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      The Psychedelic Evangelist

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      Before he died last year, Roland Griffiths was arguably the world’s most famous psychedelics researcher. Since 2006, his work has suggested that psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, can induce mystical experiences, and that those experiences, in turn, can help treat anxiety, depression, addiction and the terror of death.Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University received widespread recognition among scientists and the popular press, helping to pull the psychedelic field from the deep backwater of the 1960s hippie movement. This second wave of research on the hallucinogenic compounds bolstered political campaigns to decriminalize them and spurred biotech investment.Dr. Griffiths was known to friends and colleagues as an analytical thinker and a religious agnostic, and he warned fellow researchers against hype. But he also saw psychedelics as more than mere medicines: Understanding them could be “critical to the survival of the human species,” he said in one talk. Late in life, he admitted to taking psychedelics himself, and said he wanted science to help unlock their transformative power for humanity.Perhaps unsurprisingly, he held a vaunted, even prophetic role among psychonauts, the growing community of psychedelic believers who want to bring the drugs into mainstream society. For years, critics have denounced the outsize financial and philosophical influence of these advocates on the insular research field. And some researchers have quietly questioned whether Dr. Griffiths, in his focus on the mystical realm, made some of the same mistakes that doomed the previous era of psychedelic science.Now, one of his longtime collaborators is airing a more forceful critique. “Dr. Griffiths has run his psychedelic studies more like a ‘new-age’ retreat center, for lack of a better term, than a clinical research laboratory,” reads an ethics complaint filed to Johns Hopkins last fall by Matthew Johnson, who worked with Dr. Griffiths for nearly 20 years but resigned after a charged dispute with colleagues.Roland Griffiths, director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, in 2021.Matt Roth for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Total Solar Eclipse Safety: How to Watch Without Hurting Your Eyes

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      A number of case studies published after recent total solar eclipses highlight the importance of safe viewing.A young woman visited New York Eye & Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai Hospital shortly after the eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017. She told Dr. Avnish Deobhakta, an ophthalmologist, that she had a black area in her vision, and then drew a crescent shape for him on a piece of paper.When Dr. Deobhakta examined her eyes, he was astonished. He saw a burn on her retina that was exactly the same shape. It was “almost like a branding,” he said.She had looked at the sun during the eclipse without any protection. The burn was an image of the sun’s corona, its halo-like outer rim.With every eclipse, ophthalmologists see patients who looked at the sun and complain afterward that their vision is distorted: They see small black spots, their eyes are watery and sensitive to light. Usually, the symptoms resolve, although it may take several weeks to a year.But the woman’s retinal burns, which Dr. Deobhakta and colleagues described in a medical case write-up, would not heal. Her retina was permanently scarred and a sign of the severity of injuries that can follow looking at an eclipse without proper precautions.With the coming eclipse in April, ophthalmologists advise people to be careful and not assume that short glances at the sun are safe. Damage can occur, they say, in less than a minute.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to Check in on Your Emotional Well-Being

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      We know we should get a physical exam every year; we have annual reviews at work; some couples even do periodic relationship audits. And yet many of us don’t regularly check in with our emotional health — though it is arguably the most important contributor to overall well-being. The New York Times talked to experts […] More

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      Yale Apologizes for Its Connections to Slavery

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      The university also issued a historical study and announced steps to address this legacy, including new support for public education in New Haven, Conn.Yale University on Friday issued a formal apology for its early leaders’ involvement with slavery, accompanied by the release of a detailed history of the university’s connections to slavery and a list of what it said were initial steps to make some amends.The announcement came more than three years after Yale announced a major investigation into the university’s connections to slavery, the slave trade and abolition, amid intense national conversations about racial justice set off by the murder of George Floyd. And it frames what the school’s leaders say will be a continuing commitment to repair.“We recognize our university’s historical role in and associations with slavery, as well as the labor, the experiences and the contributions of enslaved people to our university’s history, and we apologize for the ways that Yale’s leaders, over the course of our early history, participated in slavery,” the university’s president, Peter Salovey, and the senior board trustee, Josh Bekenstein, said in a message to the university community.“Acknowledging and apologizing for this history are only part of the path forward,” they continued. The university is also creating new programs to fund the training of public schoolteachers for its home city, New Haven, Conn., whose population is predominantly Black. And Yale will expand previously announced research partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities across the country, with a “significant new investment” to be announced in coming weeks.Unlike Harvard, which in 2022 committed $100 million to a “Legacy of Slavery Fund,” Yale did not announce an amount for all its initiatives.David W. Blight, the Yale historian who led the historical research, said in an interview that the purpose of the effort was not “to cast ugly stones at anybody,” but to present the university’s history honestly and unflinchingly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chinese Influence Campaign Pushes Disunity Before U.S. Election, Study Says

