With device geometries on semiconductor chips continuing to shrink in order to pack ever more transistors onto a chip, semiconductor manufacturers reached a point where the device features they needed to make were smaller than the wavelength of visible light, previously used to print structures on chips through the process of photolithography. High-end chip manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), Samsung, and Intel have migrated their cutting edge fabrication to extreme ultraviolet photolithography (EUV), using a wavelength of 13.5 nanometres, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum previously called “soft X-rays” before being renamed to something less scary. (By comparison, visible light is in the range from 380 [violet] to 750 [red] nanometres.)

EUV is a technology which not only allows building things never imagined during the golden age of science fiction, it is made up of parts that, had Doc Smith dropped them into one of his Skylark novels, would have been considered techno-confabulation (“400,000° Celsius laser-driven tin plasma light source”).

But, as those who wish to survive in the semiconductor business must constantly ask, “What’s next?” As node sizes scale below the next major milestone of 3 nanometres, the sole survivor in the high-end photolithography market, Netherlands’ ASML (formerly Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography before, like all big companies, it decided a meaningless name was more appropriate) has decided the next milestone will be achieved by increasing what is called the “numerical aperture” of its photolithography machines. Numerical aperture (NA) is a dimensionless quantity that measures the amount of light an optical system can deliver to its target (similar to an f-stop 4 in visible light photography). Present-day EUV machines from ASML have a NA of 0.33, which allows a resolution of 13 nanometres (note that the optical resolution of the photolithography machine, the feature size on the chip, and the “node size” of the process are all different things, with the latter having more to do with the marketing department than engineering or manufacturing). The next generation high numerical aperture (high-NA) EUV machines under development by ASML aim to increase NA to 0.55, initially allowing 8 nanometre resolution, with scaling to as small as 3 nanometres in the future. This requires hardware even more science-fictioney than existing EUV, but also revision of the entire fabrication process. Masks (the master pattern printed on the chips), photoresists (exposed by the lithography process), and even the silicon wafers and positioning equipment (that must have extraordinary flatness and precision to cope with the minuscule depth of field at such resolutions) must adapt.

It’s taken 400 years of scientific discoveries to make it possible for anyone to find his location anywhere on the globe using GPS. //

With the letters GPS, we instantly recognize an innovation that has revolutionized our lives. The concept was born half a century ago in a sweltering room at the Pentagon over Labor Day weekend in 1973.

That’s the genesis of the concept for a constellation of platforms orbiting the Earth, transmitting radio signals to determine location. Many years of calculation, experiment, and miniaturization led to the Navigation Signal Timing and Ranging (NAVSTAR) satellites that became known as the Global Positioning System (GPS). //

Our society has been blessed with rare and precious genius that has combined across centuries to yield the civilizational achievements we enjoy today. Orbital mechanics originated from careful geometric analysis by Johannes Kepler in the 17th century. Two centuries later, electromagnetism was empirically measured by Michael Faraday and mathematically characterized by James Clerk Maxwell.

Atomic oscillation arose from the quantized radiation law Max Planck discovered, while Albert Einstein discovered relativistic effects, both in the early 20th century. These were the giants on whose shoulders later scientists and engineers stood to build their guideposts in the heavens.

While only a tiny fraction of the electorate understands the enormity of government waste, fraud, and abuse, now and then we learn of some extraordinary achievements underwritten with your tax dollars. GPS is one of them.

Health Physics 122(2):p 291-305, February 2022. | DOI: 10.1097/HP.0000000000001485

These results negate claims that the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component. We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO2 represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming.
[...]
After 1750 and the onset of the industrial revolution, the anthropogenic fossil component and the non-fossil component in the total atmospheric CO2 concentration, C(t), began to increase. Despite the lack of knowledge of these two components, claims that all or most of the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been due to the anthropogenic fossil component have continued since they began in 1960 with “Keeling Curve: Increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuel.” Data and plots of annual anthropogenic fossil CO2 emissions and concentrations, C(t), published by the Energy Information Administration, are expanded in this paper.

So why is a journal on radiation safety publishing a work on climate change? Because an examination of the ratios in radioactive carbon isotopes can reveal a lot about the sources of atmospheric carbon. C14 is useful in radiometric dating of organic matter; biologists, paleontologists, and archeologists have known this for decades. But it turns out that C-14, along with the other isotopes, C12 and C13, are useful in distinguishing anthropogenic carbon from naturally occurring carbon. Health Physics has published the research of University of Massachusetts Lowell physicists Kenneth Skrabel, George Chabot, and Clayton French on the topic, and their results are… interesting. But the study is heavy and takes a bit of unpacking.

https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Fulltext/2022/02000/World_Atmospheric_CO2,_Its_14C_Specific_Activity,.2.aspx //

Here’s the interesting bit from the abstract:

These results negate claims that the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component. We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO2 represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming. //

In other words, the narrative that human-created carbon is driving climate change is not supported by the evidence; the sun, as one might guess, has much more influence, and drastic action in the form of “very costly remedial actions” are not necessary.

