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'Biggest surprise of my life': Homeowner discovers Denmark's largest Viking Age silver hoard in their backyard
In Denmark, a homeowner digging in their backyard unexpectedly found the country's largest silver hoard from the Viking Age.
New Mexico Insurance superintendent approves 24% premium increase on healthcare exchange plans
Insurance Superintendent Alice Kane said inflation is behind increase but state's premium is on par with national average.
Paradise Lost From Train to Busan Director Yeon Sang-ho Bought to U.S.
"Paradise Lost" from “Train to Busan” filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho, has been bought by Well Go USA Entertainment ahead of its world premiere at Toronto.
Pulsenmore Ltd. Announces Financial Results and Business Highlights for the First Half of 2026
/PRNewswire/ -- Pulsenmore Ltd. (NASDAQ: PLSM) (TASE: PLSM), a leading innovator in remote maternal-fetal healthcare and home ultrasound solutions, presents...
Friday Sports: South Jeff football looks to turn things around this year and more
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Friday.
To match Denmark’s public health, we need more than its vaccine model
There are plenty of lessons the U.S. should take from countries such as Denmark, but vaccine policy is not one of them.
To match Denmark’s public health, we need more than its vaccine model
There are plenty of lessons the U.S. should take from countries such as Denmark, but vaccine policy is not one of them.
Greenland research institutions halt new US collaborations citing mistrust
Although US President Donald Trump still harbours ambitions to take over Greenland, for US researchers his actions seem to have had the opposite effect. Over the summer, Greenland’s two largest research institutions, the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the University of Greenland, both announced policies of not starting new research projects with US researchers.Both institutions cite a mistrust of the US as a motivation for the decision. At the University of Greenland, the change of policy has already led to the rejection of specific proposals for new collaborations, rector Mari Kleist told Science|Business. “The reason is the changed political situation between the US and Kalaallit Nunaat [Greenland], and the uncertainty that the American interest in Kalaallit Nunaat has created,” she said.For the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, a partially state-funded environmental research institution, the decision was also prompted by a lack of trust in US intentions. In a July interview with local broadcaster KNR, director Josephine Nymand cited concerns about data ownership, US “influence operatives” and social media monitoring of researchers entering the US.The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources has long collaborated with the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The policy change will not affect these existing partnerships but will apply to collaborations with new, “unknown” partners, Nymand said. At the University of Greenland, the policy is the same.The changes come amid proposals of severe cuts to the NSF, which would likely also see the US research presence in Greenland reduced. In spite of this, when asked about the Greenlandic policy change, the NSF remained optimistic of its continued presence in Greenland.“We are grateful to our partners in Greenland for their collaboration in advancing scientific knowledge and training the next generation of researchers. NSF remains committed to the long-term collaborations with Greenland that enable scientific research near communities and on Greenland’s ice sheet,” an NSF spokesperson told Science|Business.Fewer US researchers in GreenlandMost research published on Greenland is on natural science topics such as the cryosphere, ice dynamics, permafrost and climate change. In recent years, US researchers have been the most prolific publishers on Greenland.The US research presence in Greenland goes far beyond the capital of Nuuk, where the two research institutions are located. It includes the Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland, various projects in settlements and research stations along the coast, as well as research stations on the Greenland ice sheet itself.The largest of these sites, Summit Station, is located at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet, about 3,200 metres above sea level, and since the 1980s it has been used for drilling cores out of the ice sheet. These ice cores provide valuable information on the global climate going back at least 100,000 years. About 30 kilometres from Summit Station, the Danish-led Greenland Ice-core Project (Grip), funded by the European Research Council, is also drilling ice cores. Although they initially competed, the relationship between the two research teams has “long been amiable,” Jørgen Peder Steffensen, a Danish researcher who has been part of Grip for more than 40 years, told Science|Business.However, since Trump took office in early 2025, Steffensen has noticed a reduction in US research in the country. “Several of our American partners did not make it into the field this year. Their field seasons were cancelled because they lacked the budget,” he said.He ascribed part of the reduction in US researchers to a renovation of Summit Station. “A very large share of NSF funding has gone into renewing the station. Money has been taken from research and allocated to rebuilding it,” he said.A report published in August by Arctic Hub confirms Steffensen's observations of fewer US researchers. It shows that US research publications on Greenland took a dip towards the end of the period spanning 2015 to 2024. In 2024, before Trump took office, the number of publications had fallen from an average of about 250 articles a year, to just 164, second behind Canada at 169.Data from the NSF logistics provider Battelle also shows a reduction in US research presence in Greenland in recent years. In 2023, Battelle counted 48 projects across 78 locations, but in 2025 that number had fallen to 40 projects across 38 locations. And while relations with US personnel in Greenland have remained strong, some tensions have arisen since Trump took office. “On a personal level, there is nothing. But it’s hanging in the air. It hangs unspoken,” Steffensen said.Cutting ties with US researchers entirely would come at a higher cost for the ice core researchers than the Nuuk-based institutions. To get cargo to and from their bases, both Grip and Summit Station rely on unique, ski-equipped Hercules LC-130 aircraft operated by the New York Air National Guard. Without these, maintaining a research base on the Greenland ice sheet would not be viable on current budgets, Steffensen said. “[If the Hercules planes were not available], we would have to think outside of the box. We would have to use smaller planes, and we would have to build a base closer to the coast. But staying in our current location would be too expensive and it would create a huge carbon footprint,” he said.Suspicious people in NuukIn her explanation of the severed US ties, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources director Josephine Nymand compared the decision to past situations when the institute had to cut ties with China and Russia, the latter due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And although the current situation is less severe, the comparison reflects the seriousness with which Nuuk sees the US threats. “From Greenland’s perspective, the US may not look so different from Russia right now: a much larger neighbouring power threatening to invade,” Lin Alexandra Mortensgaard, a researcher of international politics in the Arctic at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told Science|Business. “From a European perspective, it is not a comparable situation, because we are entangled with the US on all possible fronts and do not want to destroy more than is absolutely necessary. But from Greenland’s side, there may well be a need to send a clear signal to the US,” she went on. Suspicions have been fuelled by instances of Trump-affiliated people in Greenland trying to persuade Greenlandic citizens to support a US takeover. The most prolific among them is Tom Dans, a former venture capitalist and pecan farmer who was appointed by Trump as the chair of the United States Arctic Research Commission. Observers fear that he is now using research to achieve a US takeover.“Greenland is a small society with a small population, so when Americans with unclear affiliations wander around, trying to be good friends with people, and you don't know what they want, that creates mistrust. This probably played into the research institutions taking these drastic steps,” Mortensgaard said.Related articles:The US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to knowEU polar research melts into the backgroundAnchor Greenlanders in Arctic climate research, experts tell EU ahead of policy updateAnd although Greenland’s population is small at just 57,000, for Mortensgaard, it serves as a microcosm for the geopolitical situation as a whole: global powers fighting for their interests to the detriment of the common interest. Arctic research already suffered when collaborations with Russia broke down in 2022, she said, so a split with the US would be a serious hit to climate science.“The Arctic climate system does not respect borders or geopolitical divides. When collaboration across those lines suddenly becomes impossible, it is a huge problem for knowledge production,” she said. European alternatives?The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources is funded partly by research grants from external sources like the NSF. To replace the US funding, the institute will have to look for alternative revenue sources, and Nymand said that she is looking to Europe for those. Aside from Denmark, of which Greenland is formally a part, she also noted increased interest in research collaborations from the UK, France and Switzerland. Kleist of the University of Greenland told Science|Business that it was too early to say if the severed US ties would lead to more collaborations with Europe. Meanwhile, Mortensgaard believed that the tensions in Arctic research could well leave room for closer European partnerships, or stronger links with Canada. “I spoke to Canadian researchers who had long-standing relationships with American colleagues and who collaborated with the US Navy, but who had gotten worried that their data on sea ice could be used if Trump suddenly decided to follow through on his threats of invading,” she said. “Like Canada, I think Greenland is considering creating closer ties to Europe and I think European capitals will be open to this,” she said.
