Consciousness

The biologist’s bold “energetic view of life” looks to the body’s strangest organelles as the link between cells, health, and mind and the foundation of our experience of being alive.

The idea of ‘biological agency’ — that life devises its own goals and behaves accordingly — complicates our understanding of what it means to be alive. But does it serve a scientific purpose?

Neuroscientists probing the boundary between sleep and awareness are finding many types of liminal states, which help explain the sleep disorders that can result when sleep transitions go wrong.

Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and overturned long-held assumptions about the immune system and RNA.

A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.

Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation while championing women in mathematics and computer science. Now consciousness is on her mind.

In a year packed with fascinating discoveries, biologists pushed the limits of synthetic life, probed how organisms keep time, and refined theories about consciousness and emotional health.

A five-year “adversarial collaboration” of consciousness theorists led to a stagy showdown in front of an audience. It crowned no winners — but it can still claim progress.

Consciousness, our experience of being in the world, is one of the mind’s greatest mysteries, but as the neuroscientist Anil Seth explains to Steven Strogatz, research is making progress in understanding this elusive phenomenon.