I encourage everyone who reads this to go read the entire journal article. It’s long, it’s a bit tedious, as these kinds of journal articles tend to be, and there is a lot of number-crunching and explaining how the observations drive through to the conclusions. But it’s important to understand that this is how actual science is done. This is the kind of science you never see discussed much outside of the journals in which it’s presented, not only because it’s tedious and difficult for lay people to get through, but because it doesn’t fit the Left’s climate change narrative.

Xanthro
3 hours ago

After all, how could a dog be biased during interactions with the public?

Do you have dogs?

People who have or interact with dogs, know that dogs will try and please the people around them.

There was a famous experiment, which "proved" wolves were smarter than dogs. They put both in the same chainlink fenced area (one at a time, not both together) and timed how quickly the canine was able to escape the pen. Wolves ALWAYS won. 100% of the time, the wolf was able to escape in a shorter period of time. In fact, many times, the dogs never escaped, despite making rounds around the area and checking for what looked like escape routes.

Then someone pointed out, that the dogs are likely not even trying to escape, because they know they are supposed to stay in the pen. So, the experiment was changed, so that the dogs owner would call for help, and suddenly, the dogs always beat the wolves in time to escape, and it wasn't even close.

Dog behavior is GREATLY affected by human interaction, even when humans are not nearby. Dogs are even more affected when humans are close.

There is no such thing as an impartial dog.

BTW, not only was the reason for the traffic stop invalid, the entire stop would be invalid the moment the officer states that he doesn't write tickets. A traffic stop is over once the initial reason for the stop is complete, nor can the stop be extended. The moment the officer stated that he wasn't writing a ticket, the person should have been free to leave, but obviously he was not. That is an unlawful detainment.

Let's be honest, the reason for the stop was the hope of finding money that could be stolen via forfeiture.

Since its beginnings, assisted reproduction has wreaked havoc on women’s bodies and minds, deliberately left innocent children without mothers or fathers, made human existence transactional, effectively doomed millions of unborn lives to frozen orphanages, and created a moral and ethical minefield of problems for generations.

Good intention without good guardrails is exactly the kind of formula required to turn utopic fantasies into dystopian nightmares. Assisted reproduction and artificial intelligence could both use some good guardrails right about now but instead, they are heralded by those in power.

There is a belief among the rich and academic that science and technology can create capabilities beyond humans’ current physical and mental limitations. What was once an obsession with transcending death, however, has shifted in recent years to become an obsession with transcending life. //

Assisted reproductive technologies and AI have been named as tools to advance that agenda because both stem from a desire to distance and even detach us from the natural limits of our bodies and minds. People seek reproductive technologies to outpace their biological clocks or navigate the infertility hurdles they unexpectedly face. People seek artificial intelligence because it can perform research and tasks faster than humanly possible.

In reality, that is not a sustainable way to live. Humans need physical and intellectual connections with each other, and both of those are threatened by the rise of ART and AI.

New research has found that smelly armpits may turn some people into a mosquito magnet.

This is apparently the reason that some people are so plagued by the annoying critters — while others get off scot-free, according to scientists.

The House Select Subcommittee on the pandemic on Wednesday held a hearing on “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19” to gather facts about the origination of the virus that has claimed nearly seven million lives globally, including more than one million in the United States.

Several witnesses explained how the science, facts, and evidence strongly point to a lab leak in Wuhan.

Yet The New York Times reported that the GOP-led subcommittee “underscored just how difficult it might be to turn up conclusive evidence” that COVID originated in a Chinese lab, not to mention the assertion by some that the ChiComs intentionally released the virus in an effort to destroy the economies of countries not named China. //

Hence the NYT’s headline:

Republicans Push Lab Leak Theory on Covid’s Origins, but Lack ‘Smoking Gun’

Tom Cotton
@TomCottonAR
·
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The Chinese Communist Party destroyed evidence so there may never be a "smoking gun."

But all the available evidence points to a lab leak.

There's a reason why the CCP covered this up.
10:01 AM · Mar 9, 2023 //

We’re talking about the very essence of science and scientific methodology. In October 2020, Scientific American observed:

[D]oubt in science is a feature, not a bug. Indeed, the paradox is that science, when properly functioning, questions accepted facts and yields both new knowledge and new questions—not certainty.