Alpharetta OKs North Point sports and entertainment district
A plan to transform North Point Mall into a massive sports and entertainment district received city council approval Aug. 24, paving the way for a potential National Hockey League franchise in Alpharetta. In a 4-3 vote, council members approved a master plan amendment, rezoning, a conditional use permit and variances for a mixed-use development anchored by a 20,000-seat hockey arena.
Alpharetta weighs North Point sports, entertainment district
Jamestown, a developer, is seeking approvals for a sports and entertainment district that would transform Alpharetta’s North Point Mall. The requests cleared the city’s planning commission in a 4-3 vote Aug. 6.
Sudan’s conflict worsening, UN political and peacebuilding chief warns
On 24 August, the Security Council held a briefing on Sudan at the request by Denmark to discuss the protection of civilians and the humanitarian consequences of the ongoing conflict. “The consequences of this conflict will be long-lasting and should shock us all,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.Civilians face one of the worst humanitarian crises, she said, as they deal with frequent drone attacks against markets, schools, fuel stations and water infrastructure, and the rainy season. Some 13 million people have fled their homes, but access challenges have made it impossible to confirm the true death toll, "it is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands", she said. “Brutal mass killings and atrocities, abductions of women and girls and mass rapes are recurring patterns,” she warned.In North Kordofan, drone attacks continue as both parties compete for control of strategically important towns, she said, reiterating deep concern at the imminent risk of large-scale atrocities by the Rapid Support Forces in and around El abdede. Drone strikes near Tina, on Sudan’s border with Chad, where the refugee influx has intensified pressure on already scarce land, have led to violent disputes over resources. Plus numerous armed movements are pursuing their own territorial and political interests. The UN continues to support efforts of the QUAD - United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates – for a humanitarian truce. And it is working with the Quintet partners, the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the League of Arab States, and the European Union to help advance a viable political path. “Our goal is to build confidence in the political path and pave the way for an inclusive Sudanese-led dialogue for a shared vision for the country’s future,” she said. Sudanese authorities have also bolstered efforts to support civilian dialogue. “Their desire for an inclusive and durable peace is clear,” she said. Both parties must now make concrete commitments on releasing of prisioners, particularly vulnerable groups such as women and children. “The Personal Envoy will travel to Sudan shortly to advance these conversations," she said.
Families love Denmark's Billund for trips packed with treats and fun
LONDON — If there’s one thing all parents of young children can agree on it’s the importance of ease and convenience – especially when it comes to travel. And what
New Mexico health officials warn of possible long 'mosquito season,' West Nile Virus risk
New Mexico Department of Health officials said residents should prepare for a possible extended 'mosquito season'
An Uncommon Drifter in the Denmark Strait
In summer 2026, a large iceberg drifted more than 1,000 kilometers south from the northeastern Greenland bay where it likely originated.
New Mexico behavioral health committee approves $40M in funding for rural behavioral health plans
The New Mexico committee tasked with rebuilding the state's behavioral health infrastructure approved $40 million in funding requests Friday.
New Mexico Department of Health announces 18th measles case for 2026
The New Mexico Department of Health reported its 18th measles case of 2026 in the southeastern portion of the state.
Apple's 2026 Back to School Offer is Now Live Across Europe
Apple's annual Back to School promotion is now live in the United Kingdom and 18 other European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. The European launch follows the company's back-to-school promotion rollout in the United States and several other regions and territories last month.
Apple Skipping iPhone 18 Launch This Year
Apple supplier Pegatron today indirectly confirmed that the standard iPhone 18 model will not be released until next year, according to a new report. Pegatron held an earnings call for the second quarter of 2026 today. On the call, Taiwan's Economic Daily News said Pegatron indicated that one of its customers will be changing its usual smartphone shipment schedule.
New Mexico health officials warn of smoke impacts as Frijoles Fire grows to more than 3,000 acres
The Frijoles Fire in the Pecos Wilderness has grown to more than 3,000 acres and remained 0% contained as of Monday.
How Texas is courting Wall Street with ‘Y’all Street’
Texas has spent a decade luring the finance industry to Dallas with tax incentives, new laws and a stock exchange of its own. Inside the rise of “Y’all Street.”
Rural behavioral health in New Mexico: why the money doesn't become care
A nonprofit healthcare CEO says New Mexico has plenty of money but needs to approach delivering services in rural areas differently.
New Mexico Health Care Authority releases $50M to rural health care providers
New Mexico Health Care Authority announced $50 million in state funds to 41 rural healthcare providers. (Getty Images)
New Mexico scientists announce discovery of ‘beefy’ new bird-like dinosaur in San Juan County
Dinevenator robustus may have been up to 10 feet long and lived in New Mexico more than 70 million years ago.
Convention Center Launches WIN Phase 2 Series With Construction Services Small Business Workshop
The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (NOENMCC) is continuing its commitment to small and emerging businesses throughout the year with the next installment in its WIN Series. The next phase of workshops, The Procurement Playbook, focuses on construction and vendor service businesses throughout Greater New Orleans. The WIN Series is a part of
Washington makes top 25 of Preseason USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll
The Washington Huskies found their way into the preseason edition of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll.
If Not AOC, Then Who?
