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People taking common sleep drug may not realize they're too impaired to drive, study finds
A study found quetiapine reduced obstructive sleep apnea events but tripled attention lapses and impaired driving the next morning, researchers say.
Loma Linda University Health agrees to pay nearly $8 million settlement for improper disposal of hazardous waste, medical records
Loma Linda University Health officials agreed to pay a $8 million settlement over a lawsuit that was filed after a multi-year investigation by Riverside County and San Bernardino County officials found that medical records and hazardous medical waste were improperly disposed of.
Scientists will lose critical climate record as ocean observatory goes dark under Trump funding cuts
The National Science Foundation announced it would dismantle most of the ocean monitoring system, pulling instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027.
Cancer’s favorite escape trick may actually make it easier to kill
Scientists have uncovered a surprising new way the immune system fights cancer, overturning a core belief that has guided immunology for decades. The research found that when cancer cells shut down a key immune-recognition molecule called MHC I—a common trick used to hide from “killer” T cells—they can actually become more vulnerable to attack by a different group of immune cells known as CD4+ “helper” T cells.
Radio scans find no evidence of alien tech from interstellar comet 3I/Atlas
The SETI Institute said Wednesday that extensive radio scans by its telescope in Northern California found no signs of otherworldly technology from our solar system’s latest interstellar visitor.
Scientists Say Supermassive Black Holes Could Be Surrounded by Millions of Planets
Scientists have found planet and star formations somewhere that was the last place they thought it could occur.
Sharon Stone knew her marriage was 'over' when husband questioned her getting mastectomy despite massive tumor
Actress Sharon Stone said she knew her marriage was finished when her then-husband was 'furious' with her decision to get a double mastectomy after doctors found tumors in her breasts: 'He was done with me then.'
Leo Messi Awarded the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports
Inter Miami CF captain Leo Messi has been awarded the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports, one of the most prestigious international accolades recognizing careers of extraordinary significance and impact on society. Presented annually by the Princess of Asturias Foundation in Spain, the award recognizes individuals and institutions from
US Ignite Launches SURGE, a National Science Foundation-Supported Initiative to Empower Regional Innovation Coalitions Nationwide
“SURGE provides regional coalitions with structure, guidance, and connections in a peer learning environment. This new program is meant for both existing regional coalitions and leaders who are building new cross-sector partnerships.” -L.Arias, US Ignite Supporting U.S. Regional Growth & Entrepreneurship (SURGE) Convert regional momentum into results! WASHINGTON, June 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Ignite officially launched the Supporting U.S. Regional Growth & Entrepreneurship (SURGE) Program
Revolutionary Work | From PSG to USA, Revs II sports performance coach Bilal Bejaoui has passion for producing pros
France native has found opportunity to grow in New England
Study questions standard screening test for amputation risk in veterans
In a review of the electronic health records of more than 223,000 veterans treated at Veterans Health Administration facilities, the researchers found that even modest decreases in the normal ABI correlated with a higher risk of major adverse limb events (MALE) requiring intervention, including amputation and revascularization (treatment to restore blood flow).
Study found canceled Medicaid pilot program saved in healthcare costs
NORTH CAROLINA — A pilot program designed to use Medicaid funds on non-medical needs — food, housing and transportation needs — was discontinued last year, but a study found it decreased healthcare…
SGMC Health Foundation Receives Transformative Gift from Stalvey Family for Women & Infants Center
The SGMC Health Foundation announces a generous donation from the Stalvey family, owners of Ace Electric, Inc., in support of its Women & Infants Center.
I started losing my hearing at 21. I built a business from it.
After developing tinnitus and hearing loss, Bob Verlaat cofounded Hears, a company designing stylish earplugs for music fans.
National Science Foundation
This program is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP) in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
AI Is Integrating With Science, Lim Meng Hoong Attends Science x AI Summit 2026
SAN FRANCISCO, June 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On May 12, Lim Meng Hoong, Founder of MengHoong Intelligent Investment Academy, was invited to ...
Lions add former Dolphins GM Chris Grier to front office
Former Dolphins General Manager Chris Grier has found a new job in Detroit.
