Giants Shoulder

Evan McGloughlin
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Life Sciences
  • Weekly

A Biology & Consciousness podcast chronicling the bio-singularity. 3x times per week I speak with leading scientists at the bleeding edge of Neuroscience, Consciousness and Biology. No idea is too strange, tackled with genuine curiosity and technical rigour. Come follow the journey as I have my brain melted and ontology warped on a regular basis. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is founder of Giants Shoulder.

  1. 2d ago

    #168 - Meet The Scientist Growing Mini Brains In A Lab

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Thomas Hartung is the toxicologist who helped pioneer organoid intelligence: growing human brain tissue in a dish and wiring it up to see whether it can learn. He directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, and before that ran the European Commission's centre for validating alternatives to animal tests. His lab grows half-millimetre brain organoids by the tens of thousands. They can get better at a simple game. By the next day, they've forgotten all of it. Expect to learn: - The Pee Question: yes, you can grow a mini brain from the few cells in your urine - The Missing Cell: why organoids lacked the brain's immune cells, and why memory depends on them - The Overnight Wipe: they improve within a training session, then forget everything by the next day - The Bored Brain: why neurons in a dish are "longing for input" - The Ethics Line: could a cluster of brain tissue ever suffer, and who gets to decide? SPONSORS Download the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiants GS EPISODES MENTIONED Brett Kagan - Meet The Neuroscientist Creating New Forms of Sentient Biological Intelligence: https://youtu.be/TXlJc4tu1F8 Karl Friston - Meet The Neuroscientist Who Created The Best Universal Theory Of Brain Function: https://youtu.be/R-IZOFs4qmY Michael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyM GUEST LINKS Johns Hopkins Faculty Profile: https://hub.jhu.edu/experts/profiles/thomas-hartung/ Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT): https://caat.jhsph.edu/ Organoid Intelligence (OI): The New Frontier in Biocomputing (Frontiers in Science, 2023): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235/full Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (Field Chief Editor): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/4xNxOXNCG-E Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:11 Why Animal Testing Is Outdated Technology 0:04:13 What A Brain Organoid Actually Is 0:06:51 Can You Grow A Brain From Your Urine? 0:10:48 Tens Of Thousands Of Snowflake-Sized Mini Brains 0:11:54 The Brain's Missing Immune Cells 0:16:23 How Organoid Intelligence Began 0:18:21 The Neurons That Learned To Play Pong 0:21:50 Punished With White Noise 0:24:38 They Learn, Then Forget Everything Overnight 0:26:05 The Holy Grail: Long-Term Memory 0:29:22 Why Trained Behaviour Isn't Intelligence (Yet) 0:32:23 "Yeah, They're Thinking" 0:35:08 Testing Drugs On Mini Brains 0:37:00 A $15 Million Bet On Alzheimer's 0:40:56 A House Fly's Worth Of Human Neurons 0:43:43 The Frankenstein Problem 0:46:20 "We Could Probably Make A Dragon" 0:51:07 "Can I Talk To Them?" No. 0:54:24 Animal Testing Is Losing The Public 0:57:37 Could A Mini Brain Ever Suffer? 0:58:53 "These Organoids Will Never Be Cuddled" 1:02:20 Your Brain vs A $600M Supercomputer 1:03:58 Ask ChatGPT, Get Eaten By The Tiger 1:10:00 What Comes Next For Organoid Intelligence .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  2. 5d ago

    #167 - No.1 Plant Neurobiologist: Plant Conciousness, Root Brains & The Sentient Cell

