Meditation and Low Doses of 5-MeO-DMT Induce Similar Effects
Janique Bros/Getty Images
A master meditator dedicated 15 years to mastering ego quieting. Brain scan studies indicate he may have utilized powerful psychedelics to attain an altered state.
“At low doses, there’s a significant overlap in brain activity between this psychedelic and non-dual meditative states,” explains Christopher Timmerman of University College London.
The realm of psychedelic research is expanding rapidly, revealing how substances like 5-MeO-DMT can enhance our understanding of consciousness and improve mental health. This compound, often sourced from North American toads, is particularly compelling due to its ability to rapidly disrupt mental processing without producing vivid visuals like other psychedelics.
Timmerman and his team conducted a detailed comparison between the altered states induced by 5-MeO-DMT and advanced meditation. They collaborated with lamas, experts in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, amassing over 54,000 hours of meditation data.
During three laboratory sessions, lamas meditated for 30 to 60 uninterrupted minutes, followed by either a placebo or varying doses of 5-MeO-DMT (5 or 12 milligrams). Their brain activity was meticulously measured during each scenario, alongside reports on their thoughts and sense of self post-session.
Findings revealed that low doses of 5-MeO-DMT (5 milligrams) created remarkable similarities in brain patterns to those observed during meditation. Both scenarios exhibited heightened alpha activity, which is often linked to a relaxed state, and a diminished response to external stimuli compared to placebo and baseline conditions. Gamma-ray activity, which relates to cognitive engagement, was also reduced.
Timmerman noted that while both experiences fostered a calm feeling where the lama’s thoughts “came and then vanished,” the meditative state offered a deeper sense of interconnectedness and mental clarity.
In contrast, higher doses (12 milligrams) of 5-MeO-DMT escalated gamma-ray activity, leaving the lama feeling entirely detached from his surroundings and even experiencing an overwhelming bright light. He remarked, “I’m not thinking about anything,” indicating a complete disconnect from awareness of his body and environment.
The higher dosage was linked to increased neuronal firing and entropy, suggesting overwhelming sensory input compared to both placebo and baseline conditions. Conversely, lower doses resulted in decreased neuronal firing and entropy.
Lama Records Brain Activity During Meditation
Christopher Timmerman
Researchers state that these findings are pivotal in connecting neural pathways to the “collapse of the ego” and the sensation of “contentless consciousness.” However, variations in brain activity do not fully capture the lama’s subjective experiences, acknowledges Matthew Sachet from Harvard Medical School.
This study focused on a single seasoned meditator, indicating potential limitations in broader applicability, particularly given the variability in brain activity-related studies. Additionally, ensuring participants are blinded in psychedelic studies poses challenges due to the identifiable side effects of psychedelics; fortunately, lamas reported no such effects.
Nonetheless, Timmerman asserts that if future research confirms safe integration of 5-MeO-DMT enhances the benefits of advanced meditation, it may have significant implications for a wider audience. He is conducting ongoing research to explore if the drug can facilitate faster progress for newbies to meditation but strongly advises against unregulated home use, as 5-MeO-DMT remains illegal in many jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, Sachet suggests that those seeking the mental health advantages attributed to 5-MeO-DMT might find meditation a practical alternative, offering overlapping experiences without the risks of toxicity or addiction.
Hi there! Welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. Today, I’m pondering whether it’s time to upgrade from my iPhone 11 Pro. Tech news is filled with ongoing narratives from Silicon Valley, advice on how to sidestep annual smartphone upgrade cycles, and discussions on artificial intelligence in government, for better or worse.
Decoding Silicon Valley’s Narrative
The encroachment of technology can often seem unavoidable. This has likely always been the case, but the feeling is increasingly backed by Big Tech’s own supportive media ecosystem.
