Pocket Archive: Science, History & Discovery

Science has much to say about what intuition is (and isn’t), when to trust it, and how to improve it.

Despite what you may hear during this year’s fiftieth anniversary commemorations, Stonewall was not the spark that ignited the gay rights movement. The story is well known: A routine police raid of a mafia-owned gay bar in New York City sparked three nights of riots and, with them, the global gay rights movement. In fact it is conventional to date LGBTQ history into “before Stonewall” and “after Stonewall” periods—not just in the United States, but in Europe as well. British activists can join Stonewall UK, for example, while pride parades in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are called “Christopher Street Day,” after the street in New York City on which the Stonewall Inn still sits. But there were gay activists before that early morning of June 28, 1969, previous rebellions of LGBTQ people against police, earlier calls for “gay power,” and earlier riots.

As the slogan goes, "Stonewall was a riot"—but what kind of riot? What the queer uprisings of 1969 share with the George Floyd protests of 2020.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The use of substances to alter consciousness seems to be innate. UCLA Professor Ronald Siegel (2005) calls it the “fourth universal drive”, as natural as hunger, thirst and se…

Every idea needs a Medium

Almost by accident, scientists uncovered why ketamine causes out-of-body experiences. They also reveal what happens in the brain when you fall into a "k-hole."

Every idea needs a Medium

Every idea needs a Medium

A new paper argues the condition now known as “dissociative identity disorder” might help us understand the fundamental nature of reality

The elderly have always been with us: what do their ancient remains say about the human lifespan and ‘invisible’ old age?

Using neuroimaging, scientists created a model of the human brain on psilocybin. This map reveals how the drug helps reorganize brain activity.

Rana Mitter on China after the cultural revolution

The researcher behind the famed Dunning-Kruger Effect has found expertise can lead us to claim impossible knowledge.

Is there something wrong with the scientific method?

Chomsky told that authoritarianism or a change of liberal capitalism are two options left for the world after coronavirus, he called Trump a sociopathic buffoon

The technology is coming, but contrary to what some people say, there could be health risks

This film is an excerpt from a new course that I am developing about the Mawangdui medical texts, a library of manuscripts discovered in China that date back...

New research from an international team of scientists is suggesting that instantly recognizable earthy smell after rain is released by bacteria trying to attract a particular arthropod as a way to spread its spores.

Qi Dynamics and the Six Phases

The long read: Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots

When it supports their claims, Western scientists value what Traditional Knowledge has to offer. If not, they dismiss it

Every idea needs a Medium

The return to a 400-year-old treaty relationship.

This module provides a brief overview of the neuroscience of emotion. It integrates findings from human and animal research to describe the brain networks and associated neurotransmitters involved in basic affective systems.

Mind Fixers, by historian Anne Harrington, takes a hard look at the ways the marketing of a new pill to treat a mental disorder can change the way the condition is defined and treated.

Our two free downloadable cover letter templates will take some of the agony out of customizing your cover letter each time—and help you land interviews.

A mathematical model normally used to study networks helped reveal the architecture of the brain.