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join František Baluška is the cell biologist who helped turn plant intelligence from a fringe idea into a field. At the University of Bonn he co-organised the first Symposium on Plant Neurobiology, and his lab showed that the same anaesthetics that knock humans out stop a Venus flytrap from snapping shut. With Arthur Reber and William Miller he co-wrote The Sentient Cell, which argues that cognition didn't begin with brains, but with the very first cell. Expect to learn: - The Anaesthetised Flytrap: why plants go under with the same drugs that knock us out - The Addicted Ants: how acacia trees hook their bodyguards so they refuse any other food - The Root Brain: Darwin's idea that every root tip acts like a mini brain - The Self-Assembling Animal: separate every cell of a hydra and it rebuilds itself - The Lost Cancer Cell: why tumours may be cells that have lost their map of the body SPONSORS Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqe GS EPISODES MENTIONED Michael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyM William B. Miller Jr. - Meet The Scientist Proving Your Cells Are Conscious and Intelligent: https://youtu.be/xrV5oGyyKSI Denis Noble - Denis Noble: Evolution Has Purpose, Cell Consciousness & Why The Last 70 Years of Genetics Is Wrong: https://youtu.be/xqw-DaWVK24 Philip Ball - Philip Ball: "Biology Is Infinitely Weirder Than We Thought": https://youtu.be/9SseGx0R0fY GUEST LINKS University of Bonn (IZMB) Group Page: https://www.izmb.uni-bonn.de/en/plant-cell-biology-1/ag-baluska The Sentient Cell (2023): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-sentient-cell-9780198873211 Anaesthetics Stop Plant Organ Movements (Annals of Botany, 2018): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6215046/ Senomic View of the Cell: Senome versus Genome (2018): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6132427/ The Third Way of Evolution: https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/frantisek-baluska LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/QbBnYnm4OTg Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:26 From Plant Roots To The Very First Cell 0:05:37 Plants vs Humans: Different In Scale, Not Kind 0:08:59 How Plants Turn Caterpillars Into Cannibals 0:10:08 The Tree That Gets Ants Addicted 0:13:26 Blind Biochemistry Or Real Cognition? 0:15:22 Do Cells Choose Their Own Mutations? 0:19:37 The Senome: The Cell's Missing Layer 0:23:55 "What Is Living Can Be Anaesthetised. The Rest Is Dead." 0:27:39 Wounded Plants Anaesthetise Themselves 0:29:02 How Do You Know A Daffodil Is Knocked Out? 0:36:03 The Field Science Tried To Shut Down 0:37:25 Darwin's Root-Brain Hypothesis 0:38:55 Roots That Swarm Like Birds 0:40:51 Underground Plant Wars 0:41:31 The Fungal Internet 0:47:10 Could AI Let Us Talk To Plants? 0:50:00 Cell Sentience vs Human Consciousness 0:53:10 Why Your Sense Of Self Is An Illusion 0:57:03 The Animal That Rebuilds Itself From Loose Cells 1:01:46 Your Membrane Traces Back To The First Cell 1:05:52 Heart Transplants And Personality Changes 1:10:31 Cancer Cells Have Lost The Map 1:15:15 "The Gene Outside The Cell Is Nothing" 1:16:47 Will Michael Levin Win A Nobel? .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  3. Oct 22

    #166 - Meet the Neuroscientist Who Discovered That Some People Have No Inner Speech

