The Welcome Edition (Moved to main site)

Welcome to our newsletter. The cosmos is vast and profound, full of complexity that we often forget how to see.

It’s our job to cast the light of curiosity and wonder onto the world so that you can discover the Earth from a new perspective.

This is a special edition for newcomers to the email list. Hope you enjoy it.

---

This week’s big idea: The Fabric Of Reality

When I look up at the stars, I like to imagine the alien worlds that are in orbit around them.

Most of them are probably likely deserts, like Mars or Venus. Some have life on their surface and in their oceans, with flourishing ecosystems full of strange creatures. But a special few planets have intelligent life, with creatures that have knowledge.

Through countless generations, like us, perhaps they have learned what the stars are and their potential for fuelling life.

I imagine there’s a creature on one of these alien worlds, looking up at the stars above its head at the same time as I am.

I’d imagine that both of us look at the Milky Way galaxy stretching across the sky, and consider every star it contains as another possibility for a different version of a creature like ourselves.

But we know that despite the enormous number of stars, they are just one small part of the universe. The entirety of the Milky Way, with its 300 billion stars, is just one galaxy in an ocean of others, whose every crashing wave is older than both our species.

Beyond the galaxies are the superclusters of galaxies, and they flow with the currents of an impossibly enormous cosmic web of over 100 billion galaxies.

I imagine that we both know we’re sharing the same cosmic raft. We share a fate for where the immense tides take us, but are unaware of each other’s existence except for a spark of imagined connection.

This is what I like to think the word ‘universe’ means.

But I have to remind myself that it is only half the picture…

---

 NASA recently launched a rover that will land on Mars in early 2021. It will search for life, fly a drone, and make the first-ever recordings of the sounds of another planet. Link

Single-celled organisms may be more intelligent than we thought. They can use chemical signals to find their way through complex mazes. Link

 LSD may function by reducing communication in brain regions responsible for planning and decision making, while increasing it in regions associated with sensory functions and movement. Link

---

Get more content like videos, podcasts, virtual reality, and more:

---

Walking along a muddy path, I turned the corner and there in the middle of the trail was a mirage of the most magnificent pinks and blues and red colors I had ever seen. It was electric, glowing, and vibrant, hovering just above the jungle floor, pulsing as if it was plugged in to some neon-charged power plant.

I stopped. I stared. I backed up a pace. There was no way around it and it was no mirage at all. The jungle floor in front of me was actually a kaleidoscope of thousands of butterflies. It was spectacular.

I stayed awhile gaping in wonder. Captivated, I heard this little voice inside my head say these words,

All I want is what I can see,
all I can see is in front of me.

No longer in a rush to get anywhere, or anticipating what was around the corner, coming up next, or up ahead, time slowed down. I raised my chin to the sky and said a quiet thank you, then glanced down the path just past the massive menagerie of levitating butterflies, and there, for the first time, I saw the Amazon River.

The tower of all my anxieties now lying down laterally in front of me just like that slow-moving river, for the first time in months I was at ease.

Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights