Psychedelics With Michael Pollan And Intel Student Science Fair. May 18, 2018, Part 2

Science Friday

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🗓️ 18 May 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

In his latest book, How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan writes of his own consciousness-expanding experiments with psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin, and he makes the case for why shaking up the brain’s old habits could be therapeutic for people facing addiction, depression, or death. Pollan and psychedelics researcher Robin Carhart-Harris discuss the neuroscience of consciousness, and how psychedelic drugs may alter the algorithms and habits our brains use to make sense of the world. This week, science students gathered in Pittsburgh for the finals of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a competition founded by the Society for Science and the Public. Nearly 2,000 students from 75 countries came to present their projects. Two of the finalists share their projects: Everett Kroll discusses how he created and tested an affordable 3D-printed prosthetic foot, while Alyssa Rawinski explains how she studied the feasibility of using mealworms to recycle plastics.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato, coming to you today from the studios of 90.5 WESA in Pittsburgh.
0:08.5	Now, if I say Timothy Leary, you say weird guy tripping out on LSD, right?
0:14.1	Hippies dropping acid, they're having peyote dreams out in the desert, all remnants of the drug culture of the 60s, right?
0:21.2	Well, Michael Pollan is here to change that paradigm.
0:24.5	In his new book, How to Change Your Mind,
0:27.3	the author who changed our minds about what to eat, eat food, not too much, mostly plants,
0:32.4	is here to change your mind about psychedelic drugs,
0:35.2	which science is now investigating seriously as aids for people
0:39.6	dealing with cancer, depression, and even death. He also argues that psychedelic drugs like
0:44.9	LSD and psilocybin allow parts of the brain that never talk to each other to actively communicate,
0:52.2	shaking up the snow globe, as one scientist called it,
0:55.4	allowing us to learn how the brain works or might work better
0:59.0	by looking at these new connections brought about by psychedelic compounds.
1:05.4	So if you have a question about the scientific study of psychedelic drugs
1:08.3	or how they could help us understand consciousness.
1:11.2	Give us a call on number 844-724-8255, 844-724-Sai Talk, or you can tweet us at SyFriLown.
1:20.8	Let me introduce formerly my guest, Michael Pollan, teaches writing at Berkeley and Harvard.
1:25.2	His new book, How to Change Your Mind, What the New Science of Psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression,
1:31.5	and transcendence. We have an excerpt of the book up at Science Friday.com slash mind.
1:37.4	The book is titled How to Change Your Mind. It blew my mind when I read it. I want to welcome
1:41.8	back, Michael Pollan from WLRN in Miami. Welcome back, Michael.
1:46.2	Good to have you. Oh, Ira, great to be here. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation.
	...

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