One of Michael Levin's frequent interlocutors about minds is Mark Solms, subject of this Atlantic piece. Levin would like to find a theory of everything (or theory of all minds) that links chemistry, neuroscience, regenerative medicine & psychoanalysis. nymag.com/intelligence...

What Is It Like to Be a Cucumber?

Biologist Michael Levin is working to prove that minds are hiding everywhere, from a plant to a scrap of skin to a single cell.

nymag.com

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · yesterday

Much of Sigmund Freud’s work has been dismissed as quackery, Scott Stossel writes—but it might align with modern brain research more than we think.

And then, Elizabeth Weil's profile of Michael Levin, who is either “dangerously insane,” as one person put it, or is going to completely revolutionize the idea of consciousness and perhaps the soul. (I'm not exactly betting on it, but I love pieces/subjects like this one.) nymag.com/intelligence...

What Is It Like to Be a Cucumber?

Biologist Michael Levin is working to prove that minds are hiding everywhere, from a plant to a scrap of skin to a single cell.

nymag.com

"He plays absurdist games with himself: 'Imagine gene-expression space, 20,000 dimensions … You can taste ten parameters of your own blood chemistry.'" a @lizweil.bsky.social masterclass!!

New York Magazine@nymag.com · last wk.

Michael Levin, a Tufts biologist with a 40-person lab, has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.

A marvelous profile by @lizweil.bsky.social of the most interesting man in biology. Nobody is doing it like Levin. nymag.com/intelligence...

What Is It Like to Be a Cucumber?

Biologist Michael Levin is working to prove that minds are hiding everywhere, from a plant to a scrap of skin to a single cell.

nymag.com

nymag.com/intelligence... I thoroughly enjoyed this.

What Is It Like to Be a Cucumber?

Biologist Michael Levin has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.

nymag.com

This was such an old-school joy. And challenge. And mind-melter! Plus look at that incredible Martin Schoeller photo! So grateful to *still* get to do this job.

Intelligencer@intelligencer.com · last wk.

Michael Levin, a Tufts biologist with a 40-person lab, has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.

Michael Levin, a Tufts biologist with a 40-person lab, has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.

What Is It Like to Be a Cucumber?

Michael Levin, a Tufts biologist with a 40-person lab, has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.

nymag.com

Emily Wilson on FIRE. You make a big-boy blockbuster, you get a blockbuster critique. "It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man

As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...

lrb.co.uk

Married three years (21 in dog years)

The last line of this is 🎯 . What’s Missing from Belle Burden’s “Strangers” www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

What’s Missing from Belle Burden’s Best-Selling Memoir, “Strangers”

Belle Burden’s “Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage” tells the story of her divorce and resulting financial imperilment. A review of court documents complicates her narrative.

newyorker.com

There is something very interesting about the desire of the rich to cosplay as artists/musicians at the very moment that capitalism is making it very hard for actual artists/musicians to do their creative work thebaffler.com/latest/we-bo...

New York Magazine@nymag.com · 3mo ago

Why keep returning to China? Why marry a gene-editing outlaw? What had she learned from this? Cathy Tie did not really want to discuss. Read Elizabeth Weil’s interview with the ‘Biotech Barbie.’

"A caped, sequined Jenny Packham ensemble lay on the couch. 'Is this your dress?' I asked. 'Gown,' Tie corrected." Oh this is gonna be amazing

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Reading this is like what I imagine it feels like to take acid and walk around a carnival funhouse. We aren’t living in the same world. nymag.com/intelligence...

Why keep returning to China? Why marry a gene-editing outlaw? What had she learned from this? Cathy Tie did not really want to discuss. Read Elizabeth Weil’s interview with the ‘Biotech Barbie.’

Biotech Barbie Had a Hard Year

Cathy Tie (briefly) married a gene-editing outlaw and got barred from China. So she threw herself a 30th birthday party at Carnegie Hall.

nymag.com

MAJOR NEWS in our house. Daniel Duane's mountain epic is coming out in November. If you love California — or just love good writing and have a taste for wrestling with landscapes and dreams — this one of is for you.

Dilley used to grow 25 million pounds of watermelon a year and call itself “the watermelon capital of Texas.” Now it’s a carceral town, specializing in immigrant children detained with their families by ICE.

