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What If the Placebo Effect Is the Point?

Belief alone produces measurable, neurobiologically real healing responses. The pharmaceutical industry has spent decades treating this as a problem to control for. Maybe it's the most important thing they've found.

Stories from the Edge

Belief alone produces measurable, neurobiologically real healing responses. The pharmaceutical industry has spent decades treating this as a problem to control for. Maybe it's the most important thing they've found.

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The Plant That “Witnessed” a Murder — And the Ones That Actually Did

The Plant That “Witnessed” a Murder — And the Ones That Actually Did

Near-Death Experiences Are Being Studied in Hospital ICUs. The Results Aren't What Skeptics Expected.

Near-Death Experiences Are Being Studied in Hospital ICUs. The Results Aren't What Skeptics Expected.

The standard explanation for near-death experiences is that they are a product of the dying brain — oxygen deprivation, neurotransmitter floods, the mind's last-ditch attempt to make sense of its own shutdown. It's a clean, materialist explanation, and for decades it was enough to stop

The Researchers Who Proved Plants Scream

The Researchers Who Proved Plants Scream

The plants in the greenhouse were stressed. They had been left without water for several days, or had their stems cut, or had been left alone. And they were, as it turned out, making noise about it. Not noise you can hear. The sounds registered between 20 and 100 kilohertz