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Johanne Nedergaard is the cognitive scientist who, with Gary Lupyan, named anendophasia: the absence of an inner voice. An assistant professor at Aarhus University and a 2024 Aarhus University PhD prize winner, she ran the first experiments testing what changes when the voice in your head goes quiet. The answer was far less than anyone expected. Expect to learn: - The Missing Voice: why some people report no inner speech at all, and why nobody noticed - The Rhyme Test: they struggled with word lists and rhymes, until they said the words out loud - Mind Over Muscle: jam someone's inner voice and they push less hard on the bike - Heart Talk: raising your heart rate while lying perfectly still, using only words - The Control Question: why mental health tracks whether you can switch your inner voice off, not whether it's kind SPONSORS Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqe GS EPISODES MENTIONED Russell Hurlburt - No. 1 Inner Experience Expert: Inner Monologue, Aphantasia and How Your Mind Lies to You: https://youtu.be/j0gKl-g3DNg Adam Zeman - The Blind Mind’s Eye: How Aphantasia Is Rewriting Consciousness ! Dr Adam Zeman: https://youtu.be/SgA2up6-Bok Alex Hutchinson - Alex Hutchinson: The Lie That Unlocked Human Limits, Tricking Perception & Aphantasia!: https://youtu.be/YqqU4ckq8s8 GUEST LINKS Aarhus University Profile: https://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/au651723@cc.au.dk Personal Site: https://johannenedergaard.github.io Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/johanneskned.bsky.social Nedergaard & Lupyan (2024), Not Everybody Has an Inner Voice: https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241243004 Nedergaard et al. (2023), Mind Over Body: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2023.102472 Wallentin et al. (2025), Heart Talk: https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70138 LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/a81yY0k4x78 Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:02 What Is Anendophasia? 0:04:19 The Viral Threads That Started It All 0:05:57 Four Experiments on People With No Inner Voice 0:07:12 Saying the Words Out Loud Closed the Gap 0:14:10 Can You Trust Your Own Introspection? 0:17:27 Detecting Inner Speech From the Outside 0:19:56 How Many People Have No Inner Voice? 0:20:54 Where Your Inner Voice Comes From 0:23:24 Is It Genetic? 0:26:06 Unconscious Inner Speech and the Aphantasia Parallel 0:30:58 Deaf People Sign to Themselves Silently 0:33:25 What Your Self-Talk Reveals About Your Sport 0:35:46 Jam Your Inner Voice and You Push Less Hard 0:43:45 Raising Your Heart Rate With Words Alone 0:47:12 Positive vs Negative Self-Talk in Sport 0:52:55 What Silent Minds Reveal About Thinking 0:56:13 Mental Health Is About Control, Not Content 1:02:23 Psychedelics and the Inner Voice 1:03:51 Can You Train an Inner Voice? 1:07:25 They Never Rehearse Conversations .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  4. Oct 19

    #165 - Donald Hoffman: "Consciousness Within Space-Time Is Doomed"

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Donald Hoffman is the cognitive scientist whose own maths told him reality isn't what it seems. Around 1986, after seven years modelling perception, the equations said we render the world on the fly, and he has been recovering ever since. Now Professor Emeritus at UC Irvine, he has founded the Trace Institute to rebuild physics from conscious observers, starting outside spacetime. Its first collaboration, with Andrew Gallimore, asks whether DMT entities are glimpses beyond the headset. Expect to learn: - The Trace: the 121-year-old maths behind every observer window - Zero For Trillions: why no theory of consciousness explains a single experience - The Nose Test: why seeing your own nose shows how restricted your headset is - The DMT Experiment: passing information through an entity under controlled conditions - Mach 40: what UFOs might look like to someone with the headset's source code SPONSORS Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqe Join the Outskill AI Mastery Sprint (Free This Weekend) - https://links.outskill.com/GIASHOULAUG2 GS EPISODES MENTIONED Andrew Gallimore - No.1 DMT Neurobiologist: Alien Worlds, DMT Entity Encounters, Attractor States and Consciousness: https://youtu.be/USgWrxEFWDA Michael Graziano - Is This Greatest Consciousness Theory You’ve Never Heard Of: https://youtu.be/ZnasmLpY5_8 David Luke - Meet the Professor of Paranormal Consciousness - DMT Entities, Telepathy Tapes & OBE's: https://youtu.be/qLKD1gt1X5o Karl Friston - Meet The Neuroscientist Who Created The Best Universal Theory Of Brain Function: https://youtu.be/R-IZOFs4qmY GUEST LINKS Trace Institute Profile: https://traceinstitute.org/people/donald-hoffman/ Trace Institute Website: https://www.traceinstitute.org/ Trace Institute YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TraceInstitute X: https://x.com/donalddhoffman UC Irvine: https://sites.socsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ The Case Against Reality (2019): https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393254693 Trace × Andrew Gallimore (DMT research): https://traceinstitute.org/collaborations/gallimore/ LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/dOAo04b6jCQ Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:45 The Biggest Unsolved Problem In Science 0:05:38 Physicists Say Spacetime Is Doomed 0:11:03 Dennett, Graziano And The Illusion Of Consciousness 0:14:35 What Is A Trace? Markov Chains Made Simple 0:22:23 The Discovery That Founded The Trace Institute 0:26:10 Recursive Trace Logic: How Observers Become Agents 0:31:27 The CCTV Metaphor For Reality 0:37:01 Why There's Always A Nose In Your Vision 0:41:08 How Big Is Reality Beyond The Interface? 0:43:10 What "Consciousness Is Fundamental" Actually Means 0:52:43 Consciousness Science Has Explained Zero Experiences 0:58:03 Does Your Consciousness Belong To You? 1:01:57 If Consciousness Is One, Why Isn't Telepathy Common? 1:08:16 "I Have No Neurons" 1:11:13 The Maths That Slapped Him In 1986 1:20:04 Andrew Gallimore And The DMT Entity Experiment 1:26:34 The Swami Who Showed Zero Powers 1:32:08 The DMT Mantis And Why Reports Are So Consistent 1:37:28 Are DMT Entities Real, Or Just Icons? 1:46:35 Nine Conjectures To Rebuild All Of Physics 1:49:29 UFOs At Mach 40 1:50:19 Neuroscience As Headset Engineering 1:57:13 Hacking The Source Code Of Reality 2:04:28 AI Is "Dumber Than Cucumbers" .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  5. Oct 15