The Loneliness of Protesting ICE in the Shadow of Dilley Detention Center

A nun leading a 90-mile walk. 30 teenagers serving in-school suspension.

nymag.com

I went to Texas and wrote about the town of Dilley, which has more prison & detention center beds than residents, and 30 kids in a high school of 4,000 brave enough to protest ICE. nymag.com/intelligence...

What It’s Like to Protest ICE in the Shadow of Dilley Detention Center

A pastor leading a 90-mile walk. 30 teenagers serving in-school suspension.

nymag.com

looking for some great essays on girlhood ...

Am thinking a lot about this terrible subject prepping for an upcoming @onwithkaraswisher.bsky.social pod in the wake of the heinous situation at Grok & the complicity of Apple and Google and this piece by Elizabeth Weil of @nymag.com is a must read and a gut punch. www.thecut.com/article/sibl...

When Your Son Abuses Your Daughter

Sibling sexual abuse forces parents to make an impossible choice: Do they forsake one child to protect the other?

thecut.com

Will Gavin Newsom be doing a sassy tweet about how his state’s university system is allowing the feds to use state property to make bad remakes of Leni Riefenstahl films? I assume not

This piece is not for everybody. But in the past day I've heard from so many survivors and parents, grateful to these families who shared their stories with me. Sibling abuse is far more common than we like to admit. Resources & community for those who need it at www.5waves.org

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I vacillated on sharing this story. It’s well done — clear thinking about a complex issue, resulting in clear writing that devastates you. I don’t know if that is an endorsement or not. That’s all I can say. www.thecut.com/article/sibl...?

This gutted me to write. Hope it makes someone feel less alone. As one researcher put it, sibling abuse is on edge of what we allow our ourselves to know about what people do to each other. Abuse happens not just w/strangers, not just w/adults, but w/children, sometimes even children in same family.

New York Magazine@nymag.com · 7mo ago

When sibling sexual abuse occurs, families find themselves in a moral crevasse. As a parent, what do you do with the fact that not only do you love both these children, but it is also your duty to care for them both?

This gutted me to write. Hope it makes someone feel less alone. As one researcher put it, sibling abuse is on edge of what we allow our ourselves to know about what people do to each other. Abuse happens not just w/strangers, not just w/adults, but w/children, sometimes even children in same family.

New York Magazine@nymag.com · 7mo ago

When sibling sexual abuse occurs, families find themselves in a moral crevasse. As a parent, what do you do with the fact that not only do you love both these children, but it is also your duty to care for them both?

I spent the end of last year, talking with two families about living through the unthinkable. www.thecut.com/article/sibl...

When Your Son Abuses Your Daughter

Sibling sexual abuse forces parents to make an impossible choice: Do they forsake one child to protect the other?

thecut.com

anybody have a tween or young teen with an elaborate skincare routine and a desire to talk about girlhood, time, aging, and growing up in 2026? for a story with a vibe kind of like this: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Hanna, Beaux and Harry: A Love Story (Published 2018)

Hanna is a person who falls in love with one thing and then falls in love with another thing and then just adds on. And so it was with Harry and Beaux.

nytimes.com

I wrote about the private, intimate, often ridiculous agonies of working for a man who think you’re a monster nymag.com/intelligence...

Doughnuts and Bullets: The Absurdity of Working for RFK Jr.

What happens when your new boss thinks you’re a child killer?

nymag.com

Hell of a life.

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91

nytimes.com

So incredibly proud (and sometimes a little envious!) of my better half, Dan Duane, and his perfect second act as a psychotherapist. He's seeing clients in Hayes Valley or online and also coaching creative people on getting unstuck and reaching their dreams. www.danielduanetherapy.com

"Among his clients is a man who was living in a facility for homeless vets & who was raped as a child & is serving 28 years to life for attacking another vet w his cane. Another is serving 45 years to life for accosting a man on a street & attempting to steal his wallet before the man ran away."

New York Magazine just published an in-depth article about Mark and David Geier, tracing Mark’s professional journey—from his emergence as a prominent anti-vaccine advocate to the controversy that led to the loss of his medical license nymag.com/intelligence...

The Father-and-Son Duo Who Toppled Our Trust in Vaccines

Thirty years ago a doctor named Mark Geier spread fears about vaccines and autism. Now his son, David, is reportedly looking for a link for RFK Jr.

nymag.com