Tech-favored candidates fell short on California's primary night
Tuesday's primary night was a poor showing for California's tech billionaires and founders who viewed statewide politics as the next frontier for their ambitions
Scientists reveal Ötzi the Iceman's dynamic microbial world
Ötzi the Iceman died violently roughly 5,300 years ago in the Alpine region of the modern border between Italy and Austria. An arrowhead was found lodged in his left shoulder, having caused fatal bleeding when he was attacked in mountainous terrain. But, in some sense, Ötzi still lives, as new research shows.
Pioneering AI Founders Join to Accelerate Roblox Reality Vision
Founders from Morpheus AI, Dynamics Lab, Lucid AI Make Playable Photorealistic Roblox World Models Possible
Popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs linked to lower risks of addiction and overdose
A massive study of more than 600,000 U.S. veterans suggests that popular GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide may do far more than help with diabetes and weight loss—they could also fight addiction itself. Researchers found that people taking these medications were less likely to develop substance use disorders involving alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and other drugs, while those already struggling with addiction experienced fewer overdoses, hospitalizations, emergency visits, and drug-related deaths.
Elections to top science bodies test Croatia’s gender equality in research
Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16. “The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote. Some 60% of researchers in Croatia are women, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, and they perform well in international competitions. For example, of the 12 European Research Council (ERC) grants awarded to Croatian researchers, seven went to women.“So how is it possible that decision-making bodies are still dominated by men over 60, while not a single female ERC laureate is involved in the selection process?” asked Đikić. “This is not a marginal oversight; it is a structural failure.” The ministry of science did not reply to a request for comment. The awards committee is not unusual. For example, a scientific advisory body announced by the ministry of demographics in April comprises 35 men and five women. The board of the Croatian Science Foundation, newly appointed by the parliament, is a little better, with five men and two women, but still unequal. “This is especially significant because such bodies do not merely distribute prestige. They shape research priorities, funding allocation and long-term scientific development,” Marija Lugarić, chair of the parliament’s committee on gender equality, told Science|Business. “Representation here matters not only symbolically, but materially.”Referring to the awards committee and the board of the science foundation, Lugarić says that while both bodies were appointed by parliament, neither met the minimum 40% gender balance threshold that Croatian law and EU guidelines expressly recommend for public bodies.Đikić wants to see EU institutions put pressure on the government to ensure basic standards of fairness, transparency and democratic governance in science policy are met. “Meaningful change will not come without pressure,” he wrote. “It must intensify both within Croatia and at the level of European institutions. Anything less undermines the credibility of Europe’s commitment to excellence and inclusion in science.”Rudež also underlined the importance of talking and writing about this topic, “because public opinion in Croatia does influence changes in the status and visibility of women in science.”The European Commission has not yet responded to a request for comment.Good news from the academyA more positive story came from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts on 21 May, with the announcement of seven new women fellows and five men. This is the first time in the academy’s 165-year history that women have outnumbered men in a new intake.One of the new fellows, two-time ERC grantee Iva Tolić, credits the academy leadership with trying to be more modern and inclusive, representing the whole community better. “The academy is really aware that so far, before this election, there were very few women,” she told Science|Business. “So, they are actively trying to make this more equal.”Related articlesExplained: How the MSCA is close to achieving gender balanceCall for EU to leverage academic freedom in global talent raceRudež is more cautious, noting that despite the academy’s “breakthrough this year [. . .] it is still a predominantly male institution, with only 18% women.”This reflects a wider imbalance in Croatia’s research landscape. “The key levers of power in science are still in the hands of men,” she went on. “For example, all 14 rectors of private and public universities are men.”Similarly, Lugarić says a structural glass ceiling still exists in Croatian science, which is “most visible precisely where power is exercised.”She cites data from the Commission’s She Figures 2024 report, which shows that Croatia ranks second in the EU for gender equality in research and innovation overall, with an equality index of 79.6 out of 100. It is in the top five for women’s career advancement, participation in research; representation across all research sectors and for scientific publications.In stark contrast, it ranks second to last when it comes to women in decision-making positions in science. “This is not a coincidence,” Lugarić says. “It is a structural pattern.”Informal barriersThe persistent under-representation of women in the highest structures of Croatia’s academies, boards, award committees and leadership positions is not down to formal barriers, Lugarić says, but arises from more subtle obstacles such as “informal networks, persistent expectations regarding traditional gender roles and the unequal distribution of care responsibilities.”Tolić would like to see more support for young women in terms of affordable housing and child support, and higher salaries. Currently, she says, salaries in science stay low for the first 10-15 years, while housing and spaces in kindergarten are limited and expensive. “You have to work a lot, you get very little money, so it’s not great to have a family in this situation,” she says.But despite the challenges, Tolić is optimistic, saying that gender equality in research in Croatia is “definitely improving and going in the right direction.” The situation is particularly promising in biology, she adds, where most full professors, heads of department and deans of faculties are women. Lugarić, too, see the glass ceiling “very slowly, cracking,” and cites the academy election as an example that structural change is possible. Yet the situation in the national awards committee is a “stark reminder that without a conscious, systemic commitment to gender balance, progress will remain slow and uneven.”
