When national politics is becoming increasingly polarised, global conflicts are escalating to new temperatures, and the toll of the climate catastrophe grows deadlier, the mere mention of utopia risks generating side-splitting laughter. - Psyche
Over the past three years, we have studied thousands of scientists on three different continents, asking them about the role of beauty in their work. Our research left us convinced that the core aesthetic experience science has to offer is not primarily about sensory experiences or formulas. - Aeon
In a sense, yes. The most extraordinary property of the gut-brain axis is that it is plastic. In the same way that your brain constantly takes in new information about the world around you, strengthening or changing connections via neuroplasticity, it also adjusts to signals from inside you. - The Guardian
Fan communities coping with a celebrity loss do several things that help their members feel supported and connected to one another, which often also disrupts society’s typical reaction to grief. So, what can we learn from fans grieving celebrity deaths? - The Conversation
Expanding AI beyond its digital boundary demands reworking how machines think, fusing the digital intelligence of AI with the mechanical prowess of robotics. This is what I call “physical intelligence”, a new form of intelligent machine that can understand dynamic environments, cope with unpredictability, and make decisions in real time. - Wired
“Many musicians and other creative spirits feel as if they have little significance or impact in our society. The prevailing metrics of success—money, power, whatever—relegate their work to the fringes and sub-fringes.” But let’s take a look at how the arts truly matter. - The Honest Broker
Now we’re onto “digital smells,” or at least proposed one. But: “Why can we not yet send Stinkygrams? Why is the Cloud not scented? Why does 4D cinema suck so bad? As yet, nobody knows.” - Salon
“In 1963 she wrote in a private note, ‘My job is to write well not to carry signs. You cannot do both at this point.’ In the margin, arguing with herself, she replied, ‘Phooey!’” - Lit Hub
The children provided with child-focused, narrative-driven labels engaged with the artworks in ways we did not see at all with those who read adult-focused descriptions. They directed their gaze towards key elements of the paintings highlighted by the playful descriptions, and spent more time examining them. - The Conversation
If we think of plots in the mathematicians’ terms, as data sets whose patterns can be objectively mapped and compared, then perhaps it makes sense that even as the number of books in the world has soared, the number of plots might not have followed suit. - The New York Times
Aura matters, and for good reason. The presence of a historical object focuses the mind on it, its maker, and its context in ways that replicas, reproductions, and photographs of it cannot. - Boston Globe
Thinking hard makes sense if you want answers; it makes less sense if the highest reward you anticipate from your intellectual efforts is surprise. The difference between a philosophical life and an essayistic one is that the former aims at knowledge, while the latter aims at novelty. - Unherd
Young people today are no less obsessed with climate disasters than Gen X was with nuclear war. Where we had nightmares about missiles, theirs feature mass extinctions and climate refugees, wildfires and water wars. And that’s just the beginning. - The Atlantic
It is now difficult to imagine the mass of general readers—assuming they exist—being reached even by a historian of genius. Historiography is becoming stuck. - Compact Magazine
