Denyse O'Leary
Yes, Plants Do Communicate — But Is It a One-Way Street?
Are we straining the meaning of the term “communication” by overinterpreting what we observe?
How Censorship Has Changed and Why That Matters So Much
The way censorship works now, you don’t even know about it. So it is much more difficult to protest.
Could Human Consciousness Be a Recent Historical Development?
Julian Jaynes’s bicameral mind theory, popular in the 1970s, stated that until about 3000 years ago, humans were not really conscious
Thinking Back to the Very Beginnings of Art
It just appears, from great antiquity, and we really don’t know why. All we know is that animals don’t do it
Why Is 23andMe — the Hot Gene Testing Startup — Now Worthless?
Birthed in Silicon Valley among high-tech go-getters, it should still be steaming along, right? But traditional bedrock business realities cursed it at its birthEmbattled genetic testing outfit 23andMe had a customer base of 14 million for its home DNA testing kits. Thus, many of us know at least someone who has discovered a partial Mongolian, West African, or even Neanderthal ancestry via the famous “spit kit.” The 2006 startup, birthed in Silicon Valley and riffing off the Human Genome Project (2000), had a dazzling “the future is now!” launch. The founder, Anne Wojcicki (pronounced as if “Wojisky”), was the daughter of “Godmother of Silicon Valley” Esther Wojcicki and sister of YouTube’s former CEO, Susan Wojcicki. For a time, she was married to Google co-founder Sergei Brin and had plenty of billionaire backers. Thus 23andMe raised $1.4 billion in funding. So why has the Read More ›
Asked at Psychology Today: Were Neanderthals Religious?
We can’t poll long-dead Neanderthals on life, death, and the hereafter but the evidence we’ve dug up suggests they were thinking about that kind of thing
When a Brilliant Man Has a Very Confused Perspective …
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb simply doesn’t seem to see that human beings are more valuable than advanced machines
Researchers: Goats Can Read Basic Human Emotions
The research team hopes to improve care of livestock by establishing what they do and don’t feel about the way they are treated
What Will the New Media Landscape Look Like?
Billionaires have been “scooping up” publishers in recent years but that has not stopped the bleed of red ink
Scientists Attempt an Honest Look at Why We Trust Science Less
Contemplating the depressing results of a recent Pew survey, a molecular biologist and a statistician take aim at growing corruption in science
The Cancel Culture Mob Comes For the Evolutionary Biologists
Are Researchers Taking Mystical Experiences More Seriously Now?
Scientists Spar Over What a Netflix Science Documentary Should Be
Should “Ancient Apocalypse” be relabeled “science fiction” if archeologists don’t think the documentary writer’s claims are valid?
How Quantum Theory Relates To Consciousness
Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon explains the background to Hameroff and Penrose’s contested quantum consciousness theory, which is beginning to be tested
The Theory That Consciousness Is a Quantum System Gains Support
Hameroff and Penrose’s Orch Or Theory sees consciousness as the outcome of a quantum collapse of a wave function
Will Scientists Be Forced to Consider the Occult as Science?
When the World Economic Forum invited a witch to Davos to offer incantations, it was more than just window dressing
Psychiatrist Looks at Mindfulness From a Christian Perspective
UCLA research psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz notes that the word “heart” in the biblical sense means the seat of consciousness, the seat of our spirit
Chicken Whisperers? Humans Learn to Interpret Chicken-ese Quickly