Scientists simulated a nuclear fireball and found a surprise in the fallout
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recreated part of the intense chaos inside a nuclear fireball to better understand how radioactive fallout forms. Their experiments revealed that the way vaporized materials cool can dramatically change the particles that eventually form, especially for volatile elements like cesium.
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!
UTC REACH Fund supports community-driven health research across the Chattanooga region
The Research for Evidence-based Action in Community Health (REACH) Fund was established earlier this year through the Journey Health Foundation Research Center housed in the Gary W. Rollins College of Business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In less than one year, it’s already funding 10 interdisciplinary projects focused on improving community health across Southeast Tennessee.
7 Small Business Ideas You Can Start in Under 14 Hours Per Week
Looking to launch a startup in your spare time? These small business ideas are well-suited for aspiring founders with tight schedules.
Carolyn Bessette 'urged' JFK Jr. to call Princes William and Harry after Princess Diana's death, new book claims
Carolyn Bessette 'urged' JFK Jr. to call Princes William and Harry after their mother Princess Diana died following a car crash, a new book claims. The Kennedys and the Windsors had both experienced profound loss publicly.
KBR Awarded $8 Billion Antarctic Science and Engineering Support Contract by U.S. National Science Foundation
KBR secures an $8 billion Antarctic contract to support U.S. scientific operations over 20 years.Quiver AI SummaryKBR has been awarded an $8 billion ceiling Antarctic Science and Engineering Support Contract by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), which will span 20 years starting in June 2026. This contract involves providing operations, maintenance, logistics, and science support for the U.S. Antarctic Program, which manages three year-r
Taylor restaurant inspectors find roaches and other problems
Recent health inspections in Taylor found roaches, improper glove use and temperature violations at local spots.
Scientists' ocean observatory off Oregon, Washington will go dark under Trump funding cuts
Funded by the foundation, the observatories have tracked everything from ocean circulation and marine ecosystems to climate change and extreme weather.
Gabe Newell Says Players Have 'Enormous Choice' When Pressed on Steam Monopoly Accusations, Report Says
Valve founder and president Gabe Newell denied claims that Steam is running a monopoly, saying that players have "enormous choice" in the PC gaming space, according to a new report.
Ocean sensors will go dark under Trump funding cuts
The Trump administration is dismantling a $386 million network of more than 900 ocean sensors funded by the National Science Foundation.
Scientists lose critical climate record as ocean observatory will go dark under Trump funding cuts
The Trump administration is dismantling a $386 million network of more than 900 ocean sensors funded by the National Science Foundation.
Texas leads U.S. in children without health insurance, Georgetown University study shows
The report found that nearly 11% of Texas children under the age of 6 lacked health insurance in 2024 — a dramatic increase from 7.9% just two years earlier. Researchers say that jump translates to more than 73,000 additional uninsured children across the state.
Scientists May Have Found a Way to Detect a Third Type of Magnetism
The third type of magnetism could prove the most useful of all—if researchers can identify the materials that exhibit it.
Tuberculosis test may improve diagnosis
Researchers found that a new portable diagnostic test for tuberculosis produced rapid and accurate results.