What do we do if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decides not to run for president in 2028? It makes sense that many leftists are currently focused on calling on her to take the plunge. But the absence of a Plan B, or even much discussion about one, is worrisome. The US Left can’t afford to sit out the 2028 Democratic primary. Doing so in 2024 was a disaster: our abstention self-marginalized anti-billionaire politics from the national conversation and thereby gave space for Harris to pivot to the “center” (i.e. the policy preferences of corporate donors, establishment hacks, and AIPAC). Abstaining again in 2028 would be especially counterproductive since democratic socialists now have so much wind in our sails after our big electoral wins in NYC and across the country. It’s time to deepen our momentum, organization, and profile — not to retreat to the margins during America’s single most important political battle. Even more urgently, keeping Trump’s heir out of the White House may depend on whether leftists and the party’s unprecedentedly disenchanted base can force the Democrats in 2028 to take meaningful steps towards a very angry electorate and away from the corporate-consultant blob that has helped get us into this mess. If AOC (or Abdul El-Sayed) decides to run, we should enthusiastically go all in — DSA, fighting unions, progressive organizations, anybody who wants to see a better country and world. But, as far as I can tell from the outside, there’s a real chance that she doesn’t run. And we can’t just wait and see where she lands before discussing alternatives, since AOC’s decision might not come for quite a while, giving us little time to scramble at the last minute for an alternative. So we should start working now on getting a Plan B into motion, and recruiting a good candidate for the role. Here’s one idea. A Worker Candidate — Healthcare Not Warfare 2028 Run a union worker Leftists don’t need to always run experienced, well-known socialist politicians for high-profile contests. Lula, the current president of Brazil, began his political career as a metalworker militant who ran for governor of São Paulo in 1982. Especially in an era of institutional distrust, it’s possible to lean hard into making a virtue out of a working-class comrade’s distance from traditional politics. Experience abroad shows this clearly. Rachel Kéké — an immigrant hotel housekeeper — ran as the candidate of the leftist La France Insoumise for the National Assembly in 2022, defeating a former minister in the Macron government. The Belgian Workers’ Party in 2024 won its first Flemish seat in the European Parliament by running Rudi Kennes, a three-decade veteran of the Opel Antwerp auto factory. And the South Korean left in 2024 elected auto factory militant Yoon Jong-oh to the National Assembly. If a tiny French Trotskyist organization could make such a big splash in 2002 and 2007 by running a well-spoken postal worker cadre for office — the LCR’s Olivier Besancenot received about 1.5 million first-round votes — it’s not far-fetched to expect that a much larger organization like DSA, together with a broader coalition of the willing, could run this playbook to much greater effect. This is especially the case now that almost everything DSA does immediately becomes a national news story. We don’t need someone famous. We just need a charismatic, well-vetted comrade who works in a relatable working-class occupation — e.g. a nurse, or a worker in auto or construction, or at Amazon. Ideally, they have a compelling personal story or have been part of a significant strike or organizing campaign, but even those criteria don’t necessarily have to be deal-breakers. The main lesson of the Graham Platner fiasco isn’t that we should never run outsiders for office (the momentum he generated proves the exact opposite), but that they need proper vetting and roots in democratic membership organizations like DSA or a union. In any case, there are plenty of ways to signal working-class authenticity without resorting to Platner’s or Fetterman’s performative macho white dude affect. Better to have someone of any gender or race who is actually working class, with firm socialist politics, who can speak from experience about the day-to-day realities of trying to make it in America. There are surely at least a dozen such worker leaders in our movement nationwide; we just need to sit down and convince one that their personal sacrifice for the greater good (i.e. running for president) will be worth it. If we don’t have a frontrunner with a clear path to victory like AOC (or El-Sayed, were he to win Michigan), it’s better to embrace someone whose decision to run in itself tells an important story about US politics: workers have been iced out of our political system and are now fighting hard to break back in. The novelty factor, in itself, would generate press. And it would help democratic socialists signal to the American public that our movement’s defining characteristic is that we represent workers vs. bosses, not that we’re “the furthest left” force in American politics — a framework that suggests we’re extremists and that helps our opponents isolate us from non-college-educated voters by highlighting extremely minoritarian (and misguided) stances included in DSA’s platform like prison abolition. We don’t get many opportunities to speak to tens of millions of Americans; we need to use these opportunities to broaden our appeal beyond those already in our orbit. Run to polarize the 2028 primary and general election around “Medicare for All” and “End All Aid to Israel” Why should democratic socialists use our scarce time and volunteer energy to run in a race we’re unlikely to win? Running in the 2028 primary will not only recruit us scores of members (imagine having a DSA member intervening in eleven nationally televised primary debates!), but — more importantly — it has the potential to be a decisive leap forward towards an America that finally starts meeting the needs of working people instead of HMO and AIPAC billionaire donors. Polarizing litmus tests are good, actually — as long as they’re fought for around popular demands in a thoughtful and strategic way. Democratic socialists have an opportunity and responsibility to make the 2028 primary about two of the most widely and deeply felt issues of our moment: domestically, America’s unaffordable, family-breaking private healthcare system; internationally, America’s bankrolling of the genocidal Israeli government. A candidacy relentlessly demanding Medicare for All and No Aid to Israel would pose a sharp question to the American public, the Democratic Party, and other 2028 contenders: Why can’t working-class Americans afford their healthcare bills at the same time that our government is spending at least $3.8 billion yearly to fund an Israeli regime eager to keep dragging us and the world into more forever wars? Our candidate can agitate around a clear message: I’m running to give voice to all those working-class Americans who are struggling to get by. No matter what state you live in, who you voted for in 2024, or your background, it’s just plain common sense that we should make healthcare more affordable instead of spending billions to enable the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity. Every American who agrees with me when I say ‘Medicare for All — Not a Dime for Israel’ should make their voice heard through our campaign. Racking up a high number of votes for this agenda is a crucial way to show the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that we can’t keep supporting a life-destroying status quo in our healthcare system and in the Middle East. If we want to defeat Trump’s handpicked crony this coming November, we need to speak to ordinary people’s frustrations with the status quo — we can’t keep running the same tired establishment playbook and expecting a different result. For those highly engaged voters (or skeptical media pundits) who raise concerns about wasting votes, the candidate can take the time to explain why this isn’t the case: It's true I'm a long shot. But Zohran showed anything can happen — and voting for me is a pragmatic decision, not a wasted vote. In a heavily divided primary with a large number of candidates and a very discredited establishment, my campaign and the democratic socialist movement I’m part of are positioned to be the balance of power if we can get a large enough number of voters to loudly demand Healthcare Not Warfare. Since there’s a high chance no candidate will get to 50% in the 2028 primaries, the Democrats could very well be heading towards a brokered convention, where a disciplined, principled current committed to breaking from corporate donors can play an outsized role in making sure whoever ends up with the nomination raises the banner of single-payer healthcare and cutting aid to Israel. How exactly could running this sort of primary campaign be translated into actual leverage? The candidate replies: I’m aiming to win the nomination, but if I don’t achieve that goal, my delegates and I will pledge our support in the primary only for a candidate who agrees in the general election to call for ending US aid to Israel and establishing Medicare for All at home. These are both winning planks for November against the Republicans, and the only reason I can see that other candidates haven’t yet raised these is that they’re still more scared of the donor class than they are of the people. That needs to change. If Democratic leaders want young people, workers, and those sick of the status quo to show up in big numbers this November, they need to meet us halfway. In this way, whether or not we win the nomination, democratic socialists could still play a decisive role in 2028. The approach outlined here is similar to what radical left parties periodically do in parliamentary democracies like Denmark or Sweden when they find themselves as a junior partner electorally: they dictate to center-left allies what their terms would be for enabling, from the outside, the formation of a new government. Running a Healthcare Not Warfare candidate will make it significantly more likely that the 2028 Democratic candidate stands with ordinary people instead of donors on these two pivotal planks — a shift that will, in turn, make it easier to achieve the existentially important task of defeating MAGA’s heir in November. Look at how much popular traction the Uncommitted movement got with a similar strategy in 2024 with so little on-the-ground organization — surely we can go much further with a working-class candidate, a much bigger DSA, and a Democratic Party base that has turned against Israel, billionaires, and the hacks in the party who prop them up. Objections and Responses There are quite a few objections to this proposal, many of which are very reasonable. Let me briefly address each here. Socialists shouldn’t waste their scarce time and resources on a candidate unlikely to win. This is a good rule in general, but there are important exceptions, and presidential elections are the main one. There’s no other political contest that gets anything like this level of attention and engagement in the US, so if you want to be a serious force in nationwide politics, you basically