    #164 - Meet The Scientist Who Thinks Aliens Are Actually Humans From The Future

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Michael Masters is the biological anthropologist who thinks the grey aliens might be us. A professor at Montana Technological University, he studies how the human skull, face and eyes evolved over six million years, and has excavated at a 3.5-million-year-old hominin site in South Africa. His extratempestrial hypothesis argues that the beings described in UFO encounters are our own descendants, travelling back in time to study their evolutionary past. He says it's falsifiable, just not in his lifetime. Expect to learn: - The Brazilian Farmer: the 1950s abduction that ended in sex with a near-human woman - The Earlier Cases: the abduction reports that predate Betty and Barney Hill - Brain Up, Face Back: why six million years of skull evolution point towards the greys - The Gamete Problem: why our descendants might come back for our sperm and eggs - Falsifiable By Time: why he'll be "long dead" before anyone knows if he's right SPONSORS Get Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulder GS EPISODES MENTIONED Andrew Gallimore - No.1 DMT Neurobiologist: Alien Worlds, DMT Entity Encounters, Attractor States and Consciousness: https://youtu.be/USgWrxEFWDA Rick Strassman - Meet The Father Of Modern DMT Research: https://youtu.be/KeAZOj7tYsc GUEST LINKS Montana Tech Faculty Profile: https://mtech.edu/arts-sciences/faculty/michael-masters/index.html X: https://x.com/MorphoTime Website: https://idflyobj.com/ Identified Flying Objects (2019): https://www.leighbureau.com/books/identified-flying-objects The Extratempestrial Model (2022): https://www.leighbureau.com/books/the-extratempestrial-model Lomas, Case & Masters (2024), The Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis: https://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/33/3 LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/FRFT3PeiWwk Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:26 The Skull Scientist Who Studies UFOs 0:03:46 "They Could Be Us From The Future" 0:07:21 The Book On The Shelf That Started It All 0:09:10 Whitley Strieber And Communion 0:10:49 Abductees Who Never Told Their Own Families 0:17:13 The Archetypal Abduction Story 0:19:38 The Nimitz: 80,000ft In Under Two Seconds 0:20:37 The Farmer Who Had Sex With An Alien 0:22:22 "I Just Floated Right Through The Ceiling" 0:24:06 Did Sci-Fi Invent Alien Abductions? 0:29:15 DMT Entities, Machine Elves And UFOs 0:37:32 The 2017 Story That Broke UFOs Open 0:42:08 "The Disc-Shaped Craft Are The Time Machine" 0:44:39 Why The Greys Are Built Like Hominins 0:47:26 Can You Really Fast-Forward Evolution? 0:49:30 Brain Up, Face Back: 6 Million Years Of Skulls 0:56:04 Are We Just Projecting Human Faces? 1:00:13 How Far In The Future Are They From? 1:03:23 Why Would We Evolve To Look Like That? 1:06:51 Falling Sperm Counts And The Gamete Mystery 1:15:01 How Do You Falsify Time-Travelling Aliens? 1:22:27 Teaching A University Class On UFOs 1:30:13 Is The US Government Hiding Something Huge? 1:32:40 Keeping UFOs Quiet Through Grad School .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  6. Oct 12

