Consciousness

Are 21st century rites of passage an essential human need?

As Western medicine brings psychedelics into mainstream use, a growing movement is innovating new business models grounded in reciprocity and inclusion.

Becoming an expert, whether it’s in wine tasting or mathematics, alters your brain structure and perception.

How smell training can change your brain in six weeks—and why it matters.

George Church and Ramez Naam on the limitations of evolution, the power of matchmaking, and why we should send single-cell computers into deep space.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman aims to give deaf people a new way to hear—and upgrade everyone else’s senses too. by Steven Kotler

A professor in China builds a brain-machine interface that keeps humans fully in charge.

Karl Deisseroth developed astounding technologies that light up the brain and render it transparent. Yet some of his most compelling breakthroughs still come from listening to patients.

Michael Pollan explores the neuroscience of psychedelics in this excerpt from his new book.

With better CPR techniques, more people might live to tell the tale of what happens right before everything slips away.

Emotions don’t get in the way of rational thought, says Antonio Damasio. They make it possible.

Step one: breathe …