💡 The Bad Trip Detective

The latest from Nautilus and the wider world of science. [View in browser](| [Join Nautilus]( Together with Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here.]( This Tuesday, check out the top science news and the latest from Nautilus—plus your free story and question of the day below [READ NAUTILUS]( DISCOVERIES The Top Science News This Week [Bonobos May Be More Aggressive Than Scientists Thought]( “Surprisingly, we found higher rates of male-male aggression among bonobos than chimpanzees.” [Current Biology→]( [Images from Tarnished Daguerreotypes Come to Life Using X-Rays]( The corroded 19th-century pictures offer a new way to glimpse history. [Journal of Cultural Heritage→]( [Formation-Flying Spacecraft Could Probe the Solar System for New Physics]( The University of Rochester released a confidential 124-page report which concludes that the physicist is guilty of scientific misconduct. [Universe Today→]( [World’s Top Cosmologists Convene to Question Conventional View of the Universe]( A meeting at London’s Royal Society will scrutinize the basic model first formulated in 1922 that the universe is a vast, even expanse with no notable features. [The Guardian→]( [Never Seen an Exploding Star? This Year, You'll Have Your Chance]( “Seeing that star blow up is much rarer than a solar eclipse.” [NPR→]( [The Real Point of Babbling]( The link between how birds learn to sing and humans learn to speak. [PNAS→]( [The Values Bringing Humanity Together and Splitting Us Apart]( “Values emphasizing tolerance and self-expression have diverged most sharply, especially between high-income Western countries and the rest of the world.” [Nature Communications→]( [Iron Nanoparticles Help Moon Dust Store Helium-3]( This finding will inform how valuable helium-3 reservoirs develop by space weathering like solar wind. [Communications Earth & Environment→]( WE ARE CURIOUS TO KNOW... What happened during one of your bad psychedelic trips? Let us know! Reply to this newsletter with your response, briefly explaining your choice, and we’ll reveal the top answers. (This question was inspired by [“The Bad Trip Detective.”]() Top Answer to Our Previous Question(On a Situation When Time Seemed to Stand Still) • I fell through the ice in full ski gear. There was a moment when white shards gave way to black water. It seemed the moment my legs went under was an eternity and seemed like a full minute before the water enveloped my shoulders. Burned into my brain. – Elizabeth F. The Tree Of Life: A Love Letter To Nature [PhotoVogue's 2024 Global Open Call]( invites artists worldwide to share works that celebrate nature's beauty and resilience. If you’re a photographer or videographer with a passion for the natural world your work could be included in the 2024 PhotoVogue Festival in Milan and featured in an issue of Vogue. Additionally, the two artists who submit the most compelling and meaningful work will be granted $5,000 each. The deadline for entry is April 29th, so follow the link below for additional details. [Learn More]( From The Porthole—short sharp looks at science [PSYCHOLOGY]( [The Bad Trip Detective]( The researcher delving into the downsides of psychedelic drugs. BY SHRUTI RAVINDRAN Jules Evans was 17 years old when he had his first unpleasant run-in with psychedelic drugs. Caught up in the heady rave culture that gripped ’90s London, he took some acid at a club one night and followed a herd of unknown faces to an afterparty. There, he found himself pursued by a single thought, which followed him like a hunter’s sights: He was behaving badly, and everyone in the room couldn’t stop talking about him. A few months later, he started to experience bouts of panic and social anxiety, neither of which he’d ever felt before. “I was very worried that I’d damaged my brain, and that it was permanent,” Evans recalls. He steered clear of psychedelics. But for the next six years, he suffered from panic attacks, social anxiety, dissociation, and depression, which only cleared after a course of cognitive behavioral therapy. [Keep on reading]( Your free story this Tuesday! [PSYCHOLOGY]( [Why Scientists Need to Get High]( Psychoactive drugs have long been hailed as miracle cures. But you can only understand the paths they blaze through the mind if you’ve traveled them. BY STEVE PAULSON It’s remarkable how fast psychedelics have gone mainstream. [Continue reading for free→]( Step into the Void “Somewhere across the plain of imminence, shouting into the void …” That’s singer Nate Hardy from the second track of Microwave’s latest album Let’s Start Degeneracy. Voids—of the emotional sort—are a recurring theme across the album from the cheekily self-described “adult mid-tempo psychedelic contemporary rock band from Atlanta, GA.” It’s fitting then, that Nate has chosen to read [this story]( from one of our most prolific contributors, theoretical cosmologist Paul M. Sutter. Sutter tells us, “This story about voids is deeply personal to me, as voids have always struck a chord with me and been the focus of my scientific research. But there's so much more to the concept of nothingness than just their physical manifestation, and it's beautiful to hear echoes of that search in Nate's narration.” You can now [watch]( or [listen]( to Hardy read Sutter’s story “Why We Need to Study Nothing.” [WATCH]( [LISTEN]( P.S. The Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD on this day in 1943. He first synthesized the psychoactive substance five years before that. He once had an intense mystical experience while on the drug, and would describe it as “medicine for the soul”—as [“a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.”]( Mike Jay told Nautilus that it was through Hofmann that “the word psychonaut made its way into the psychedelic counterculture. It meant someone who was a rebel or renegade or was working outside of science.” Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher Thanks for reading.[Tell us](mailto:brian.gallagher@nautil.us?subject=&body=) your thoughts on today’s note. Plus, if you find our content valuable, consider [becoming a member]( to support our work, and inspire a friend to sign up for [the Nautilus newsletter](. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2024 NautilusNext, All rights reserved.You were subscribed to the newsletter from [nautil.us](. Our mailing address is: NautilusNext360 W 36th Street, 7S,New York, NY 10018 Don't want to hear from us anymore? [Unsubscribe](