can’t afford not to have a candidate. Far from being an overall drain on our resources, running a dynamic 2028 campaign would likely result in a major net increase in members and capacity. In that spirit, the very pragmatic Milwaukee sewer socialists — who mostly ran to win at home in Wisconsin — supported Eugene Debs’s propagandistic presidential campaigns, which they correctly saw as a crucial means of recruiting to the Socialist Party. And now that the (post-1972) Democratic Party gives more weight to voters than party operatives in determining its presidential nomination, it’s become feasible to run as a socialist in primaries without risking a split in the vote against the Republicans in November. We should just support Ro Khanna, who also supports M4A and ending aid to Israel. I like Ro Khanna and would enthusiastically vote and canvass for him for president were he to get the nomination. But there’s a real chance that Khanna’s bid for office doesn’t catch on; he lacks the grassroots organizational apparatus of DSA, and, because he’s not really of the Left or labor (despite his current very good positions), he’s unlikely to generate the type of buy-in and enthusiasm that a DSA candidate would. Moreover, Khanna would be running as an individual, not as someone emerging from and building an organized movement — his campaign would not likely focus on building sustained power from below, nor would it likely polarize the 2028 primary around M4A and Israel aid. Also, and not inconsequentially, the poor electoral results for Tom Steyer and Saikat Chakrabarti this spring suggest that there’s perhaps not much of a popular appetite in the Democrats’ base to support multi-millionaire class traitors. Much better, then, to run a democratic socialist worker. If by Super Tuesday it’s clear that our campaign has captured the main left lane in the primary, Khanna should drop out and endorse us; conversely, if he’s managed to capture this lane, DSA could at that point transform its Healthcare Not Warfare campaign into an independent campaign to elect Ro Khanna focused on winning (and holding him accountable to) those two critical planks. An openness to consolidating an anti-corporate candidate by Super Tuesday is a necessary component of the strategy I’m proposing, because otherwise we risk splitting the primary votes (per DNC rules, you need at least 15% to get any delegates to convention). We should convince Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson to run for president instead. I agree it’d be great if either ran for president, but my impression is that there’s basically no chance that will happen in 2028, because both are firmly focused on their union leadership duties (and, in the case of Fain, beating back a federal witch-hunt). This plan could have DSA end up endorsing a non-socialist, non-DSAer for president. That’s against our principles. It’s a myth, and bad politics, that socialists can’t ever support candidates who aren’t members of their organization and/or who don’t call themselves socialists. Bernie, after all, was not a DSAer. And socialists abroad regularly make tactical decisions about if and when supporting a non-socialist candidate makes sense from the standpoint of promoting working-class interests, defending democracy, and building a socialist current in the process. If your “principles” prevent you and DSA from helping achieve the momentous stride forward of having a Democratic candidate in 2028 run on Medicare for All and ending aid to Israel, those “principles” are not very good. In fact, they actively undermine the causes they’re aiming to support. We shouldn’t confuse principles (working-class independence) with tactics (the best way to advance this in a given context). In my recent article in Catalyst on Milwaukee sewer socialism (I’ve uploaded the full text here), I have a section showing how similarly rigid rules about endorsements had to be eventually discarded in the old Socialist Party nationwide after WWI because they tended to lead socialists towards a sectarian abstention from broader anti-corporate electoral insurgencies beyond their party’s control. For what it’s worth, Lenin’s current under Tsarism frequently backed bourgeois candidates in the second round of elections and Lenin himself advocated that British Communists support Labour Party candidates; for his part, Kautsky in 1912 defended the German Social Democracy’s electoral pact with the Progressives in the runoffs. If our predecessors could be that tactically flexible in an era before the limits of their underlying strategic assumptions about intransigent class politics in capitalist democracies were made clear, then there’s no need to insist on being more tactically rigid today, after a century’s worth of accumulated experience. As long as you maintain your own political profile and organization while engaging in broader coalitional efforts, there’s zero inherent contradiction with the principle of political independence. More specifically: DSA and allied organizations should enthusiastically back Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed if AOC declines to run and he throws his hat in the presidential ring. (I have no idea whether he’s even considering this path, but there’ll surely be chatter about it if he wins his Senate race this November.) Though he doesn’t call himself a socialist, El-Sayed is a principled Berniecrat, a consistent fighter for Palestine, and would have a clear path to victory. Using the “s” word is far less important than whether a campaign fights for the interests of working people at home and abroad — and whether actively participating in it can grow the organized working class and the Left. And the same holds true if a less anti-corporate candidate were, under pressure, to adopt our two Healthcare Not Warfare planks. Why focus only on M4A and ending US aid to Israel? There are so many other important issues to fight for! Obviously there are many pivotal issues beyond healthcare and Israel, and our candidate — and especially our organizations involved in the campaign — should be prepared to speak on all of these. But one of the crucial lessons of the Zohran campaign is that you have to relentlessly stay on message if you want to cut through the noise. CNN and Fox News will want to talk about DSA’s views on Venezuela and abolishing the police; we need to polarize the debate on the widely and deeply felt issues that are most favorable for growing the Left, isolating our opponents, and winning urgently needed changes. One recent poll found 63% of Americans support M4A, even after respondents were told it would raise taxes and eliminate most private insurance. Another found that 74% of Democrats opposed “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” And focusing on two demands sets the campaign up to be able to leverage its mandate to make clear demands upon other candidates (which we can’t do if we run with a laundry list of demands). Talking about a Plan B is a distraction from the more urgent work of building a groundswell of calls on AOC to run. It’s good for DSAers, fightback unionists, and progressive organizations to try to convince AOC to run. This proposal is meant as an addendum to pushes to get AOC to run and to line DSA up for that eventuality, not as a substitute for those efforts. But I’m worried that, like in 2024, we might eventually find ourselves with no time to find a viable alternative unless we start now. DSA, with its abundant deliberative processes, moves slowly. The approach you’re suggesting seems risky. If a DSA candidate runs but doesn’t receive a lot of votes, it’ll undercut our current national momentum. This is a reasonable worry. All big initiatives always carry risks, and the path I’m advocating is certainly not free of these. That said, if a Healthcare Not Warfare campaign doesn’t catch on like we envisioned, it’s a pretty simple pivot in March 2028 to explain that in the future we really need our standard-bearers like AOC, or our growing bench of national electeds, to step up in presidential primaries. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the risk of my Plan B proposal is on the whole significantly less than the risk entailed by an AOC run. We should all back her if she runs, since she’d fire up the base, provide huge openings for organizing, have a real shot at defeating a Republican (especially given MAGA’s unpopularity), be a great standard-bearer for our issues, particularly M4A and ending aid to Israel, and be less willing than mainstream candidates to capitulate to any anti-democratic machinations from Trump and co. But it’s also true that AOC could lose, which would be a devastating setback to the country and the Left. Or she could win and find herself unable to pass much, if any, of her (and our) program, a demoralizing prospect. So if we’re willing to take these risks with AOC (and we should), it follows that we should be able to take lower-level risks if she doesn’t throw her hat in the ring. What’s Your Plan B? The US Left is facing its biggest opening for growth and influence since the 1930s. Initiatives that would have been impossible a few months ago are now potentially feasible. A President AOC is now easier to imagine, but if she ultimately assesses that the risks aren’t worth the potential reward in 2028, we can’t be left flat-footed. So even if you’re not convinced by the specifics of my Plan B, I hope you can at least agree that it’d be a disaster for us not to have one — and not to start getting a Plan B into motion. Hopefully other organizers and political currents will put forward their responses and alternative ideas ASAP. The stakes are too high to just wait and see. More As always, please share this article widely. This newsletter depends on all you lovely people to get the word out. Thank you! I uploaded the full text of my Catalyst article on Milwaukee sewer socialism here (it’s updated and 3x as long as the version published earlier on this substack). If you haven’t yet, please make sure to subscribe to Catalyst here; I read every issue front to back, highly recommend. 🌹🎵 Ivan Lins (arranged by Arthur Verocai) — “General da Banda” 🌹🎵
Small Business Tech News: Tokenmaxxing Wanes, Fixing Your “Spotty” Wi-Fi, Yelp Adds An AI Phone Assistant
“Tokenmaxxing” wanes in popularity, some non-profits are using AI in smart ways and Yelp adds an AI phone assistant
Extract From the Gyldenmist: Dark Fantasy Extraction ARPG Mistfall Hunter Arrives on XBOX
Learn about the dark fantasy world of extraction ARPG Mistfall Hunter, available now on XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, and Game Pass.
Behind Closed Doors, Trump Huddles With Netanyahu and Zelensky
The visits by the leaders of Israel and Ukraine underscored just how deeply President Trump was enmeshed in conflicts he had promised — and failed — to end quickly.
Xbox announces Gamescom 2026 plans
Xbox has announced its plans for Gamescom 2026, which will run from August 26 to 30 at Koelenmesse in Cologne, Germany, including first-party and third-party titles playable at its booth, and live …
GLP-1s can affect how often some people need to take time off work, study finds
An analysis of employees in Denmark finds that diabetics taking Ozempic had fewer absences from work.
