My Favorite 2018 TED Talks
The Discoveries Awaiting us in the Ocean’s Twilight Zone
by Heidi M. Sosik
Heidi’s presentation was another one of my favorite moments this year. This ambitious plan is one of the first ideas of  TED’s “The Audacious Project”, an initiative to inspire global change.

 


Click here to watch the video

Guest Post: What Is Spirituality?
An excerpt from Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty
by Thomas Metzinger
Here’s something to spend the weekend contemplating…


Can something like a completely secularized form of spirituality exist? Or is this idea perhaps incoherent—something that on second sight cannot be described consistently and without getting lost in obvious contradictions?
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10% Happier Podcast Interview
Susan Kaiser Greenland and I talk with Dan Harris on his 10% Happier podcast. Our conversation is wide-ranging—from teaching meditation in schools to careerism in the secular mindfulness movement. Dan is a self-described fidgety, skeptical ABC newsman who had a panic attack live on Good Morning America, which led him to something he always thought was ridiculous: meditation.
He is author of the bestselling book 10% Happier.

 

 

 

Click here to listen on iTunes
(podcast #121)

Mass: The quest to understand matter from Greek atoms to quantum fields
by Jim Baggott
Read an excerpt from Baggott’s intriguing new book!


What we have discovered is that the foundations of our universe are not as solid or as certain and dependable as we might have once imagined. They are instead built from ghosts and phantoms, of a peculiar quantum kind…
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Guest Post: Awake at Last
by Laurie Shiers
My friend, Laurie Shiers, shares her heartwarming, poetic, and shockingly honest account of becoming a mother. A beautiful story, beautifully told…

 

 

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The Farthest—Voyager in Space
I was looking forward to watching The Farthest—Voyager in Space, and it ended up exceeding all of my expectations. I highly recommend this beautiful and exhilarating film about a wondrous human feat!

 

 

Click here to watch the trailer

 

 

Mindfulness Lessons for Children: Video #1
We’re creating short animated videos for some of the audio recordings of my “mindfulness lessons” for kids. Here’s #1:

The New York Times: Meditation for Real Life
“How to Be Mindful Watching Fireworks”
by Annaka Harris

When we meditate with our eyes open, we can become aware of visual details we often miss in our daily lives, and we also begin to notice how our environment affects our inner experience. This can help us feel connected to the world around us, as it becomes clear that we are in fact part of the environment we are inhabiting, rather than separate from it…Continue Reading

Guest Post: The Mystery of Time
An Excerpt from Your Brain is a Time Machine, by Dean Buonomano
I enjoyed every minute of my work on Dean’s latest book, as it explores some of the most fascinating questions about both the universe and the brain: What is time? Why does time seem to speed up or slow down? Is our sense that time flows an illusion? Dean illuminates such concepts as free will, consciousness, spacetime, and relativity from the perspective of a neuroscientist. This is an exciting, mind-bending read!

 


Click here to read the excerpt from Dean Buonomano’s
Your Brain Is A Time Machine

The Mindful Games Activity Cards Are Here!
I have been volunteering for Susan Kaiser Greenland’s Inner Kids Foundation since 2005, teaching mindfulness meditation to children in schools. This year, I had the privilege of working with Susan on an exciting project — presenting her mindfulness curriculum for children on the Mindful Games Activity Cards. The dynamic and engaging lessons, games, and songs used in Susan’s meditation classes for children are finally available to the broader public!

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to purchase the
Mindful Games Activity Cards!

Guest Post: Rockets Rising
An excerpt (#2!) from Rise of the Rocket Girls, by Nathalia Holt
This is the first time I’ve ever done this… But I think the history is so important, and Nathalia has done such a beautiful job of getting it down so eloquently on paper, that I’ve posted another excerpt from her book.

Rockets were considered fringe science, and the people who worked on them weren’t taken seriously. When Frank [Malina] asked one of his professors at Caltech, Fritz Zwicky, for help on a problem, the teacher told him, “You’re a bloody fool. You’re trying to do something impossible. Rockets can’t work in space.” …
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Guest Post: Rocket Girls
An excerpt from Rise of the Rocket Girls, by Nathalia Holt
Fascinating, beautifully written, enlightening history… I love this book.

6996763824_56cf3aba81_o… It was 1968, and the women were gearing up for another go at Mars. Mariner 6 and 7 would be the latest craft to fly by the Red Planet. The computers eagerly plotted the spacecraft’s trajectories and programmed the instruments that would probe the planet from space in search of extraterrestrial life. Helen was doing contingency planning, just in case something went wrong…
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