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      A long-running network of accounts, known as Spamouflage, is using A.I.-generated images to amplify negative narratives involving the presidential race.A Chinese influence campaign that has tried for years to boost Beijing’s interests is now using artificial intelligence and a network of social media accounts to amplify American discontent and division ahead of the U.S. presidential election, according to a new report.The campaign, known as Spamouflage, hopes to breed disenchantment among voters by maligning the United States as rife with urban decay, homelessness, fentanyl abuse, gun violence and crumbling infrastructure, according to the report, which was published on Thursday by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research organization in London.An added aim, the report said, is to convince international audiences that the United States is in a state of chaos.Artificially generated images, some of them also edited with tools like Photoshop, have pushed the idea that the November vote will damage and potentially destroy the country.One post on X that said “American partisan divisions” had an image showing President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump aggressively crossing fiery spears under this text: “INFIGHTING INTENSIFIES.” Other images featured the two men facing off, cracks in the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and terminology like “CIVIL WAR,” “INTERNAL STRIFE” and “THE COLLAPSE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.”The campaign’s artificially generated images, some of them also edited with tools like Photoshop, have pushed the idea that the November vote will damage and potentially destroy America.via XWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Report Says 17 Percent of Gamers Identify as L.G.B.T.Q.

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      In its first survey of the video game industry, the advocacy group GLAAD determined that few console games include queer characters.Less than 2 percent of console video games include L.G.B.T.Q. characters or story lines even though 17 percent of gamers are queer, according to GLAAD’s first survey on the industry.The survey, whose results were released on Tuesday, said a majority of respondents had experienced some form of harassment when playing online. But it also found that many queer gamers saw virtual worlds as an escape in states where recent legislation has targeted L.G.B.T.Q. people. Seventy-five percent of queer respondents from those states said they could express themselves in games in a way they did not feel comfortable doing in reality.“That is a statistic that should pull on everyone’s heartstrings,” said Blair Durkee, who led the advocacy group’s survey alongside partners from Nielsen, the data and marketing firm. “The statistic is driven largely by young gamers. Gaming is a lifeline for them.”GLAAD has produced a similar breakdown of queer representation in television since 1996. Its latest report found that 10.6 percent of series regulars in prime-time scripted shows identified as L.G.B.T.Q., which researchers said helped put their video game study in perspective.Tristan Marra, GLAAD’s head of research and reports, said that there were nearly 1,500 participants in the video game survey and that researchers used public information to meticulously search for inclusive content in games that are available on the PlayStation, Xbox and Switch digital libraries.“I am deep into gaming and still have a hard time naming” L.G.B.T.Q. characters, said Raffy Regulus, a founder of NYC Gaymers, which hosts game nights in the city. Regulus pointed to Ellie from The Last of Us and Venture from Overwatch 2 as some recent examples.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      To Make Blockbuster Shows, Museums Are Turning to Focus Groups

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      To shape its new show about life in the Roman Army, the British Museum put questions to members of the public. Other institutions are also using the same technique.Last January, 14 members of the British public entered a wood-paneled room in the back of the British Museum for a secret presentation. They were there to learn about an exhibition still in development, which the museum wanted kept under wraps.Onscreen in a prerecorded video, the museum’s curator of Roman and Iron Age coins, Richard Addy, outlined his plans for a show about life in the Roman Empire’s army. The exhibition would take visitors from a soldier’s recruitment to his retirement, he said, and would feature hundreds of objects, including the armor that warriors wore on the battlefield and letters they wrote home to their families.When the presentation was finished, a staff member from Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, a company that runs focus groups, asked the museum goers for their thoughts on aspects of Addy’s plan, including which types of artifacts the museum should show, how they should be arranged and even how much entry should cost.Most of the participants seemed excited, according to an anonymized report for the British Museum. Several attendees said they especially liked that the exhibition would focus on the stories of individual soldiers, including everyday subjects like their food and pay.Other participants were more critical. “It comes across a little dry,” one said. “It would be quite boring for a kid,” said another.Sometimes the attendees’ feedback could be “a shock to the curatorial ego,” said Stuart Frost, the British Museum official who oversees focus groups.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesA Roman long shield, or scutum, left, and the central part from a legionary shield, right, used to protect the user’s hand and provide a punching weapon.
      Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Crisis at Gaza’s Main Hospital, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes.Intense, close-quarters combat is taking place near Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip.Khader Al Zanoun/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn Today’s Episode:Crisis Heightens at Gaza’s Main Hospital Amid Dispute Over Desperately Needed FuelTim Scott Suspends 2024 Campaign, After Sunny Message Failed to ResonateCan’t Think, Can’t Remember: More Americans Say They’re in a Cognitive FogEmily Lang More