Mary Martin

Intensive meditation, even after only one day, can also affect gene regulation in your brain through similar mechanisms. Attending a monthlong meditation retreat reduces the expression of genes that affect inflammation, and experienced meditators can reduce inflammatory genes after just one day of intensive mediation.

Metaphors are (metaphorically) woven into the fabric of our language and thought, shaping how we grasp and articulate abstract concepts. We should therefore feel free to prudently explore alternative metaphors and judge whether they perform better. A collective effort to notice and change the metaphors we use has enormous potential to reduce... See more

the imagination is a neurological reality, that it is lodged in specific parts of the brain, that it consists of an identifiable set of components and processes, that these components and processes have adaptive functions, and that in fulfilling its functions imagination has been a major causal factor in making Homo sapiens the dominant species on... See more

I eat real meat, because plant-based meat is so ultra-processed 🍔🙄

Right?

Wrong. And here is why 👇

1️⃣ Both of these are ultra-processed.

Racist attitudes like Galton’s were not uncommon among the British aristocracy at the heights of colonialism, but Galton gave them scientific backing. He had the authority of a world traveler, in the tradition of Victorian naturalists like his half-cousin aboard the Beagle. His assessment of the supposed inferiority of others to white Britons was... See more

AI Is Making the World a Dumber Place

The anthropocentrism of humanity’s

predominant relationship to the environment is so extreme that this gratuitous violence against

other animals (both domesticated and free-living) goes largely unnoticed in everyday society.

Meanwhile, environmental justice, the very field established to champion public awareness

and policy in the service of... See more