Consciousness came before life

Consciousness came before life

Stuart Hameroff, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, and Dante Lauretta writes: Most scientists and philosophers believe that life came before consciousness. Life appeared on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago; consciousness and feelings, it’s said, evolved later due to complex biological information processing, perhaps only recently in brains with language and tool-making abilities. In fact, though, there’s good reason to think that consciousness preceded life, and was central to making life and evolution possible. What is life? It is often described as its…

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Where are the artists and other celebrities willing to show the courage of America’s protesting students?

Where are the artists and other celebrities willing to show the courage of America’s protesting students?

The Nation reports: Honestly @macklemore’s “Hind’s Hall” is the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine. — Tom Morello (@tmorello) May 7, 2024 The foremost authority on the revolutionary rock/rap band Rage Against the Machine, their own guitarist Tom Morello, tweeted this. Rage Against the Machine filled stadiums in the 1990s with its brand of radical, political fire. Now Macklemore is carrying the flame. For those who haven’t heard it, “Hind’s Hall”—named after Columbia’s renamed building…

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U.S. pauses Israel arms shipment over Rafah assault fears as Biden pushes for a cease-fire

U.S. pauses Israel arms shipment over Rafah assault fears as Biden pushes for a cease-fire

NBC News reports: The United States halted a large shipment of offensive weapons to Israel last week in a sign of its growing concern over a possible military offensive on Rafah, senior administration officials told NBC News. The decision comes as President Joe Biden pushes for Israel and Hamas to compromise and reach a cease-fire deal that would head off a large-scale assault on the city in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering in dire conditions….

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Gaza’s unexploded-bomb crisis

Gaza’s unexploded-bomb crisis

Isaac Chotiner writes: Late last month, Charles (Mungo) Birch, who oversees the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in the Palestinian territories, issued a warning about the dangers posed by unexploded ordnance in Gaza, especially if and when Gazan civilians return to the enclave’s north. (On Tuesday, the Israeli military entered the southern city of Rafah, after ordering tens of thousands of people to evacuate, and took control of the Rafah border crossing.) Birch said that more unexploded missiles and…

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Judge Cannon conjures a ‘myriad’ of excuses for postponing Trump’s stolen docs trial indefinitely

Judge Cannon conjures a ‘myriad’ of excuses for postponing Trump’s stolen docs trial indefinitely

Liz Dye writes: Judge Aileen Cannon has done her duty by not doing her job. It was clear for months that the Trump-appointee was going to hold this trial after the 2024 election, or never — and preferably the second. She spent weeks considering idiotic motions and holding hearings on such thorny issues as “should the Mar-a-Lago groundskeeper who is charged with obstructing the grand jury be allowed to see the highly classified evidence his boss stole.” Spoiler alert: No….

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Finally, a possible explanation for why Biden’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, was suspended

Finally, a possible explanation for why Biden’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, was suspended

Josh Rogin writes: Considering Iran’s collaboration with U.S. adversaries in the Middle East crisis and the Ukraine war, not to mention the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions, the Biden administration would surely like to have its top diplomat for Iran on the playing field. But the State Department’s special envoy, Robert Malley, has been sidelined while under federal investigation for going on one year — without any official explanation. Now, new information about the case is coming to light. Malley, who…

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Sperm whale clicks could hide a surprisingly complex ‘alphabet’

Sperm whale clicks could hide a surprisingly complex ‘alphabet’

Science Alert reports: A recent analysis of a sperm whale’s vocalizations suggests variations in ‘clicks’ represent a kind of alphabet that forms the basis of a complex communication system. Members of the conservation initiative Project CETI discovered series of clicks less than 2 seconds in length act as codas – basic units (phonemes) of cetacean speech. The highly social mammals have previously been heard identifying themselves with unique patterns of clicking, but this is the first time a combinatorial and…

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U.S. has conveyed an ‘end of war’ guarantee, TV report quotes Hamas source saying

U.S. has conveyed an ‘end of war’ guarantee, TV report quotes Hamas source saying

The Times of Israel reports: The United States has conveyed a guarantee to Hamas, via Egypt and Qatar, that the war will end after the first, 40-day phase of the hostage-truce deal now being negotiated in Cairo, Israel’s Channel 12 news reports. Citing “a very senior Hamas source,” the TV station’s veteran Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari says the Americans have pledged, “whether Israel says yes or Israel says no, that they’ll see to it that the war comes to…

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We’ve shown Gaza’s suffering for over 200 days. Don’t look away now

We’ve shown Gaza’s suffering for over 200 days. Don’t look away now

Mohammed R. Mhawish writes: As Israel’s cruel war on Gaza surpasses 200 days, the toll it inflicts on the Palestinian people grows ever deeper. Both the land and population of the besieged Strip have been obliterated to a degree not seen since the Nakba of 1948. Famine and malnutrition have tightened their grip, leaving hundreds of thousands of families in the north and south desperate for food and medical aid as they attempt desperately to flee the bombing campaign that…

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World Food Programme Director Cindy McCain: Northern Gaza is in a ‘full-blown famine’

World Food Programme Director Cindy McCain: Northern Gaza is in a ‘full-blown famine’

NBC News reports: Cindy McCain, the executive director of the World Food Programme, said she believes there is a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza. “Whenever you have conflicts like this, and emotions rage high, and things happen in a war, famine happens,” McCain said during an interview with Kristen Welker set to air Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “What I can explain to you is — is that there is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and…

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Biden is days from a key statement on Israel and Gaza. Here’s what the ally who sought it expects

Biden is days from a key statement on Israel and Gaza. Here’s what the ally who sought it expects

HuffPost reports: With the Biden administration days away from issuing its opinion on whether Israel is violating international and U.S. law in Gaza, the lawmaker who pushed for a State Department probe of that question doubts he’ll get an honest answer. Starting in December, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) rallied 19 senators to support legislation demanding assurances that all countries receiving American weaponry — including Israel — are complying with international and U.S. statutes barring violence against civilians and efforts…

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U.S. diplomat who quit over Biden administration’s Gaza policy speaks out

U.S. diplomat who quit over Biden administration’s Gaza policy speaks out

CNN reports: Hala Rharrit never expected that she would choose to leave her career as a US diplomat. She had spent her “entire adult life” at the State Department having joined the foreign service in 2006, raising her hand for one of the toughest postings — Yemen — for her first assignment and going on to serve in places like Hong Kong, Qatar and South Africa. About a year and a half ago, after mostly behind-the-scenes roles, Rharrit became an…

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We Columbia University students urge you to listen to our voices

We Columbia University students urge you to listen to our voices

Columbia College Student Council: On Tuesday night, we watched in horror as hundreds of riot police flooded our beloved campus and brutalized our classmates. The next day, students awoke with swollen faces, bruised wrists, and lacerations – all results of inhumane police treatment. The past two weeks have been tumultuous, marked with mass arrests of student demonstrators, an encampment on our lawns, national media attention, and vile acts of hatred. Countless have spoken on our behalf. But by speaking over…

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