the heated arguments that attract all the media attention. Worse, if you aren’t in the field and part of the game, controversies aren’t even fun. Don’t be embarrassed to read elementary science textbooks, either. If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at. If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty [...] A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid. Psychology isn’t centrally the new paper in Annals Of Recently-Breaking News saying that an n=5 study showing that large portion sizes increase support for terrorism. Psychology is centrally ideas like brain waves, GABA receptors, reinforcement learning, twin studies, and connectionism. People who think differently are worrying too much about BREAKING NEWS!!!, and should stop. The key distinction isn’t “recent research in social psychology” vs. “recent research in cognitive/bio/behavioral psychology”, as my essay last week unfortunately implied. It’s recent research in general vs. the deposit of settled science, battle-tested hypotheses, and carefully-earmarked speculation. And part of the reason social priming in particular was such a disaster was that it defied that heuristic, building itself up over hundreds of studies until it approached or even entered the pantheon of settled science - before collapsing (5-HTTLPR was also sort of like this). This isn’t a claim that settled science is always right - Freud was “settled science” for a long time - just that there’s an intuitive distinction between the level of credence you should have in the existence of power posing vs. the existence of Broca’s Area. (I compounded this error by calling the last post “Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine”, which suggested I was talking about the new research rather than the settled science. I actually meant to distinguish between research-psychology-the-field vs. clinical-psychology-aka-therapy, but this framing unintentionally pushed against the point I wanted to make) Some commenters on the previous article understood this point, but challenged its weight. It’s very cool, they said, to know how many neurons are in which brain lobe, but the main way that Psychology affected their lives was through bad clickbait studies used to buttress dumb policies; some p = 0.049 study says that exposure to microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel into raisins, and now their company has to implement punitive DEI or be sued for hazardous work conditions. I won’t dispute this as an accurate description of how the sausage gets made, but it’s worth examining the trains of thought that connect this observation to a campaign against psychology in general: The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad, and I don’t have good heuristics for distinguishing dumb woke psychology from other psychology, so I’m going to assume it’s all wrong and bad. The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad; it seems useful to punish/discredit psychology as a whole to assist my campaign against it, so for propaganda purposes I will try to discredit psychology as a whole. To people in the first camp, my response is: come on, your heuristics aren’t that bad. “Microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel up like raisins” is in the woke category; “the hippocampal theta rhythm seems to be associated with both memory and pathfinding, suggesting an unexpected yet surprisingly compelling relationship between the two” is in the not-woke category, don’t play dumb here. To people in the second camp, my response is: deliberately exaggerated propaganda campaigns are bad and this is a confession, not an excuse. Inability to view science through anything but a political lens was what got us into this problem; doubling down on it is a temporary solution but a recipe for permanent disaster. If you pronounce entire fields of science to be acceptable collateral damage in your campaign against bad political actors, you will alienate not just scientists but patients, clinicians, and general lovers of truth. Instead, you can say the thing you mean - that woke partisans shouldn’t try to occupy and exploit the otherwise-noble science of psychology for their own political gain - and wage the same campaign with a halo rather than a comic-book-villain goatee. From the font of oracular wisdom that is Weird Sun Twitter: [ Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit i love you all conditionally but i love the good part of you unconditionally. even if it becomes a very small part 2:11 AM · Jan 22, 2015 1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 29 Likes ](https://x.com/VesselOfSpirit/status/558084551772471298) This is how I feel about psychology1, too, but with a touch more optimism. The good part of psychology is enormous, a hoard of endless treasures. You just have to look past the headlines! 1 To play devil’s advocate - should one always be so magnamious? Astrology? Phrenology? These seem different in that their entire orientation was flawed from the start; they didn’t simply fail to find the correct constellation-personality connections, the whole project of searching for connections between constellations and personality was doomed from the start. More difficult might be asking the same question about education research, which is notoriously bad. I don’t know enough about education research to know if there’s some settled science of correct and enlightening results lurking in the background beyond the day-to-day froth of poorly-conducted and politically-motivated studies. I think if it’s 90% bad, 10% good, it’s correct to call it bad as a compact way of communicating a useful truth; I think psychology is better than that, but admit it’s a tough judgment call.
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