Exclusive: Ex-Anduril engineer raises $42M to build the Amazon of composite parts
Layup Parts co-founder Zack Eakin has drawn on a motorsports background, and his experience working for Palmer Luckey and Elon Musk, to tackle making faster, cheaper, and better composites.
Mississippi Power Foundation partners with the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience for America250
The Mississippi Power Foundation is partnering with the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience to honor the country’s 250th anniversary.
They Started Their Business in College. Now It’s Valued at Nine Figures. Here’s How Breakaway Broke the Mold for Live Events.
Adam Lynn, co-founder of Breakaway, explains how he and his company found the white space in live entertainment.
Oakmont parking lot opening day still a mystery to nearby business owners
The Oakmont Community Foundation parking lot on Allegheny Avenue, years in the making, is still closed to the public. As for why, the mystery remains. Businesses in the area are hopeful the public lot will open soon, as it will help to alleviate a longtime parking issue in the borough’s
A New Declaration Warns AI Could Threaten the Foundations of Mathematics
AI is reshaping math—and how mathematicians work. That's fine, but experts want some clear standards.
How Science Works
The 2nd Weather and Climate Livestream is now underway. It is organized by a group of early-career researchers concerned about declining funding for the field and eager to demonstrate how weather and climate research makes a difference in our lives. Last year’s event was a great success, drawing terrific press coverage including a piece in the NY Times. This year features a strong lineup of talks aimed at a general audience — I highly recommend tuning in. Share I gave a talk yesterday about How Science Works in Three Steps. You can see the short presentation here (I’ve appended a transcript below): And please tune into the livestream here. It runs through tomorrow at 6 pm ET. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Cleaned up transcript: Thank you, and thanks to everyone tuning in. I want to talk about something I think a lot of people don’t really understand: how science actually works. Arguments over any scientific topic — climate change, vaccines, you name it — revolve around competing claims. For climate change, the claims are: Is the Earth warming? Are humans to blame? What will the impacts be? Over the last 150 years, the scientific community has developed a remarkably robust method for sorting out which claims are true and which aren’t. That method is what I want to walk through. So how does science generate knowledge? If you ask a high schooler, they’ll give you the version they learned in ninth grade: an individual scientist forms a hypothesis, runs an experiment, and draws a conclusion. That’s more or less what happens at the individual level, though in practice it’s more iterative — you design, test, and refine all at once, landing on a slightly different idea each time until you reach a conclusion about whatever hypothesis you’ve ended up with. But this isn’t science. It’s only step one. Any individual scientist can make mistakes — scientists are human. Maybe there’s a bug in the code, maybe there’s an error in the experiment. Just because someone ran an experiment and reached a conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right, and scientists don’t treat a single result as settled truth. Step two is peer review, the first layer of quality control. The scientist writes up what they did and submits it to a journal, which sends the paper to other experts in the field. Those experts judge whether the methods are sound, whether it properly references prior work, and whether the conclusions actually follow from the data. Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you peer review is miserable — the comments come back brutal, often harsh, and you have to revise and resubmit, sometimes multiple times, before an editor finally accepts the paper. Peer review catches an immense amount of bad science, but it can’t catch all of it. Reviewers get sloppy or overworked, they miss obvious mistakes, and they can’t catch hidden errors — a bug in the code, a misread instrument. So a peer-reviewed paper making it into a journal doesn’t mean the paper is right. Nobody treats a single paper as the final word. That’s where step three comes in: the crucible of science. Important results get retested by the broader community. If you publish something interesting, it gets dissected. Sometimes people try to reproduce your work directly but more often they test its implications. If someone claims X is true, and that implies that Y is also true, then scientists will go check Y. If a claim survives this gauntlet long enough, it becomes accepted. That’s how we generate knowledge. Let me give an example: the ozone hole. In 1985 — and I doubt many people watching were around then, but I remember it well — Joe Farman and his colleagues published observations from Antarctica showing that a huge chunk of ozone was disappearing every year. This was shocking because most atmospheric chemists had expected ozone loss to occur at mid-latitudes and high altitudes, not over the South Pole. When scientists see something