The Current CBC News & Politics

Neuroscientist John Kounios has been studying the brains of jazz musicians, hoping to better understand the concept of flow. He tells us what he learned about flow, the state where a person becomes so immersed in an activity that time and complexity melt away.

More and more municipal politicians are leaving their jobs because of the abuse they face and the toll it takes. Matt Galloway talks to Waterloo, Ont., city councillor Jen Vasic; Calgary city councillor Jasmine Mian; and Montreal borough councillor Younes Boukala.

NASA’s Voyager 1 started sending gibberish back to Earth a few months ago, after almost 50 years of communication from deep space. This week the space agency announced they’d fixed an error — at a distance of 24 billion kilometres. Astronaut Chris Hadfield talks to Matt Galloway about how they did it and what Voyager means to us here on this pale blue dot. 

The federal government’s buyback program for assault-style firearms has hit a snag: Canada Post is refusing to collect the banned guns, citing safety concerns for its employees. We look at what Ottawa can learn from countries like Australia, which implemented a large-scale gun buyback program after a mass shooting in the 1990s.

A bird flu virus, H5N1, has infected cattle in the U.S. It’s raising fears it could jump to other species like humans. We ask experts how concerned they are about the virus and whether it poses the risk of a fresh pandemic. 

Artificial intelligence has its roots in Canadian research, but some experts worry the country risks being left behind as AI accelerates. David Skok, editor and CEO of The Logic, explores how to seize this moment in the new book, Superintelligence: Is Canada Ready for AI?