Chargers named potential landing spot for All-Pro wide receiver
This All-Pro wide receiver has been linked to the Chargers.
Ag safety and health center at UNMC welcomes new director
Following the retirement of founding director Risto Rautiainen, PhD, Matthew Nonnenmann, PhD, is the new Central States Center for Ag Safety and Health director.
Classic Skaven miniatures return via Made to Order
Snap up some sneaky skaven from yesteryear.
New Mexico lawmakers express frustration with long process to rebuild behavioral health system
New Mexico lawmakers expressed frustration with the lengthy process of rebuilding the state's behavioral health system across 13 regions.
Alabama students show significant gains in science proficiency; reading, math results mixed
By Andrea Tinker, Alabama Reflector Alabama students made significant improvements in science proficiency on this year’s Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP) standardized test, while the picture was somewhat more mixed on reading and math scores. According to data released by the Alabama State Department of Education on Tuesday, science proficiency went up for fourth, sixth […]
Inside You42 Studios: Roswell's New Destination for Dining, Entertainment and Experiences
From chef-driven dining and live entertainment to immersive spaces, events, and creator studios, You42 Studios brings a new kind of destination to North Fulton.
Chamath Palihapitiya: Some CFOs are in for a tokenmaxxing shock
AI spending ballooned as companies pushed workers to use more tokens. Chamath Palihapitiya says CFOs may soon feel the hangover.
Pokémon GO Fest 2026: Raid Make-Up Event
Starts Sunday, July 26, 2026, at 10:00 AM Local Time Ends Sunday, July 26, 2026, at 7:00 PM Local Time During Pokémon GO Fest 2026: Global certain areas experienced issues with raids. This led to Scopely Explore turning off Team GO Rocket to help the event run smoother. Trainers experienced technical issues when attempting to […]
New Mexico health officials issue warning ahead of hot weekend
The New Mexico Department of Health on July 9 issued a warning about heat-related illnesses ahead of a hot weekend.
New Mexico behavioral health committee signs off on $8M plan for northern region
The committee tasked with overseeing the repair of New Mexico's behavioral health system approved the second of 13 regional plans.
These are my favorite new Messages features in iOS 27 [Video]
iOS 27 makes Messages smarter than ever with Apple Intelligence, Siri, Genmoji, and quality-of-life improvements.
Christian Eriksen’s club gives health update after second on-pitch collapse
Christian Eriksen collapsed during Denmark’s friendly with Ukraine last month
Ohio children unable to access mental healthcare because of insurance, costs, and lack of providers
Costs, provider availability, and health insurance limitations were the top reasons Ohio children were not able to access mental healthcare, according to a recent study.
Denmark vows to defend Greenland after Trump reiterates US should control territory
Mette Frederiksen declared Greenland "not for sale" at the NATO summit, vowing to defend Denmark's sovereignty after Trump said the U.S. should control it.
Denmark says it will defend Greenland as Trump threatens to revive NATO crisis
Shortly after arriving at a NATO meeting in Turkey, Trump restarted the divisive fight, telling reporters that Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.”
Pokémon GO Fest Global: Final Details, Global Challenges and More Revealed
Pokémon GO Fest 2026: Global is almost upon us, and Scopely Explore have revealed some final details for the event. Don’t forget, it takes place from Saturday, July 11, to Sunday, July 12, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. local time each day! During each hour of the event, Trainers will have a higher chance […]
NM health department reports bat with rabies in Sandoval County
The New Mexico Department of Health reported the state's ninth case of rabies in 2026: a bat in Sandoval County.
How Denmark’s ‘Pig Election’ Rewrote Factory Farm Politics
Could animal welfare and clean water motivate American voters?
Sky Sports: Ipswich Set To Rival Fellow Promoted Side For Ligue 1 Star
Ipswich Town Enter Emersonn Race as Premier League Newcomers Move Against Hull CityIpswich Town have moved for Emersonn, and that tells you two things straight away. First, they are not approaching th...
Pokémon GO Events This Week: July 6-12, 2026
Pokémon GO’s biggest week of 2026 features Road of Legends, daily Raid Hours, Dynamax Chansey, the 10th Anniversary Party, and GO Fest Global with Mega Mewtwo X, Mega Mewtwo Y, and Zeraora.
Long Reads for the Long Weekend
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Happy Fourth of July weekend! As has been a tradition of mine going back to the beginning of the EntStrategyGuy website, I’m sharing my favorite long reads of the last year, like I did in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025. Let’s dive right in! Subscribe “Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You“ by Derek Kravitz in Consumer Reports I don’t think surveillance pricing, like the kind described in this brilliant Consumer Reports article, is long for the world—it’s toxically unpopular—but we’ll see if either party takes on this issue. If I ran a political party focused on affordability, I would focus on a few pro-consumer and pro-market policies: Banning non-compete agreements. Ending surveillance pricing Eliminating junk fees (read more here...) Ensuring “right to repair” for consumer (and military!) products Capping excessive app store fees Stopping digital/algorithmic price-fixing tools. Preventing automatic subscription price increases. And more. If you want to fight inflation, there are a lot of great ways to do it quickly. Speaking of higher prices... “Secret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices Across the Economy“ by Matt Stoller in BIG Again, I think a political party should focus on lowering prices for consumers. And deals like this—Walmart making a deal/forcing Pepsi to offer the lowest prices at its stores and nowhere else—hypothetically lower prices at Walmart...but raise them everywhere else. “15 DUIs, still driving: California’s failure to take repeat drunk drivers off the road“ by Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler in CalMatters CalMatters does terrific reporting in California, something the Golden State desperately needs more of, and this article is a great example of that. “PugLips: The next insanely popular thing you’ve never heard of…” by Simon Carless in Game Discover Co I thought that this parody article (and yes, it’s a parody, but I was definitely unsure at first) was hilarious and totally nailed how much tech/business journalism feels these days. Actually, three of my favorite articles this year were on hype in the video game industry, including Georg Zoller’s “The Video Game Industries Very Dark Night”—which I linked to recently and wrote a follow-up here—and Owen Mahoney’s “Derek Zoolander, Videogame Exec”. In particular, I like Mahoney’s focus on user experience as a guide to what trends will actually grab hold of customers. “The Matrix Lies“ by Evan Shapiro in Media War & Peace Evan Shapiro’s first person account of his experience with AI was hilarious. I think LLMs capabilities have significantly grown from last summer, and yet...my editor/researcher just had an abysmal experience using an LLM to do a quite basic task (which our LLM normally does each week) and the LLM made a mistake on every single data entry...along with seven different mistakes affecting twelve of the twenty or so entries, including mistakes that are explicitly spelled out in the prompt. That’s a brutal failure rate. Again, if you use AI/LLM for data collection, you need to take a lot of extra steps to verify and check the data. “Ghosts in the Balcony: A Cross-Country Trip to 58 Theaters Fighting to Survive“ by Matthew Frank in The Ankler I thought Matthew Frank’s pitch to head across America to visit theaters sounded insane aggressive at the time—at least it felt that way to someone a decade older than him; man, to be in your twenties again, am I right?