they don’t understand, they rush to explain it, and several competing hypotheses quickly appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One pointed to chlorine chemistry from chlorofluorocarbons. A second blamed nitrogen chemistry, possibly driven by solar proton events — meaning the sun was responsible. A third argued it wasn’t chemistry at all but dynamics: winds were carrying naturally low-ozone air from the lower atmosphere up into the stratosphere. Then the community went to work testing which theory could survive the crucible. Aircraft flew into the ozone hole and found no nitrogen, ruling out the nitrogen theory. Measurements showed the air in the polar vortex was descending, not rising — which would bring high-ozone air down, eliminating the dynamics theory. Meanwhile, those same flights measured enormous amounts of chlorine, strongly correlated with exactly the regions where ozone was being destroyed. That became known as the “smoking gun” paper, and it established that chlorine chemistry was the cause. Through this process, a consensus emerged. And it’s worth being clear that this consensus is organic. There’s no vote, no poll, no meeting where it gets decided. Scientists go to conferences, talk to one another, and independently arrived at the same answer. It’s the ultimate free market of ideas. After the consensus was established, the peer-reviewed literature doesn’t even mention the rival theories — it simply takes chlorine chemistry as given. That’s what a consensus looks like. It doesn’t mean every single scientist agrees, but it does mean there’s no longer any legitimate debate. So where can you see what scientists actually think? It’s all in the peer-reviewed literature, which contains the entire historical record of the argument: the discovery, the competing theories, the debate, the testing, and finally the community coalescing around one answer. But there’s a lot of room for misrepresentation. You can dig up an old paper claiming the ozone hole was caused by dynamics and wave it around as if there still was a debate about the cause of the ozone hole — without mentioning that the idea was disproven long ago and that even its own authors no longer believe it. There’s a bigger problem, though: the peer-reviewed literature is written in a language I call “nerd.” It’s extremely hard to read — honestly, some of it is hard for me to follow. It takes graduate students years to work through the literature in a single field, so we can’t expect policymakers or ordinary people to do it. This is where scientific assessments come in. The most famous is the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The job of an assessment is to read and summarize the peer-reviewed literature, synthesizing what’s settled, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely debated. To ensure the assessments accurately summarize the peer-reviewed literature, assessments are written by large teams, which are far less prone to bias than individuals and which dilute the influence of any one scientist with an axe to grind. The teams are deliberately assembled to avoid stacking the deck, and the reports themselves go through multiple rounds of peer review. That rigorous process is exactly why you can trust them and why people consider the IPCC to be the gold standard of what we know about the climate system. An assessment produced through a different process may well not be credible. You can even watch the consensus evolve across assessments. Take the attribution of warming. The 1990 IPCC report said the observed warming was broadly consistent with model predictions but also comparable to natural variability — in other words, we don’t know whether humans are responsible. By 1995, it concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence — a sentence only a committee could write, and one that barely commits to anything. By 2001, most of the warming over the previous 50 years was judged “likely” due to greenhouse gases; by 2007, “very likely”; by 2013, “extremely likely.” The 2023 report says essentially the same as 2013 — there’s not much stronger language available. So, to wrap up: science is our ultimate tool for deciphering the universe — the most successful method we’ve ever developed for determining what’s true and what isn’t. Our understanding is written into the peer-reviewed literature, so if you want to know what scientists think, that’s where to look. And for those of us who don’t speak nerd, scientific assessments are the Rosetta Stone — they translate nerd into English. Let me open the floor to questions. Thank you.
The Business-First IP Playbook: David Hyams on Mapping Business Value and the Limits of General LLMs
In the latest episode of IP Innovators, host Steve Brachmann sits down with David Hyams, Co-Founder and Chief Business Development Officer of Longship Legal, to explore what it looks like to build an IP practice around business value rather than patent volume.
Sports has become the antidote for AI, says Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leonsis
Ted Leonsis, Monumental Sports & Entertainment founder, chairman and CEO, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the 2026 NBA Finals, his thoughts on prediction markets, impact of AI on sports, state of ticket prices, and more.
