These microbes endured the unlivable. The NASA astrobiologist who studies them reveals what that means for us today

“If we’re related to every living thing on the planet, do we not have a special responsibility for every living thing on this planet? They are really all our relatives.”

“When you think about this interconnection of all these tiny causes and effects which add up to the way the world unfolds, it becomes impossible to imagine that we have complete control.”

Psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk discusses key methods for rewiring the brain, kickstarting the healing process, and opening your mind to new perspectives.

Aristotle thought that a friend you love is considered your ‘second-self’, someone whose pain feels like your own. Philosopher Meghan Sullivan asks, what happens when you extend that kind of love to strangers?

“It’s a remarkable series of events that were required for us to be here, and that so many things could have happened in a different way that we wouldn’t be here at all, both individually, and as a species.”

“I’d prefer to think about a different axis, which is, should government be more or less effective? Should government work faster or slower?”

“Even if there are beliefs that we hold that are true, if we prevent people challenging those beliefs, we will lose our understanding of why they’re true.”

“We know that as little as 10 minutes of walking can improve your mood, getting that bubble bath with the dopamine, serotonin, endorphins going. Anybody can do that.”

“We are beginning to take our first steps out into the cosmic ocean… and the water seems inviting.”

“We don’t have enough knowledge to precisely calculate what is going to happen, and so we assign probabilities to it, which reflects our ignorance of the situation.”

“The fear of panic has killed more people than most disasters themselves.”

“The voice in your head is not you. You are listening to that voice. It’s a heckler, trying to make you feel bad.”

“We are all in orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. How big is this collection of stars? Somewhere between 200 and 400 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy, about 100,000 light years across.”

“It’s not about being perfect. It’s about reducing suffering where we can, and right now, we’re choosing not to.”

“The very same time that’s making you anxious is actually your most valuable asset. You can always create more energy and more money—but you can never create more time.”

“The disease is the fact that liberalism, which used to be an ideology of building, has become an ideology of blocking.”

“You need to embrace these systems and try out what’s going on because if you don’t understand it, you really can’t hope to help your organization adapt and stay in front of this momentous, world-changing technology.”

“I think happiness is not a smiling face, it’s more a smiling soul.”

“It’s a true fact, but a bizarre one, that the reason why hundreds of thousands of people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Kyoto and Kokura, is because of a 19-year-old vacation and a passing cloud.”

“There is interesting ethical questions about how we should actually conduct ourselves in [a space colonization] exploration phase.”

“There’s a long history of people claiming planets which look Earth-like, Earth 2.0, Earth twins.”

“The more uncertain and scary things get in the world, the more we as humans are drawn to simple dichotomies.”

“Being aware of your mindsets is the difference between living a conscious life, where you’re making choices in accord with what you actually want and going where you actually wanna go, versus being on autopilot and having those mindsets subconsciously drive all of your decisions.”

“I think the key point is that doesn’t mean game over. That doesn’t mean we’re flipped into a world, and to a point of no return.”

“Asking the question of, “Where did the entire universe come from?” is no longer a question for poets and theologians and philosophers. This is a question for scientists, and we have some amazing scientific answers to this question.”

“What would a totalitarian society that is not well disposed to our own do if it had God-like power? We don’t wanna find out.”

“These days, no national news network is trusted by more than half of American adults. And that’s a problem.”

“Plato would argue that sex in and of itself is not what true love is. Sex can reach a point where you are in union with that person, where you see behind their appearances and you see behind the flesh and you experience something which is more transcendental.”