—but I knew the result would be great. And it was, a terrific feature by a great young writer. Also, I loved Matthew’s recent article on who’s getting the precious few entry level jobs in Hollywood. (Hint: nepotism.) “Disney erased FiveThirtyEight“ and “Did Las Vegas get too greedy?” by Nate Silver in Silver Bulletin I love media history and analysis, and there’s no one better to get the history of FiveThirtyEight than from Nate Silver, who wrote about his personal experience in one of my favorite pieces from this year. I also loved Nate’s breakdown of what’s causing Vegas’ woes, but I’ll offer one criticism, summarized as “Might I suggest antitrust?” Many centrists/center-right/libertarian thinkers (Nate is self-described as the latter) often don’t consider consolidation or antitrust as factors in policy issues like housing, America’s military readiness, or, in this case, Las Vegas. Even if libertarians want to debunk antitrust/consolidation concerns, I’d love to read that debunking. In this case, Vegas is incredibly consolidated (though it also has been for a long time) and I’d have loved to read Nate at least contending with this factor, since he addresses almost every other potential factor for Vegas’ decline. “Why Microsoft’s Carbon Removal Pullback Is Such a Big Deal“ by Robinson Meyer in Heatmap News I’m a big supporter of carbon removal efforts, but this nascent industry faces a lot of headwinds, including this big move most recently. I think it’s clear that solar panels and batteries should be able to get the world to its carbon footprint goals, but effective carbon renewal remains necessary to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. “AI is killing the cheap smartphone“ by David Oks LLMs and AI will impact the world in ways we’re not ready for, and already, third world countries are seeing the prices of cheap cellphones skyrocket due to the cost of chips skyrocketing. This article by David Oks is a terrific breakdown. “100 Days of Madness: Netflix, Paramount, Warner and the Future of Hollywood“ by Wade Major at Hollywood Heretic Wade Major dove deep into Hollywood/streaming’s financials in this must read piece. Not that I agree with everything in this article (read my take on Warner Bros./Paramount here) but the analysis is top notch. I think many people discount how quality thinking, regardless of the argument/conclusion, will make you a better thinker. “Erased by the UFC: Frank Shamrock, The MMA GOAT of the 20th Century“ by Nate Wilcox in The MMA Draw Newsletter Growing up playing the UFC fighting game on the Dreamcast, Frank Shamrock was my favorite MMA fighter, and this history/tribute to him was great. Other Fun Reads “The Hardest Part Of History To Tell Is How It Felt“ by Craig Fehrman at Defector “Unmasking the Sea Star Killer“ by Craig Welch at bioGraphic “What Could Save the Industry? Fin-Syn“ by Richard Rushfield in The Ankler Alex Rollins Berg in Underexposed on movie bumpers, pillow shots, Disney trash cinema, cult films, and Casablanca. David H. Montgomery in YouGov’s The Surveyor on punctuation marks, condiments, dinosaurs, and comic strips and kids media. “How Medium finally pivoted its way to profitability“ and “Why the best journalists on YouTube are all former Vox employees“ by Simon Owens in Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter “It’s Not Just You, Netflix Shows Have Gotten Slightly Shorter: Here’s What the Data Says“ by Kasey Moore at What’s on Netflix “Numlock Awards: How Diane Warren became the biggest loser in Oscar history“ by Nathaniel Rakich and “Numlock Awards: The Oscar Bait era is over. The Oscar Chum era is here.” by Walt Hickey & Michael Domanico at Numlock Awards
New Mexico residents push to save nearly 80-year-old Sunspot Solar Observatory as demolition nears
The National Science Foundation announced it would demolish New Mexico's Sunspot Solar Observatory after discovering a mercury leak.
Palantir Just Issued a Warning to Business Leaders About AI: Guard This 1 Thing Like 'Treasure'
Palantir also warned about tokenmaxxing and a sense of 'false progress.'
I split my time between two countries for long-distance relationship
I'm in a long-distance relationship and frequently travel between the US and Denmark. Our arrangement requires a lot of planning, but it has its perks.
Denmark’s New Government – Initiatives on Business and the Labor Market
After 70 days of negotiations, four parties presented the agenda for Denmark’s new government on June 2, 2026. The four parties are the Social Democrats, the Socialist People’s Party, the Social Liberal Party, and the Moderates. The government is anchored in the center‑left.
US Supreme Court to decide legality of state transgender sports bans
The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Tuesday to decide the legality of state laws in West Virginia and Idaho banning transgender student athletes from female sports teams at public schools including universities, a contentious issue enmeshed in the nation's culture wars.
Teen pregnancy prevention cuts hit Wisconsin program connecting health providers and teens
Federal officials have cut off more than $2.4 million in federal funds for 2026-27 and 2027-28 targeting teen pregnancy prevention that would have gone to the Wisconsin health department, according to federal records. The funds would have gone to a variety of nonprofits and agencies in counties with the highest rates of pregnancy and sexually […]
NM U.S. Rep. Vasquez, a Democrat, urges state Health Care Authority to bring down SNAP error rate
U.S. Rep. Vasquez (D-N.M.) sent a letter Friday chiding NM leaders for errors administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
How The Nitro Bar became a booming coffee business
As part of the series Women Mean Business, NBC News' Savannah Sellers spoke with The Nitro Bar co-founder Audrey Finocchiaro about building a fast-growing coffee brand, expanding to New York City, and turning a bold idea into a thriving business.
NM health officials report fox in McKinley County tests positive for rabies
The New Mexico Department of Health on June 25, 2026, reported a rabid fox in McKinley County and urged residents to vaccinate their pets.
New Mexico’s plan to rebuild behavioral health creating clashes, confusion in some communities
As officials across New Mexico work to rebuild the state's behavioral health system, some community leaders have requested more time.
NM lawmaker urges tribes to reopen gaming compact to allow online sports betting
Rep. John Block's comments came as the state and several pueblos are suing online platform Kalshi allegedly allowing illegal sport gambling.
Pulsenmore Announces Strategic Partnership with Ouma Health to Expand Access to Remote Prenatal Care Across the United States
/PRNewswire/ -- Pulsenmore Ltd. (NASDAQ: PLSM) (TASE: PLSM), a pioneer in home ultrasound technology, today announced a strategic partnership with Ouma Health,...
Business Ins & Outs: Oak Room, Bernadette’s, citizenM, East Fork; Kafe Leopold
New life — and a worthy successor — has returned to the building at 1218 Wisconsin Ave. NW that once housed the legendary Third Edition and El Centro.
Prime Day 2026: Best Early Apple Device and Accessory Deals Now Live
Amazon is soon to be back with its annual summertime Prime Day event, lasting for four days from June 23-26, one of the longest Prime Day events yet. As it does every year, Prime Day offers shoppers a huge selection of deals across Amazon's storefront, and there are already many deals you can get on sale ahead of the event. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
What science reveals about the ‘magic’ of enlightenment
We often ask how to reach enlightenment, as if it’s a destination. A better question may be: how do we practice enlightened behavior in everyday life?
NM spent nearly $844M on behavioral health, but 'investment is not yet matching the outcome'
New Mexico has spent $843.5 million since 2022 to rebuild state’s behavioral health system but still faces problems.