Watch CNBC's full interview with Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis
Ted Leonsis, Monumental Sports & Entertainment founder, chairman and CEO, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the 2026 NBA Finals, his thoughts on prediction markets, impact of AI on sports, state of ticket prices, and more.
Great success for Foundation at eleventh annual Golf Day
Celtic FC Foundation’s annual Golf Day returned last Friday as Renfrew Golf Club played host to the event for an 11th time. A magnificent net total in the region of £15,000 was raised, with the mai...
St. John’s Hosts National Science Foundation-Supported Conference on Bilingual Research
The impact of age, language background, cognitive ability, and other ingredients on bilingualism was the subject of a US National Science Foundation (NSF)-support
A hidden pollutant is changing how the world's forests breathe
A massive global analysis found that nitrogen pollution can either speed up or dramatically slow the natural "breathing" of forest soils, depending on the ecosystem's condition. The results reveal hidden tipping points that could affect how forests store carbon and cope with climate change.
Review: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Switch 2 Performance Boosted Over Demo, But Xbox 60fps Mode Still Disappoints
Oh I guess I will pay / for these new games 'til doomsday.
Your brain starts making social decisions before you do
Researchers found that social behavior begins in the brain before it becomes visible as movement. In zebrafish, a coordinated pattern of activity spread across the brain several seconds before the animals approached another fish. A higher brain region called the pallium played a key role, and fish with stronger neural signals were generally more social.
GlobalFoundries completes acquisition of Synopsys’ Processor IP Solutions Business, delivering a holistic technology platform for Physical AI
MALTA, N.Y., June 2, 2026 - GlobalFoundries (Nasdaq: GFS) (GF) today announced the completion of its previously-announced acquisition of Synopsys’ ARC Processor IP Solutions business.
Cowboys Headlines: Did George Pickens show for OTAs? Dissecting the day's monster trades
Monday saw several marquee-name stars change teams around the NFL, while the Cowboys' George Pickens was nowhere to be found as OTAs got underway.
How Trump has used the presidency to benefit himself and his allies
President Donald Trump has found multiple ways to harness the presidency to benefit himself.
OpenAI distances itself from cofounder Brockman's political donations
Greg Brockman and his wife donated $25 million to a pro-AI political network — and OpenAI says the company has nothing to do with it.
OpenAI distances itself from cofounder Brockman's political donations
Greg Brockman and his wife donated $25 million to a pro-AI political network — and OpenAI says the company has nothing to do with it.
Investors react to Andrew Left securities fraud verdict
One financial intelligence firm warned of increased scrutiny for other short sellers after Left was found guilty on 13 counts of securities fraud.
Cancer survivors saw major improvements in sleep and well-being with one weekly practice
A new study found that a structured yoga program helped cancer survivors experience major improvements in sleep, mood, fatigue and overall well-being.
One fat helped pancreatic cancer grow while another cut disease in half
A surprising new study suggests that when it comes to pancreatic cancer, the kind of fat you eat may matter more than how much. Researchers found that oleic acid—the main fat in olive oil and several other common foods—sped up tumor growth in mice predisposed to pancreatic cancer, while omega-3-rich fats from fish oil dramatically slowed disease development.
Studio Founded By Forza Horizon 5 Director Announces Open-World Action-Driving Game Clutch
The game is set to launch on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in spring 2027.
Famed short-seller Andrew Left convicted of securities fraud
The Citron Research founder took the stand in his own defense but did not convince the jury he was innocent.
ECU Health Summer Meal Program expands to six locations across eastern North Carolina
ECU Health is expanding its summer meals program in partnership with Food Lion Feeds, Sodexo and the ECU Health Foundation, adding three new locations.
The math of choosing a restaurant meal is revealed in Richard Feynman’s notes
Physicist Richard Feynman turned a lunch dilemma into a math problem. Researchers finally cracked his notes and found people approximate his solution on their own.
Baa-d to the bone: dozen goats wander into Tigard business center
Tigard Police say they are looking for the owners of a dozen goats found Sunday."
Disappointing photos show what it's actually like to go on a cruise
I expected my first cruise to be relaxing, but I found the mega ship to be too crowded, the lines too long, and the tour buses too hot.
