223. Britney Daniels: The Cost of Caregiving
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Release Date: 01/24/2024
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...
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249. Blaise Agüera y Arcas with Charles Mudede: What Is Life? Evolution as Computation
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
Explaining how and why our world works the way it does touches on so many fields of science: biology, chemistry, physics, and, of course, technology. However, according to researcher Blaise Agüera y Arcas, computation should also be part of the understanding of life on all levels – and going back further than one might think. In What Is Life? Evolution as Computation, Agüera y Arcas uses computation as a means of examining the complexities of our own universe. Inspired by the work of quantum mechanics pioneer Erwin Schrödinger, he revisits the question that has showcased the...
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248. Mariah Blake with Mónica Guzmán: A Legacy of Chemicals & Cover-Ups
Town Hall Seattle Science Series
From Silent Spring to Erin Brockovich, people have been captivated — and devastated — by stories of harmful chemicals and the many ways that they have altered and even ended human lives. From investigative journalist Mariah Blake comes a new book that recounts a small town being poisoned, a corporate cover up, and a grassroots movement to fight back. In 2014, after losing several friends and relatives to cancer, an insurance underwriter in Hoosick Falls, New York, suspected that the local water supply was polluted. When he tested his tap water, he discovered dangerous...
info_outlineHave you ever wondered what your nurses’ lives are like outside of the hospital?
In a new memoir, Journal of a Black Queer Nurse, Nurse Britney Daniels divulges the details of her day-to-day life. From braving the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic to giving her own clothes to a patient who was unhoused to transporting bodies to overflowing morgues (and experiencing her own physical ailments as a result), to advocating for patients of color in the face of systemic racism and more, these unseen moments as a marginalized nurse inform her authorship while helping to illuminate just some of what goes on behind the scenes.
Nurse Daniels identifies as a Black, masculine-presenting, tattooed lesbian from a working-class background. For the last five years, she has worked as an emergency room nurse. What began as a personal diary also became an instrument of healing from perpetual trauma wrought not only by what she witnessed in her career but stemming from how much she dared to care. The book may make you feel sadness, humor, anger, a sense of injustice, or all of the above in this candid account that exposes some unflattering truths about health care in the United States.
Journal of a Black Queer Nurse strives to reveal how true care goes beyond treating the physical body. Daniels asserts that it involves listening to and understanding patients and it demands that nurses — especially nurses of color — also be warriors.
Britney Daniels, RN, MSN is a Black queer travel nurse and social advocate who has worked in hospital emergency rooms all over the US. Daniels holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nursing with a concentration in nursing leadership. She is currently working on her Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree. Britney lives in Chicago with her wife, Saria, and their two dogs, Batman and Momo. Journal of a Black Queer Nurse is her first book.
Third Place Books