Doubt does not create trust, nor does it help public understanding. So why should people trust a process that seems to require a troublesome state of uncertainty without always providing solid solutions?

The confidence people place in science is frequently based not on what it really is, but on what people would like it to be. When I asked students at the beginning of the year how they would define science, many of them replied that it is an objective way of discovering certainties about the world. But science cannot provide certainties. For example, a majority of Americans trust science as long as it does not challenge their existing beliefs. //

But doubt in science is a feature, not a bug. Indeed, the paradox is that science, when properly functioning, questions accepted facts and yields both new knowledge and new questions—not certainty. Doubt does not create trust, nor does it help public understanding. So why should people trust a process that seems to require a troublesome state of uncertainty without always providing solid solutions?


As a historian of science, I would argue that it’s the responsibility of scientists and historians of science to show that the real power of science lies precisely in what is often perceived as its weakness: its drive to question and challenge a hypothesis. Indeed, the scientific approach requires changing our understanding of the natural world whenever new evidence emerges from either experimentation or observation. Scientific findings are hypotheses that encompass the state of knowledge at a given moment. In the long run, many of are challenged and even overturned. Doubt might be troubling, but it impels us towards a better understanding; certainties, as reassuring as they may seem, in fact undermine the scientific process.

Welcome to explain xkcd, the site that explains many of the obscure references in Randall Munroe's amazing xkcd webcomic!

While the exact set of phenomena that unfold to release energy remains unclear, what was not debated at all was whether the potential to release heat was real. It clearly is, despite the extended difficulty scientists have had pinning down theory and practice. This issue seems entirely settled. Decades of work by hundreds of researchers reporting on their experiments and experiences of heat release “anomalies” have begun to provide a far more nuanced picture of the dynamics and the parametric guideposts that will eventually enable those studying them to narrow in on the controlling aspects. //

Given the potential value of this technology, it is no wonder that dozens of cash-strapped researchers and venture teams have soldiered on for decades. Now that ARPA-e has chosen to continue the work initiated by Google to identify a proof-of-concept design, there is new-found scientific integrity and rebranding to be done. There is also a greater awareness that what set cold fusion back and derailed early efforts was not scientific fraud but rather its far more complex sub-atomic transmutations, its multibody interactions combined with environmental factors such as temperature, pressure and light that varied by selection of component materials. These complexities still need to be sorted out but could potentially provide many viable options for sourcing and construction of systems and thus help to reduce manufacturing costs.

scientists began to wonder if Amyloid was the cause of the disease, or merely a sign of the damage the actual cause was doing to the brain; the difference between, say, a terminal disease and the tombstone left behind after it’s taken its toll.

The science, however, was settled, and alternative hypotheses would no longer be considered.

“In more than two dozen interviews,” a 2019 STAT News expose revealed, “scientists whose ideas fell outside the dogma recounted how, for decades, believers in the dominant hypothesis suppressed research on alternative ideas: They influenced what studies got published in top journals, which scientists got funded, who got tenure, and who got speaking slots at reputation-buffing scientific conferences.”

Straying outside the dogma would get you marked as a “traitor,” one prominent scientist explained, and could cost the heretic published articles, prominent posts, grant money for research, and speaking slots at prestigious conferences. //

The 100-year anniversary of Dr. Alzheimer’s discovery might have been the year for skeptics to have their say, pointing out that despite decades of research and money, no cure yet existed. //

Over the next 15 years, the 2006 study would be cited in more than 2,000 other scholarly works.

Then in 2022, it would be exposed as seemingly fraudulent by a host of credible scientific investigators.

Fraudulent, as in, literally using falsified images to make its case. The “substance,” it turns out, might not even exist.

The damage, however, was done. Since the study was first published, millions of manhours and billions of dollars had been spent chasing its conclusions. Minds that could have been working toward actual progress had instead been led astray. Conclusions based on false presumptions had been compromised — as have any studies based on those now-compromised studies that worked off of the 2006 findings.

The reality is while one (or a few) dishonest players certainly caused a great deal of damage, they couldn’t have done it without the assistance of a cabal of senior scientists who jealously guarded their theory — and put down those rebels who dared question it. //

The above is the story of how quickly greed, pride, and groupthink can get out of hand in even a strictly scientific field of research — one so many Americans across all parties and incomes and races are personally interested in figuring out.

How much easier, then, could this be in more politically fractious fields? In fields that allow the top scientists access to more than simple money and prestige, but also power.