A look at Utah’s business programs and entrepreneurial culture
After The Daily Universe finished its social media bracket ranking the most popular brands founded in Utah, various business professors shared their input on the state’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Roundup: Harvard Business School / Nvidia / Benny’s
Recognition: The Harvard Business School on Friday announced the recipients of its 2026 Alumni Achievement Awards, described as “the school’s highest honor.” One of the recipients, Jennifer Eplett Reilly, is a familiar name in Baton Rouge. Reilly received her MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1990 and chaired the Baton Rouge Area Foundation from […]
Borderlands Boss Shares Photos Of Unreleased Pixel Watch 5
The Borderlands boss shared photos of an unannounced Google Pixel device that was found by a friend of his while scuba diving
Blue Cross foundation looks to address Mass. health care problems
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation and law/consulting firm Manatt gathered around 20 business and civic leaders to discuss goals.
New AI Inference Service Now Ready for Science at Argonne
AI can help accelerate scientific discovery, but setting up and running a foundation model is not a simple task. Thanks to the work of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, scientists affiliated with DOE National Labs and the Genesis Mission can now tap into a new AI inference service running on ALCF supercomputers. Dubbed the ALCF […]
Fire dozers outfitted with NASA-made sensors help battle blazes
The entire system is made from parts commonly found in a hardware store.
How Catalyst Health Ventures Found A Sweet Spot In Early-Stage MedTech
While most venture capital fled early-stage medical devices, Catalyst Health Ventures stayed, and built a disciplined model that keeps producing exits.
Multi-Organ Xenotransplants Could Be One Day Be An Option As Scientists Show Success Transplanting Kidneys and Liver From Pig To Human
The successful surgery in a deceased recipient provides a foundation for future procedures in living people.
How to Rebuild US Science and Technology Policy From the Rubble of Trump 2.0
Policymakers are going to need tools to clear the rubble and build a better foundation for policy upon which the future can be built, writes Cole Donovan.
NFL insider's latest prediction could turn out to be huge news for Bryce Young when it comes to extension talks with the Panthers
ESPN's Adam Schefter believes the Houston Texans will get a deal done this summer with quarterback C.J. Stroud, which can set the foundation for Bryce Young's extension with the Carolina Panthers.
Servier to Acquire Edgewise Therapeutics' Muscular Dystrophy Business
/PRNewswire/ -- Servier, an independent international pharmaceutical group governed by a foundation, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to...
Scientists discover inherited traits that break Mendel’s Laws of genetics
A major mouse study found that some inherited traits are passed down through epigenetic changes that break the classic rules of genetics. Researchers discovered hundreds of cases where these chemical DNA marks behaved unexpectedly, including some that seemed to emerge out of nowhere. They also identified the first known naturally occurring paramutation in a mammal, hinting that environmental influences may play a larger role in inheritance than scientists realized.
Bridgepoint Group to Acquire Obagi Medical
The UK firm investment firm has agreed to purchase the clinical skincare label from Waldencast for $460 million, with co-founders Michel Brousset and Hind Sebti departing the beauty conglomerate to join Bridgepoint.
Why a surge of election-related websites could spell rising cyber threats for the midterms
A new report, first reported by PBS News, warns that November’s midterm elections in the United States will drive “elevated” cyber threats to political organizations, fundraising and media platforms, and that some of the groundwork for election misinformation and disinformation likely is already being laid. Check Point, a cyber security company, found that in January of this year, approximately 1,300 newly registered domains contained the keyword “election,” and approximately 2,957 contained “vote.” Registering website domains
Four researchers win data harmonization competition
The U.S. National Science Foundation National Synthesis Center for Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Sciences (NCEMS) at Penn State has awarded four researchers from across the world for their efforts in a competition to build machine learning-based approaches for streamlining publicly available datasets for reuse.
Google Pixel Watch 5 may have leaked in the weirdest way possible
Found by a scuba diver underwater
The Declaration At 250 And Why America’s Founding Ideals Still Matter For Business, AI & Economic Growth
The Declaration at 250 examines how America’s founding ideals continue to shape business, AI, and economic growth in modern markets.
