Let’s Not Go Back to Normal

  From Juliette Binoche to Robert De Niro more than 200 artists and scientists around the world sign a call to arms by saying “No to going back to normal” after Covid-19. Actress Juliette Binoche who pins it down in the French newspaper Le Monde, recites clearly and precisely that we, as individuals and societies, must act immediately to sustain a coherent and dignified life during and after the pandemic : The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy. This crisis is, however, inviting us to examine what is essential. And what we see is simple : « adjustments » are not enough. The problem is systemic.

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An Astrophysicist’s Flirt with the Universe

We are confined within the limits of our knowledge of the natural world, and yet we strive toward knowledge, always more knowledge… Yet we cannot ever think that we know everything. Knowledge advances yes, but it is like an island surrounded by the ocean of the unknown. “As the Island of Knowledge grows so does the shore of our ignorance.” We are actually confronting the mystery of who we are.

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A Life Truly Lived

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us and take with us when we depart. Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004), in her pioneering work with patients nearing the end of their lives in palliative care, interviewed them on their feelings about life and death, and how they measure the life they lived.  The results of her work proclaim that the patients unanimously express their emotional state as  “yearning for love,”  a shield needed against the fear of death, and the measure of the degree of inner peace and contentment they savor at the end of their life

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Paying Homage to Leonardo da Vinci 500 Years After His Passing

    “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”  The great Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) –timeless artist, engineer, architect, mathematician, and scientist, with profound knowledge in everything from anatomy and optics to physics to light –is commemorated at the Louvre Museum for the fifth centenary of his death. In his quest to understand the relation between the physical and the metaphysical, he spent a lifetime studying the human being and its place in the universe. His brave creativity, endless genius, and artistic talents arching far beyond the perceptual and scientific realities of

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The Emotional Life of Our Brain

  “When we are about to choose a partner, or get married to a certain partner –that’s the kind of decision that we cannot make based on a cold cognitive calculus” says Richard Davidson, the seminal neuroscientist known for his research on what determines our emotional styles. In the interview with Krista Tippet, he adds  “we consult our emotions for making that decision, and if our emotions were disrupted, it will really impair our capacity to make those kinds of decisions.” In the assessment of the functioning of the emotional brain, he identifies six innate capacities which constitute our emotional

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Dancing Keeps Us Happy

  In the dance, one finds the cinema, the comic strips, the Olympic hundred meters and swimming, and what’s more: poetry, love and tenderness, said Maurice Bejart, the exceptional choreographer, opera director and dancer. Long before neuroscience confirmed that our brains are wired to move along with music, dancing was there. Babies, children, and adults, all instinctively move to the rhythm of the music. Based on recent cognitive research, it seems like human beings are universally synchronized with the chords of music. Moreover, the rhythmic movement lifts our mood, regulates the mental and emotional fluctuations, and we become happier. Such

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