215. Ben Goldfarb with Brooke Jarvis - Life is a Highway: Protecting Wildlife through Road Ecology
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Release Date: 10/02/2023
259. Psychedelic Salon: Psychedelics & Substance Use With Dr. Nathan Sackett and April Pride
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Psychedelic therapy is rapidly gaining traction as a promising approach for addressing substance use disorders—from alcohol and opioids to nicotine and beyond. This session will explore how psychedelic compounds like ibogaine, ketamine, and psilocybin may help interrupt compulsive cycles, uncover root causes of addiction, and support sustained recovery. Featuring Dr. Nathan Sackett of the UW Center for Novel Therapeutics in Addiction Psychiatry, this conversation will examine how pairing psychedelic compounds with evidence-based behavioral interventions could transform the treatment of...
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258. Michael Pollan with Jon Mooallem: A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have a subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that...
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257. Dr. Nicole McNichols with Dr. Julie Gottman: You Could Be Having Better Sex
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Whether you’re married, dating, or flying solo, Dr. Nicole McNichols has some sex advice for you. And you may want to pay attention because McNichols is not only the professor of University of Washington’s most sought-after class in its history, she’s one of social media’s most popular educators on the topic of sex. Pulling from her book, You Could Be Having Better Sex, McNichols shares the latest data that shows good sex is one of the most powerful and effective sources of joy. Good sex, McNichols argues, is a gateway to better health, stronger relationships, and the diverse...
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256. Psychedelic Salon: Psychedelics & Seniors: With Scott Wright, Abbie Rosner, Dr. Emily Whinkin, and April Pride
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
As life expectancy increases, so does the need for mental, emotional, and spiritual support in later years. This Salon delves into the ways older adults are exploring psychedelics for healing, spiritual deepening, meaning-making, joyful intimacy and making peace with mortality. With insights from geriatric practitioners, researchers, and individuals with lived experience, we’ll examine how today’s older psychonauts are rewriting the narrative around aging. Scott Paul Wright is a filmmaker and screenwriter based in Paris and New Orleans. His adventures in film followed previous...
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255. Blaise Agüera y Arcas: What Is Intelligence?
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
What intelligence really is, and how AI’s emergence is a natural consequence of evolution. It has come as a shock to some AI researchers that a large neural net that predicts next words seems to produce a system with general intelligence. Yet this is consistent with a long-held view among some neuroscientists that the brain evolved precisely to predict the future—the “predictive brain” hypothesis. In What Is Intelligence?, Blaise Agüera y Arcas takes up this idea—that prediction is fundamental not only to intelligence and the brain but to life itself—and explores the wide-ranging...
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254. Psychedelic Law & Nature: What Can Americans Use Legally? Perry Salzhauer, Daniel Shortt, and April Pride
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Seattle’s 2021 ordinance decriminalized entheogens — plants and fungi that contain psychoactive indolamines, tryptamines, or phenethylamines—such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline cacti, and iboga. This Salon weaves together two threads: the little-known plant and fungal allies often left off the psychedelic main stage, and the laws that shape how we can (and cannot) work with them today. Legal experts Perry Salzhauer and Daniel Shortt explore what this ordinance means in practice, including how it shapes access, cultivation, and community use of approved entheogenic plants...
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253. Therese Huston with Katy Sewall: Everyday Strategies for a Sharper Mind
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Your brain has a favorite beverage, a surprising way to add new neurons, and strong opinions about multitasking—and it’s not what you think. In this engaging conversation, cognitive scientist Therese Huston and podcast host Katy Sewall unpack the small changes, many of which take 5 minutes or less, that can keep your brain sharp and your body calm. Based on Huston’s new book Sharp, they’ll explore topics like how to turn a scattered mind into focused energy and why switching doctors, while annoying, might be your secret weapon for your health. This is a night filled with...
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252. Psychedelic Salon: Psilocybin & Menopause: With Dr. Patricia Singh, Kelly McGinty, and April Pride
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Menopause is often portrayed as a period of decline, but what if it could be reframed as an awakening? Join co-authors Dr. Patricia Singh, psychotherapist and psychedelic integration specialist, and Kelly McGinty, nurse practitioner specializing in hormonal and integrative wellness, for a groundbreaking exploration of menopause as a transformative threshold. This session will delve into how psychedelics, especially psilocybin, offer a radical new perspective, easing cognitive rigidity, reducing internal narratives of decline, and fostering emotional and spiritual growth. Attendees will gain...
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251. Dr. Shelley Sella with Amelia Bonow: Beyond Limits — Stories of Third-Trimester Abortion Care
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
For 20 years, Dr. Shelley Sella saw patients whose diverse backgrounds and circumstances led them to the same difficult decision: to end their pregnancies. In her new book, Beyond Limits, Sella draws from her experiences to offer a window into a typical week at her clinic, weaving together patient stories—including those of a mother navigating a devastating prenatal diagnosis, a woman confronting unexpected test results after IVF, and a parent weighing safety and stability for her existing children. Dr. Sella offers a testament to a standard of care grounded in competence, compassion,...
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250. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian with Taha Ebrahimi: Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
It’s only human to project the notions we already hold onto the world around us. We want to feel connected, and we start from what we know – categories, similarities, rules, expectations. But nature is endlessly expansive, at once wildly different from the societies we are used to and yet surprisingly similar to the nuances we hold as individuals. In her debut book Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, author Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian invites readers to wander off the prescribed trails and embrace the full range of what we can take away from unexpected corners of the...
info_outlineDid you know that there are 40 million miles of roadways on earth?
While roads are practically invisible to humans, wild animals experience them entirely differently. Conservation journalist Ben Goldfarb has explored the environmental effects of this ubiquitous part of the modern world.
In his book, Crossings, Goldfarb explains how creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates; invasive plants hitch rides in tire treads; road salt contaminates lakes and rivers; and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from their habitat. These effects on nature are everywhere, all because of human activity.
Yet there is human activity that is working to combat these effects as well. Goldfarb describes conservation work such as highway wildlife bridges, similar to the I-90 wildlife corridor in Washington state. He explains how tunnels for toads and deconstructing old logging roads can make a difference. These projects and other research in road ecology are working toward lessening the hazards of roadways. While they may take up millions of miles of the planet, roads can leave a smaller impact in the future.
Ben Goldfarb is an award-winning environmental journalist who covers wildlife conservation, marine science, and public lands management, as well as an accomplished fiction writer. His work has been featured in Science, Mother Jones, The Guardian, High Country News, VICE, Audubon Magazine, Modern Farmer, Orion, World Wildlife Magazine, Scientific American, Yale Environment 360, and many other publications. He is the author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.
Brooke Jarvis is an independent journalist based in Seattle. She’s a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and a winner of the Livingston Award and the Whiting Award.
Third Place Books