Latvia pilots citizen engagement in research grant evaluations
Latvia has introduced an element of citizen engagement to the evaluation of nationally funded research grants. The aim is to both create more connections between science and society, and to improve the quality of its evaluations. The move comes as research funders across Europe are experimenting with ways to improve evaluation processes in the face of a sharpened focus on science’s impact on society. Evaluators of grant applications submitted to Latvia’s Fundamental and Applied Research Programme (FLPP), the country’s main research funder, will this year have the option of consulting citizen feedback on challenges the public thinks science should focus on to inform their decisions. “In recent years, both public discussions and policy-level debates in Latvia have highlighted the importance of demonstrating how publicly funded research contributes to society, the economy and the resolution of real-world challenges,” said a source at the Latvian Council of Science (LCS), which manages the FLPP. “At the same time, research institutions themselves expressed interest in improving the project evaluation framework while continuing to ensure that funding is awarded to the highest-quality projects,” the source added. The citizen input comes from a survey that was conducted between 25 February and 16 March 2025, to which 1,737 people responded. It gathered information on what the public views as problem areas for Latvia, and the role of science and technology in providing solutions to these problems. A summary of these responses has been included as an annex to the FLPP 2026 call for proposals that evaluators can refer to, purely in an advisory manner, when judging proposals. Results from the survey show that the main problem areas identified by the public were in healthcare and public health, followed by the development of new treatment methods and medicines, and then digital technology, data security and cyber security. At the bottom of the list was research aimed at acquiring new knowledge about the universe, matter and the laws of nature. Further analysis looked at the public view of the possible role of science in solving these problems. The survey charted 4,167 individual responses based on open-ended questions that were derived from the participants’ answers. The analysis again found that medical and health sciences topped the scoring, with 788 responses referring to the field. Humanities and the arts were bottom of the list, with 625. Digging further into the details, the survey suggests citizens are aware of and concerned about a number of research areas. This includes technologies and innovation to improve the environment or reduce pollution, the development of modern military technologies and cybersecurity tools, and the development and application of artificial intelligence, among others. “We hope this initiative will help strengthen public trust in science and create a more meaningful dialogue between researchers and society,” the LCS source said, adding that it offers benefits to researchers, evaluators and to the general public. More space for citizen engagement in evaluationsThere is a gradual but increasing use of citizen engagement in research evaluation processes around Europe, especially in healthcare, but it remains relatively rare, said Henry Sauermann, a professor at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin and an expert in citizen science.“Given that we are at a point where citizen involvement is extremely limited, there is presumably space for more, but it's not that we should do it just because we want to do it,” he told Science|Business. He said some research lends itself better to having citizen input, and this usually tends to be on the applied end of the science spectrum where the public can offer useful feedback based on their experiences. He added that advising scientists on certain topics to study is also a useful approach, in the way that Latvia is doing. “The public does fund a lot of science, there's a lot of tax money going into this. We of course do want to preserve academic freedom, but it's also not unreasonable to incorporate more feedback or input from citizens where possible,” he said. Related articlesCitizen science: where, when, and how to let the public contribute to researchHow can Europe cope with a flood of AI-assisted research grant proposals?Data Corner: Horizon Europe’s AI, digital and data call success rate is 5.2%There are several ways of involving citizens in science funding. The most minimal way is having a few representatives on a panel, such as members of a patient group or union. The most direct way is crowdsourcing funding for specific projects. There is an increasing number of online platforms that allow the public to chip in to support scientific proposals.Sauermann studied this in a recent paper and found that it can have its uses, but it still is not clear if there are benefits to it. There are various assumptions linked to citizen engagement, for example that it increases public trust in science, or that it provides a representative view of what the public thinks about science. These are not necessarily true, Sauermann found. People who participate in engagement activities tend to already be very trusting of science, and, on the whole, it is generally the well-off and well educated who contribute, giving a narrow view of public opinion. On whether citizen input can help manage the increasing number of proposals that are being submitted due to assistance from AI, Sauermann is more sceptical. “The obvious answer to the flood of AI-written proposals is AI-driven evaluation,” he said, adding that it doesn’t mean citizen engagement shouldn’t be a part of evaluations in a well thought-out manner. Southern Denmark’s successful approachOne successful example of citizen engagement in science evaluations was implemented in southern Denmark. Between 2019 and 2025, citizens in the region were invited to vote to fund one of five pre-selected projects in the field of healthcare. The project, called A Healthier Southern Denmark, was a collaboration between regional authorities, the University of Southern Denmark, and two media partners. Over the seven years, there were 75,000 votes and significant public engagement online and on social media. “It was a bit of a wild project, we’d never done something like that before and we were a bit nervous about what would be said in the media about it. But actually, people were very positive,” said Anne Kathrine Overgaard, one of the main organisers of the project from the University of Southern Denmark. The university and its researchers have learned a lot from the experience, particularly about engaging with society and shaping their research to match real-world needs. This is important with Europe’s increasing focus on competitiveness and bringing innovations to market faster, Overgaard said. She hopes to see more citizen engagement in evaluation processes and in science more broadly. “For many years, citizen engagement has been a bit of an add-on to proposals, just to check a box. But I think things are changing,” she said. It’s less about citizens just gathering data and more “about the dialogue between the public and the scientists,” she said. The initiative ended last year as the team wanted to regroup to find fresh momentum. The development of AI and AI-written proposals has made Overgaard reflect on how the project could be reworked to help evaluators. She hopes to bring it back in the future. “It could be a good idea to try this initiative again in a slightly re-worked format,” she said.
'Melted in a pot somewhere': Vikings used Islamic silver coins to make their early pennies, study finds
The silver in a Viking Age hoard found in Denmark was from melted-down coins from the faraway Islamic world, a new study finds.
'Melted in a pot somewhere': Vikings used Islamic silver coins to make their early pennies, study finds
The silver in a Viking Age hoard found in Denmark was from melted-down coins from the faraway Islamic world, a new study finds.
Saint-Gobain sells Dahl business to Kesko for $1.7 billion
France-based construction group Saint-Gobain agreed to sell its specialist distribution business in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, primarily under the Dahl brand, to Finnish retailer Kesko for €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion), the company said on Monday.
No country should have to build its digital health future alone – now none of them will
WHO/Europe and Healthcare Denmark have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate cooperation on digital health, health data, artificial intelligence (AI) and health system innovation in the 53 countries of the WHO European Region.
Disney wants tech staffers to move fast with AI without 'tokenmaxxing'
Disney is leans into AI under CEO Josh D'Amaro but wants tech staffers to avoid "tokenmaxxing," or wasting tokens.
Synthesia HR chief: Tokenmaxxing isn't the goal. Getting results is.
Companies are pushing workers to use AI. Synthesia's Laura Gonzalez says measuring token usage can reward activity over outcomes.
Satya Nadella has a message for Microsoft's tokenmaxxers
Microsoft's CEO said workers should use the right AI model for the job as companies look for ways to control rising AI costs.
Pitching Woes Resume: Dbacks 6, Marlins 10
The Dbacks dropped the series opener in Miami on Tuesday 10-6 as the Arizona pitching was unable to keep any momentum this whole game long. The Dbacks offense would score, and then the pitching would immediately cough the lead right back up. The offense would come back, and then the pitching would give the lead […]
Bleecker Street, LD Entertainment acquire Anton Corbijn’s ‘A ...
Oscar winner portrays celebrated novelist Patricia Highsmith in new thriller.
Tokenomics will lead to opportunities in 'edge AI,' Citrini says
Citrini Research predicts that the economics of tokenmaxxing will prompt a shift to "edge AI" that will have implications for investors.
🚨 Denmark issue fresh health update on Christian Eriksen
Denmark national team doctor Morten Boesen has issued an update on Christian Eriksen's condition on Monday morning.For the second time in his career, the former Manchester United midfielder collapsed ...
Christian Eriksen Health Update Emerges After Collapsing On the Field During Denmark vs Ukraine
The Danish midfielder has worn an implanted heart device since suffering a cardiac arrest during a match in 2021.
Denmark's Christian Eriksen 'Conscious' After Collapsing On Field Again In Match
Christian Eriksen is conscious after collapsing on the field again while playing for Denmark’s national team according to the country’s soccer federation.
Fear for Eriksen: taken ill and match suspended, player conscious
Moments of great fear for Christian Eriksen during the Denmark-Ukraine friendly at Nature Energy Park in Odense. Around the 65th minute, Christian Eriksen clutched his chest and then collapsed to the ...
A raucous Copenhagen crowd cheers Denmark’s 2026 Mullet Championship
A packed Danish crowd celebrated the enduring mullet hairstyle on Saturday.
NM Health Care Authority announces $76M in federal rural healthcare funds
When fully implemented, the program aims to reduce long wait times, chronic disease risk factors and readmission rates to rural hospitals.
AP report: Ex-national security adviser John Bolton will plead guilty in classified information case
The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information, including diary-like notes from his time in government that officials say he shared with his family members as he was preparing a memoir about his time in office.