Spencer Leak Jr., leader of family funeral business, dies at 56
Leak spent more than four decades helping run the family funeral home business founded by his grandfather, the Rev. Andrew Leak, in 1933.
The forgotten organ that could predict how long you live
A long-overlooked organ may hold surprising clues to healthy aging and cancer survival. Researchers at Mass General Brigham used AI to analyze CT scans from tens of thousands of adults and found that people with healthier thymuses—a small immune-system organ once thought to become largely irrelevant after childhood—lived longer and had substantially lower risks of heart disease, cancer, and death.
Study reveals unexpected health benefits after 5 minutes of prayer
Adult patients experienced significant relief from pain and anxiety after just five minutes of in-person prayer, as found in a randomized controlled trial.
Someone allegedly found a Pixel Watch 5 in the ocean
Prototype devices find their way to leaking in a variety of different ways, such as the infamous iPhone in a...
What's next for Arsenal? With Premier League secured and UCL window open, Gunners eye 'another level'
The elite individual magic in attack needed to conquer Europe may not be there in abundance, but the foundation is there to contend on all fronts again next season, especially if they make the right moves this summer
Health benefits of daily 'exercise snacks'
A study from the National Institute of Health found that doing something physical was better than nothing at all, and that short bursts of exertion can add up to big health benefits over time.
'Alaskan Bush People' star Matt Brown found dead in Washington state river at the age of 42
Matt Brown, who starred on "Alaskan Bush People" from 2014 to 2019, has died at 43. His brother Bear Brown confirmed the death on social media Saturday.
Nancy Guthrie Update: Expert Discusses Human Remains Found Nearby
‘There’s a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away or hide a body,’ James T. Watson said of the Arizona desert.
Nancy Guthrie Update: Expert Discusses Human Remains Found Nearby
‘There’s a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away or hide a body,’ James T. Watson said of the Arizona desert.
Nancy Guthrie Update: Expert Discusses Human Remains Found Nearby
‘There’s a lot of places that an individual could get lost or pass away or hide a body,’ James T. Watson said of the Arizona desert.
Bronze Age 5-year-old's skull found in Uzbekistan is the oldest known evidence of surgery in Central Asia
A child's 4,000-year-old skull found in Uzbekistan has signs of trepanation, making it the oldest evidence of surgery in Central Asia on record.
Not Verizon, Not AT&T: JD Power Says This Phone Carrier Leads In Customer Satisfaction
JD Power conducted a Telecom Digital Experience Study and found that T-Mobile is the phone carrier that ranks highest in customer satisfaction.
Why cancer spreads more in middle age than in old age
Melanoma may not become steadily more dangerous with age as scientists once assumed. In a surprising discovery, researchers found that cancer spread was lowest in young mice, surged in middle-aged mice, and then dropped again in very old mice. The key appears to be a special type of immune cell that helps keep cancer dormant and prevents it from spreading.
Scientists found the hidden switch fueling alzheimer’s brain inflammation
Scientists at Scripps Research have uncovered a molecular “switch” that appears to fuel the damaging brain inflammation seen in Alzheimer’s disease. They found that a protein called STING becomes chemically altered in a way that keeps the brain’s immune system stuck in overdrive, harming the connections between nerve cells.
Scientists Say They’ve Found Fungi That Turn Dead Martian Soil Into Fertile Cropland
This certainly beats using human waste to grow potatoes on Mars.
'Astonishing': James Webb telescope spots the most chemically primitive galaxy in the ancient universe
The James Webb telescope peered into an ancient spot of light, and found it to be the most metal-poor galaxy in the early universe.
Top U.S. science funder slows research grants to universities
It's not clear why the National Science Foundation may be limiting funding to certain U.S. universities
What Is Airbnb For, Exactly?
The home-sharing app recently added car rentals, groceries and — perhaps most surprisingly — hotels. Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief executive, is always thinking about how to redesign it.
Liverpool seriously considering re-signing academy graduate for €80m
Ibrahima Konate is set to leave Liverpool when his contract expires. Despite talks stretching back to November 2023 no accord could be found between the French defender and the outgoing Premier League...