My colleague Nick Robbins – Early Report:
If you’re seeking insights from key figures in the tech world, you’ll frequently encounter them on programs like Sourcery, which act as safe havens for an industry wary of critical media. Some new media platforms are created by the companies themselves, while others, like fast-moving sharks, occupy niches favored by tech billionaires. Industry leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Satya Nadella have recently engaged in lengthy, cozy interviews, while entities like Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz have ventured into launching their own media ventures this year.
In a landscape where many Americans express distrust toward major tech firms and believe that artificial intelligence will negatively affect society, Silicon Valley has crafted its own alternative media network, turning CEOs, founders, and investors into lasting and cherished celebrities. What began as a few adoring podcasters has evolved into a comprehensive ecosystem of publications and shows, supported by some of the most influential entities in the tech sector.
However, as these echo chambers within Big Tech expand, so do the critical voices emerging from within the companies.
My colleague Varsha Bansal reports on two recent developments. U.S. AI raters (a new type of contracted content moderator for AI) are discouraging their friends and family from utilizing AI. In Seattle, over 1,000 Amazon employees have anonymously signed an open letter expressing concerns that the rapid implementation of AI across the company and its products jeopardizes the environment and the jobs of its workforce.
1 dozen AI evaluators who verify the accuracy of AI-generated responses shared with the Guardian that upon realizing the capabilities of chatbots and image generators—along with the inaccuracies of their outputs—they began to advise friends and family against using generative AI altogether or at least to approach it with caution. These trainers are involved with various AI models, including Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s Grok, along with other popular and lesser-known bots.
More than 1,000 Amazon employees signed the open letter, expressing “grave concerns” regarding AI development and asserting that the company’s “all-costs-justification-at-warp-speed” strategy towards powerful technologies poses a threat to “democracy, our jobs, and our planet.”
This letter, which was made public on Wednesday and signed anonymously by Amazon staff, emerged a month after the company announced mass layoffs aimed at promoting AI usage in its operations. It carries various demands about Amazon’s impact on workplace conditions and the environment. Employees are urging the company to power all data centers with clean energy and to ensure that its AI-driven products and services do not facilitate “violence, surveillance, or mass deportation.”
ChatGPT and Mental Health
Tips for Not Buying New Gadgets This Holiday Season
New iPhone 16. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Black Friday online sales hit $8.6 billion in the U.S., according to Adobe Analytics. You might be one of the excited buyers, or perhaps, like me, you think your sputtering phone, laptop, or tablet will last another year, even if it’s cracked or barely holding a charge. The cost of a complete upgrade can be daunting.
Yet, alternatives are arising. Devices are becoming easier to repair, including Apple products. This means that even if your gadget is aging, there are often budget-friendly ways to obtain the technology you need without purchasing new devices. My colleague Alan Martin covers refurbished devices and shares five tips for navigating these options.
Understand Refurbished Terms
Refurbished can mean a variety of things. Pay close attention to the condition of the battery and what assurances are provided. Peer-to-peer purchases can be risky. The terms “used,” “secondhand,” and “refurbished” can sometimes be misleading. This is what separates reputable marketplaces like Back Market, MusicMagpie, and Refurbed from platforms where you buy directly from individuals such as Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.
Review Warranties and Return Policies
If issues arise, you’ll want to make sure you’re covered.
Examine Seller Reputation
Check customer reviews and online feedback. On eBay, look for sellers participating in the company’s refurbished product program.
Research Selected Devices
The older the device, the more significant the discount, but if you need to replace it sooner, this could lead to extra costs. Especially for mobile phones and laptops, keeping them updated ensures longevity.
Don’t Sacrifice Quality for Cost
A low price is only worthwhile if the quality is indeed delivered. We prioritize customer service and a transparent refurbishment process over just saving a few bucks.
“When buying refurbished, the best advice is to go through trusted retailers like Back Market, Giffgaff, and Vodafone. If you’re using eBay, look for items labeled as ‘certified refurbished,’” technology journalist Thomas Deehan mentioned in an interview.