In fields like global warming, where dissenters (or even mere skeptics) are labeled “deniers”? Just this week, Al Gore compared those skeptics to the Ulvade, Texas police, whose inaction contributed to the murder of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers.

Billions more dollars flow into this field than into Alzheimer’s research. In the name of global warming, organizations like the United Nations join powerful state actors across the planet in shaping policy and economics based on the favored research.

From its very beginning, global warming scientists’ most alarmist claims have been disproven, yet still they march on, confident as ever.

https://twitter.com/DanielTurnerPTF/status/1549737575954399233

On some moonless nights, enormous patches of the Northwest Indian Ocean and seas around Indonesia begin to glow. This event has been witnessed by hundreds of sailors, but only one research vessel has ever, by pure chance, come across this bioluminescent phenomenon, known as milky seas. Thanks to that vessel, samples showed that the source of the light was a bacteria called V. harveyi, which had colonized a microalgae called Phaocystis. But that was back in 1988, and researchers have yet to be in the right place and the right time to catch one of these events again.

Both the bacteria and algae are common to those waters, so it’s not clear what triggers these rare events. To help understand why milky seas form, researchers have gotten much better at spotting these swaths of bioluminescence from the skies. With the help of satellites, Stephen Miller, a professor of atmospheric science, has been collecting both images and eyewitness accounts of milky seas for nearly 20 years. Thanks to improvements in the imaging capabilities over the past decades, Miller published a compilation last year of probable milky seas in the time frame of 2012 to 2021, including one occurrence south of Java, Indonesia, in summer 2019. //

Although milky seas can be massive—greater than 100,000 square kilometers in the case of the 2019 sighting—the intensity of this bioluminescence is still relatively faint. By comparison, the better-known sea sparkle from marine plankton (dinoflagellates) is 10 times stronger—and even that can be hard to spot. //

“When waking up at 2200 the sea was white. There is no moon, the sea is apparently full of ? plankton ? but the bow wave is black! It gives the impression of sailing on snow!” the Ganesha crew wrote in their logs.

This glow was continuous as far as they could see, and they also compared the effect to glow-in-the-dark stickers. When they collected some of the water in a bucket they found that the light extinguished when stirred, which is the opposite of dinoflagellate behavior.

“I was surprised by their description of the pinpoints of light that vanished upon stirring and the sense that the glow was coming from depth,” writes Miller. “The disappearing glow may be due to bacterial communities being broken up that made their individual glow less apparent than when concentrated on a particle, or a change in the water that shut off that glow… not sure!” //

“I would also like to point out that while we look in collective awe at the incredible photos from James Webb Space Telescope coming from the edges of our universe, there still somehow remain these fascinating mysteries down below, waiting to be discovered, appreciated, and learned about,” adds Miller.

Edgar Allan EsquireArs Tribunus Militumreply2 days agoReader Favreportignore user

The Addams family meets the Flintstones for power tools.

The change coupled enhanced photosynthesis with improved nitrogen use. //

Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas. Extracting and burning natural gas is harming life on our planet, so we should probably stop doing it (or at least try to cut back considerably). But food crops, like all plants, need that nitrogen. It’s quite the conundrum, especially since the human population relying on those crops is slated to grow over the next few decades, while the acreage of arable land is slated to drop.

In response, genetic engineers in China have been developing crops that can thrive with less nitrogen, and they made a strain of rice with a yield that’s 40 to 70 percent higher than that of regular rice. It has more grain per branch, each grain particle is bigger and denser, and the plants flowered earlier. Most breeding methods currently used in cereal crops can only generate a yield increase of less than 1 percent, so this is a pretty big deal.

BOISE, Idaho -- Scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory have completed a rare overhaul of one of the world’s most powerful nuclear test reactors and normal operations are expected to resume later this spring, officials said Monday.

The 11-month outage at the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Test Reactor, or ATR, in eastern Idaho allowed a core overhaul that's done, on average, about every 10 years. The changeout was the sixth since the reactor started operating in 1967 and the first in 17 years.. //

The ATR is unique because unlike commercial nuclear reactors that produce heat that’s turned into energy, the ATR produces neutrons so that new materials and fuels can be tested to see how they react in high-radiation environments. The test reactor’s unique cloverleaf design includes a core that’s surrounded by beryllium metal to reflect the neutrons.

But all those neutrons put wear on the internal parts of the test reactor, meaning it would lose the ability to conduct experiments if it is not refurbished.

The reactor’s designers foresaw that problem and created a reactor with internal components that can be periodically replaced.

