I love improv comedy because of its authenticity. You might ask me, how can a dramatic form where the performers are literally making everything up as they go possibly be authentic? To that I would say, “Yes, and… Fuck, I really should’ve thought that one through.” I’ve always been a fan of comedy, but five […]

“Autism is about having a pure heart and being very sensitive… It is about finding a way to survive in an overwhelming, confusing world… It is about developing differently, in a different pace and with different leaps,” Trisha Van Berkel. How do genes—DNA, these physical atoms: carbons, hydrogens, and nitrogens—influence our subjective experience of consciousness? And […]

I wasn’t suicidal — I was just curious what would happen if I labeled my video ‘suicide.’ Surely, the live-streaming app, that had months before been bought by the $10 billion dollar company Twitter, must’ve realized someone would do this. I imagined a notification would pop up, advising me who to call if I needed help, […]

3,250 meters above the sea and 1,000 meters above the clouds, in a wooden cabin that fits 250 people into bunks like sardines…

“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”―Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club After Fight Club was published in 1996, our dreams have further devolved and divorced themselves from […]

Monkey see, monkey do. We may not be monkeys, but we frequently ape others, mirroring their posture, behavior mood. When we act angrily, others respond with anger. When we act kindly, others respond in kind. Invisibilia’s latest episode looks at what we can do when we flip this script, and respond in an unexpected way […]

A recent Invisibilia episode discusses frames of reference—the frames we use to interpret our world—and how our own frame of reference can clash with that of others, even our own family. For immigrants and their children, differences in culture, generation, class, and historical context lead to dramatically different frames of reference—after all what is a […]

We can’t quite read thoughts yet, but we’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out what sorts of things you’re hearing about. Check out this amazing video recently released alongside the publication from Huth et al. of the Gallant Lab, and then read my summary below of how they achieved this. This is the first study […]

Neurology cannot directly explain the emergence of qualia (subjective experience), but it can study the circuitry that might be necessary for it’s emergence by using case studies of people who have experience brain damage and also techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) that can reversibly disrupt brain areas. For example a patient that has […]

Neuroscience is a broad label given to a field that is diverse for many reasons: It is a field defined by the fundamental questions it tries to answer, such as “how does the brain work,” as opposed to some fields which are defined by the techniques they use to answer questions (e.g. molecular biology). Because […]