Read more: From shockproof cases to updates: How to extend your smartphone’s life
AI in Government: Inept Lawyers, Automated Bureaucracy
Brazilian flag reflected in the capital Brasilia. Photo: Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images
Artificial intelligence is infiltrating various workplaces, even those funded by taxpayer dollars. The stakes in election processes and judicial decisions are far greater than those faced by private firms selling errant products, making the use of AI in government appear to be a reckless venture. However, the sluggishness of administrative processes is a global challenge, rendering AI’s potential for efficiency highly appealing. The adoption of AI in government remains in its nascent stages, producing mixed outcomes.
On the upside, countries like Brazil, Germany, and Japan are leveraging generative AI to enhance their bureaucratic functions and increase participatory processes. Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier, co-authors of the book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, note:
Brazil is notorious for its high litigation rates, with more lawyers per capita than the United States. Its courts are consistently overwhelmed with cases, leading to a backlog that costs the government billions.
Since 2019, the Brazilian government has been actively using AI to automate judicial processes. Rather than making legal rulings, AI assists in redistributing workloads, conducting legal research, transcribing hearings, identifying duplicate submissions, preparing initial signature orders, and clustering similar cases for joint assessment, all aimed at making the justice system more efficient. The impact has been significant; Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court backlog reached its lowest point in 33 years in 2025.
In Germany, new tools like Wahlweise and Wahl.chat allow the creation of an AI-powered official wall-o-mat that facilitates interactive discussions with voters, providing tailored information based on their individual interests rather than static web content outlining various political parties’ stances.
In Japan, last year, 33-year-old engineer Takahiro Anno entered the Tokyo gubernatorial race as an independent candidate, finishing fifth among 56 candidates, largely due to his innovative use of a certified AI avatar. This avatar responded to 8,600 voter queries during a continuous 17-day YouTube livestream, capturing global interest in campaign innovation.
Two months ago, Anno was elected to the Japanese Senate, again harnessing AI to engage constituents, this time answering over 20,000 questions. His new party, Team Mirai, pledges to address public queries during committee meetings based on feedback from the Mirai Congress app.
Now for the downside. In California, government attorneys neglected to verify the accuracy of AI-generated outputs while attempting to prosecute an individual. My colleague Cecilia Nowell reports on how a prosecutor’s office in California utilized AI for at least one criminal case, resulting in filings that contained inaccuracies known as “hallucinations.”
The Nevada County District Attorney’s Office in Northern California recently utilized AI to prepare court documents, which led to incorrect citations. District Attorney Jesse Wilson stated, “Once the error was discovered, the application was immediately retracted.”
Defense and civil rights attorneys contend that AI has also been deployed in other criminal court filings.
Accelerator tunnels at the European XFEL, where atomic motion is meticulously studied.
Xfel/Heiner Mueller-Elsner
In a groundbreaking achievement, a highly advanced X-ray laser has successfully unveiled the slight atomic movements of molecules that are typically expected to remain stationary.
Quantum physics thrives on uncertainty. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle prevents scientists from simultaneously and accurately determining a particle’s position and momentum, indicating that quantum particles can never be fully at rest. Instead, atoms are perpetually in motion, albeit minuscule.
Nonetheless, measuring this subtle Heisenberg wiggle is challenging in complex molecules where atoms exhibit various motion patterns. Recently, Till Janke from the XFEL facility, along with his team, successfully captured this phenomenon using molecules composed of 11 atoms, including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and iodine.
“This was my first experiment utilizing an extraordinary tool,” Janke remarked. The pivotal device was the “laser beast,” which bombarded molecules with intense bursts of X-rays. Although the pulse duration was only a quarter of a second, it was a million times brighter than conventional medical X-rays.
Each X-ray pulse stripped electrons from the molecule, causing the atoms to become positively charged and repel explosively from each other. By analyzing the aftermath of these explosions, scientists were able to reconstruct quantum variations of atoms in detail at their lowest energy states.