May's top PlayStation games by copies sold
Yesterday’s State of Play gave us an idea of where PlayStation’s heading next. But we’ve had our May estimates for a couple of days now (we always update our data daily for clients), so it’s time to look at what performed best on PlayStation last month. We’ve got a new IP at the top, two evergreens doing their evergreen thing, FC26 smashing it ahead of the World Cup Plus pivot, and a quiet but promising result for Lego Batman. Let’s have a look at the state of Play…Station’s top games for May. 007 takes #001 007 First Light sold 1M copies on PS5 in May, easily making it the month’s top PS5 game by copies sold. Over 80% of those May copies were digital, which is broadly in line with where PlayStation’s digital share has settled for new releases this year. To date, 007 First Light has sold through 2.2M copies across platforms (so no unsold retail copies in that figure). The platform split is 55.1% PS5, 33.1% Steam, and 11.8% Xbox (console, Windows, and cloud combined). In gross revenue terms, 007 First Light has generated $150M. Owing to regional pricing and audience composition differences, the consoles make up a higher share of revenue than they do copies. Of the $150M, 60.5% came via PlayStation, 27.6% via Steam, and 12.9% via Xbox. Part of this is because over two-thirds of 007 First Light‘s PlayStation audience is in North America (43.4%) or Western Europe (23.2%), where local currency means the game generates more revenue per player. On Steam, under half of First Light‘s audience is from those same regions (31.8% North America, 15.1% Western Europe). As we covered in last week’s 007 Steam piece, the Steam version is pulling in higher-than-expected numbers in China, which now accounts for 17.3% of First Light‘s Steam audience. 007 is the equivalent of $44 USD in China, which is roughly 37% cheaper than the US price and about 44% cheaper than Western Europe. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The crossover data backs up what we’ve seen all year about launch-window cohorts. 11% of PS5 players who played 007 First Light in May also played Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which launched just a few days before. Last month was a great month for Denmark! IO Interactive is Copenhagen-based, and Lego Group is headquartered in Billund (TT Games is UK-based but produces work under Lego Group licence and direction). Speaking of which… A very blocky #2 and #3 Minecraft sold another 788K copies on PlayStation consoles last month. Business as usual, since Minecraft hasn’t sold fewer than 760K copies in a single month all year. With over 350M copies sold across all platforms, Minecraft is the best-selling game in history and one of the strongest brands in the world. Every month, a new cohort of children reaches Minecraft age, which guarantees a constant volume of new sales regardless of what the broader market is up to. The demographic refresh rate is truly impressive, with the audience renewing itself faster than it’s churning. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight shifted 757K copies on PS5 last month, bringing its lifetime total on the platform to over 800K. Across all platforms, Legacy of the Dark Knight has now passed 1.5M sold through, so PlayStation accounts for over half of the game’s players. The May crossover data for Legacy of the Dark Knight on PS5 is also useful. 27% of those players also played Fortnite, 16% Roblox, 16% FC 26, and 14% NBA 2K. That’s the household-and-family cohort showing up, plus the launch-window cohort of core gamers who buy practically everything. FC 26 gets players through the door ahead of the World Cup FC 26 sold 411K copies on PlayStation last month (90% via PS5), the fewest copies FC 26 has sold all year and down heavily from April’s 700K. Part of this dropoff is because FC 26 has been available as a PlayStation Plus monthly game since 6 May, cannibalising premium sales. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The strategic logic is straightforward for EA, which is sacrificing premium unit sales in May to build up the player base ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 11 June. Obviously, a bigger player pool going into the tournament means a bigger pool of potential Ultimate Team spenders during the period when football attention is at its peak. The early returns are around what you’d expect, with 4.4M new players accessing FC 26 via PS Plus last month – a substantial new spender pool. Anecdotally, a few of my mates who were ‘’skipping FIFA and Ultimate Team this year’’, were drawn back in via PS Plus. Lo and behold, one of them is buying packs like it’s going out of fashion. Whether this is all a smart trade for EA depends entirely on the Ultimate Team conversion rate over the next six weeks. Either way, the short-term engagement impact on the game as a whole is evident. FC 26‘s MAUs hit a record 24M on PlayStation in May, up 30% from the previous record set in April. GTA V does what GTA V always does Rounding out the top five is another evergreen title. Grand Theft Auto V shifted another 387K copies on PlayStation last month. No matter what else is happening in the industry, GTA V keeps pulling players in. It’s sold another 1.8M copies on PS5 in the first half of this year alone, helping the franchise pass the 230M-sold milestone across all platforms. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe I have a theory that Minecraft and GTA V are doing the same thing at different demographic levels. Both are functioning as generational gateway games that the audience ages into faster than it ages out of. Minecraft captures kids around age 6-10, GTA V captures much of the same audience around age 12-15 (unofficially, of course). The crossover data suggests this: 40% of GTA V‘s monthly PlayStation players typically play Fortnite in any given month, while 30% play Roblox. Household accounts aside, that’s not the original GTA V audience from 2013. Of course, the under-12 audience would love to get their hands on GTA, too. It’s always been the way of things, and some parents are happy to oblige. Mine did too back in the day, and I turned out just fine. Right? Right!? Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
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!
West End Business Association brings expanded ‘Best of the West’ festival to Ben Brenman Park
The West End Business Association continues to look for ways to raise the visibility of West End businesses with its returning festival in a larger-than-ever format. Best of the West will return for a third year from 12-6 p.m. Saturday, June 6 in Ben Brenman Park (4800 Brenman Park Drive) in the Cameron Station neighborhood.
NM health agency says adult cigarette use down as vaping rises
New Mexico health department announced that cigarette use is down in the state but vaping is up, while smoking and vapes decline for youth.
007 First Light Budget Over $200 Million to Develop; Considered Denmark's Most Expensive Entertainment Project
007 First Light has cost IO Interactive over $200 million to develop across 7 years and is considered Denmark's most expensive cultural project.
007 First Light Budget Over $200 Million to Develop; Considered Denmark's Most Expensive Entertainment Project
007 First Light has cost IO Interactive over $200 million to develop across 7 years and is considered Denmark's most expensive cultural project.
Amazon shuts down AI leaderboard after employee 'tokenmaxxing'
Amazon nixed an employee-created AI leaderboard called "KiroRank" after concerns it encouraged excessive AI spending.
SBTi validation of FLSmidth’s updated science-based targets
PRESS RELEASEFLSmidth & Co. A/S28 May 2026Copenhagen, Denmark FLSmidth is pleased to share that the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) recently validated its updated climate targets. This validation gives us a clear, science-based roadmap aligned with the 1.5 ºC pathway and strengthen our focus on delivering measurable emissions reductions across our operations and value chain. Together with our customer and suppliers, these updated targets underline that decarbonisation is a shared journey
New iOS 27 Rumors Include Revamped AirPods Settings Menu and More
Apple is set to unveil iOS 27 next month ahead of a September release. The update is expected to include a dedicated Siri app, expanded Apple Intelligence capabilities in apps like Wallet, Safari, and Shortcuts, an upgraded keyboard with improved autocorrect, the ability to use Apple Maps via satellite connection, and more. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman revealed four additional iOS 27 changes related to AirPods, Genmoji, AirPlay, and Siri.
Apple’s Watch and Health Efforts Need Reboot to Rival New Wearables
Also: iOS 27 AirPods, Genmoji and AirPlay details.
Apple’s Watch and Health Efforts Need Reboot to Rival New Wearables
Also: iOS 27 AirPods, Genmoji and AirPlay details.
Inaugural K-Entertainment Summit Shares K-Pop Business Strategies, Insights
Industry insiders from Universal Music, HYBE, Disney, AEG and more gathered at CJ ENM's first K-Entertainment Summit to discuss the Korean entertainment business.