But there's a much higher threshold of 550° C for levitation of an ice disk to occur.

Dash a few drops of water onto a very hot, sizzling skillet and they'll levitate, sliding around the pan with wild abandon. Physicists at Virginia Tech have discovered that this can also be achieved by placing a thin, flat disk of ice on a heated aluminum surface, according to a new paper published in the journal Physical Review Fluids. The catch: there's a much higher critical temperature that must be achieved before the ice disk will levitate.

As we've reported previously, in 1756, a German scientist named Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost reported his observation of the unusual phenomenon. Normally, he noted, water splashed onto a very hot pan sizzles and evaporates very quickly. But if the pan's temperature is well above water's boiling point, "gleaming drops resembling quicksilver" will form and will skitter across the surface. It's called the "Leidenfrost effect" in his honor.

1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000
4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8. 1974: Another Ice Age?
9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life (data and graph)
10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24. 2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link)
27. 2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36. 2006: Super Hurricanes!
37. 2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41. 1970s: Killer Bees!
42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
    49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
49. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter

Transplant is "compassionate use" rather than part of a clinical trial.

On Monday, the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced that its staff had completed the first transplant of a pig's heart into a human. The patient who received the heart had end-stage heart disease and was too sick to qualify for the standard transplant list. Three days after the procedure, the patient was still alive.

The idea of using non-human organs as replacements for damaged human ones—called xenotransplantation—has a long history, inspired by the fact that there are more people on organ waiting lists than there are donors. And in recent years, our ability to do targeted gene editing has motivated researchers to start genetically modifying pigs in order to make them better donors. But the recent surgery wasn't part of a clinical trial, so it shouldn't be viewed as an indication that this approach is ready for widespread safety and efficacy testing.

Instead, the surgery was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration under its "compassionate use" access program, which allows patients facing life-threatening illnesses to receive investigational treatments that haven't gone through rigorous clinical testing yet.

The heart used for this transplant did come from a genetically modified line that was specifically engineered to reduce the chance of rejection by the human immune system. //

I hope he gets his pilot's license.

Sooo... who gets the donor's bacon?

Glad a pig was able to save this guy's bacon!

When it comes to finding ways to help people deal with life's challenges, it would be strange if thousands of years of religious thought didn’t have something to offer. //

This story is adapted from How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, by David DeSteno.

Even though I was raised Catholic, for most of my adult life, I didn’t pay religion much heed. Like many scientists, I assumed it was built on opinion, conjecture, or even hope, and therefore irrelevant to my work. That work is running a psychology lab focused on finding ways to improve the human condition, using the tools of science to develop techniques that can help people meet the challenges life throws at them. But in the 20 years since I began this work, I’ve realized that much of what psychologists and neuroscientists are finding about how to change people’s beliefs, feelings, and behaviors—how to support them when they grieve, how to help them be more ethical, how to let them find connection and happiness—echoes ideas and techniques that religions have been using for thousands of years. //

Regularly taking part in religious practices lessens anxiety and depression, increases physical health, and even reduces the risk of early death. These benefits don’t come simply from general social contact. There’s something specific to spiritual practices themselves.The ways these practices leverage mechanisms of our bodies and minds can enhance the joys and reduce the pains of life. Parts of religious mourning rituals incorporate elements science has recently found to reduce grief. Healing rites contain elements that can help our bodies heal themselves simply by strengthening our expectations of a cure. Religions didn’t just find these psychological tweaks and nudges long before scientists arrived on the scene, but often packaged them together in sophisticated ways that the scientific community can learn from.

The surprise my colleagues and I felt when we saw evidence of religion’s benefits was a sign of our hubris, born of a common notion among scientists: All of religion is superstition and, therefore, could have little practical benefit. I’ll admit that we’re unlikely to learn much about the nature of the universe or the biology of disease from religion. But when it comes to finding ways to help people deal with issues surrounding birth and death, morality and meaning, grief and loss, it would be strange if thousands of years of religious thought didn’t have something to offer.

Over the past few years, as I’ve looked back at the results of my studies and those of other researchers, I’ve come to see a nuanced relationship between science and religion. I now view them as two approaches to improving people’s lives that frequently complement each other. It’s not that I’ve suddenly found faith or have a new agenda to defend religion. I firmly believe that the scientific method is a wonder, and offers one of the best ways to test ideas about how the world works. Like any good scientist, I’m simply following the data without prejudice. And it’s humbling.

Rather than scoffing at religion and starting psychological investigations from scratch, we scientists should be studying rituals and spiritual practices to understand their influence, and where appropriate, create new techniques and therapies informed by them.