The team discovered that Heisenberg’s wiggle appears to follow a synchronized pattern in the movements of specific atoms. While this wasn’t unexpected based on the molecular structure, the researchers were astonished by the precision of their measurements, as noted by team member Ludger Inhester at German electronic synchrotrons.
Next, the researchers aim to explore how quantum fluctuations influence molecular behavior during chemical reactions. They also intend to adapt their methodology to study electron movements.
“We are exploring ways to expand our findings to larger systems. There are numerous avenues for future research,” shared team member Rebecca Bol from European XFEL.
This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on , when the ringed planet was about 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s razor-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring spokes.
Saturn’s spokes are temporary features that rotate with the rings. Their ghostly appearance only lasts for two or three revolutions around Saturn. During the active period, newly formed spokes continually add to the pattern.Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)
Floating Dust rides a merry-go-round around a huge ring world
However Saturn
Its unusual-looking “cup-handle” feature was first noted by Galileo in 1610, but it took another 45 years before it was described by Christian Huygens as a disk surrounding Saturn. Ground-based telescopes were then able to identify only four unique concentric circles, labeled A, B, C, and D. It could not be identified until the 1980s. NASA
The two Voyager spacecraft will fly close to Saturn and photograph thousands of concentric ringlets. An even bigger surprise for Voyager scientists was the dark, radial, spoke-like pattern on the ring’s surface that moved back and forth as it orbited Saturn.
Over the past 30 years, hubble space telescope Voyager picked up where it left off. Hubble’s ultra-clear vision is the next best thing to being there. Hubble follows a “merry-go-round” of ring spokes every year. The black spokes are believed to be dust particles suspended by static electricity above the ring surface. They seem to vary richly depending on the seasons of Saturn’s seven years. And this may be related to changes in Saturn’s magnetic field, which is influenced by the solar wind.
This is an annotated version of the image above. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)
Hubble Space Telescope observes Saturn’s ‘spokes season’
This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on , when the ringed planet was about 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s razor-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring spokes.
Saturn’s spokes are temporary features that rotate with the rings. Their ghostly appearance only lasts for two or three revolutions around Saturn. During the active period, newly formed spokes continually add to the pattern.
In , NASA’s Voyager 2 took the first photo of a ring spoke. NASA’s cassini The orbiter also sighted spokes during its 13-year mission, which ended in 2017.
Hubble continues to observe Saturn every year as its spokes come and go. This cycle is captured by Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheric Legacy (OPAL) program, which was launched nearly a decade ago to annually monitor weather changes on all four gas giants.
Hubble’s clear images show that the frequency of the spokes’ appearance is seasonal, and they appeared in the OPAL data for the first time in , but only on the morning (left) side of the ring. Long-term monitoring has shown that both the number and contrast of spokes change with Saturn’s seasons. Saturn’s axis is tilted like Earth’s, and its seasons last about seven years.
“We’re heading towards the Saturn equinox, when the spokes are expected to be at their most active, and will remain active for several years to come,” said Amy Simon, OPAL program principal scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We expect higher frequencies and darker spokes to appear.” .
This year, these ephemeral structures will appear on both sides of the Earth simultaneously, rotating around the giant world. Although it appears small compared to Saturn, its length and width can extend to more than Earth’s diameter.
“The leading theory is that the spokes are connected to Saturn’s strong magnetic field, and that the Sun is somehow interacting with that field to create the spokes,” Simon said. As Saturn approaches its vernal equinox, Saturn and its rings tilt less away from the Sun. In this configuration, the solar wind could hit Saturn’s massive magnetic field even harder, promoting spoke formation.
Planetary scientists believe that the electrostatic forces generated by this interaction cause the dust and ice to float above the ring, forming the spokes, but even after decades, no theory can fully predict the spokes. . Continued Hubble observations may ultimately help solve the mystery.
The Hubble Space Telescope is an international cooperative project between NASA and ESA. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts science operations for Hubble and Webb. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Astronomical Research in Washington, DC.
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