    #163 - Meet The Greatest Near-Death-Experience Scientist You’ve Never Heard Of

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Janice Holden is a near-death-experience researcher who designed the first hospital experiment to catch consciousness outside the body, edits the Journal of Near-Death Studies and spent 31 years on the University of North Texas faculty. For nearly 40 years she has tested one claim: that patients whose hearts have stopped can see the room from above. Surgeons have corroborated some of those details. No controlled study has caught one yet. Expect to learn: - The Leg In The Yellow Bag: an anaesthetised patient described an amputation in the next operating room - The Post-it Notes: a heart patient saw a detail only his surgeon would know - The Hidden-Target Experiment: pictures hidden near hospital ceilings, visible only from above - The Life Review: reliving every moment of your life as the people you affected - DMT Vs Near-Death: why the brain may interpret reality rather than create it SPONSORS Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqe GS EPISODES MENTIONED Rick Strassman - Meet The Father Of Modern DMT Research: https://youtu.be/KeAZOj7tYsc Anil Seth - No. 1 Consciousness Expert: Optical Illusions that Prove Reality is a Lie, Emotions, Books and AI!: https://youtu.be/lOSA06K0l1o Karl Friston - Meet The Neuroscientist Who Created The Best Universal Theory Of Brain Function: https://youtu.be/R-IZOFs4qmY Marjorie Woollacott - Neuroscientist: "Your Brain Doesn't Create Consciousness" — NDEs, Telepathy and Terminal Lucidity: https://youtu.be/mDWtmfmIUHA GUEST LINKS Website: https://www.janholden.com The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0313358648 Journal of Near-Death Studies: https://www.janholden.com/jnds IANDS: https://iands.org Articles: https://www.janholden.com/copy-of-articles LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/RAXr5ZavLk4 Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:15 From Doctoral Student To 40 Years Of Near-Death Research 0:03:38 How Resuscitation Created The Near-Death Experience 0:09:06 What Actually Happens During A Near-Death Experience 0:11:03 Moving At The Speed Of Thought 0:11:41 The Tunnel And The City Of Light 0:13:18 The Life Review: Feeling What Everyone Else Felt 0:14:55 "It's Not Your Time": Why People Come Back 0:19:27 Why Near-Death Experiences Aren't Just Dreams 0:21:09 The Woman Who Watched Her Own Surgery 0:27:11 The Post-it Notes A Dead Patient Saw 0:32:31 The Doctors Who Corroborated These Cases 0:33:39 The Harvard Neurosurgeon Who Changed His Mind 0:37:38 Why "False Memory" Doesn't Explain It 0:40:08 The Patient Who Floated Into The CPR Training Room 0:45:05 Hiding Pictures On Hospital Ceilings 0:49:35 Seven Studies, No Hits Yet 0:53:32 Is Humanity Ready For Proof? 0:58:08 DMT Vs Near-Death Experiences 1:06:35 Does The Brain Create Reality Or Interpret It? 1:10:27 Consciousness Before Birth And After Death 1:14:47 Why Don't We See This All The Time? 1:17:30 Karma And The Afterlife In Southeast Asia .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  7. Oct 8

    #162 - Meet The Scientist Who Says We've Gotten Cancer Completely Wrong

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Carlos Sonnenschein is Professor of Integrative Physiology and Pathobiology at Tufts University School of Medicine. With Ana Soto, he developed the tissue organisation field theory of cancer: the idea that a tumour begins not in a rogue cell, but in the breakdown of the tissue around it. For fifty years he has argued that cancer research has been looking one level too low. Here he explains why the mutations we find in tumours may be the wreckage, not the cause. Expect to learn: - The default state: why every cell's natural tendency is to proliferate - Growth factors: why he argued they don't exist, and why people laughed - Mutations without cancer: why he says no gene has been shown to cause a cancer - Targeted therapy: why he believes the target was never really there - Cellular agency: how life, proliferation and motility fit together SPONSORS Get Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulder GS EPISODES MENTIONED Michael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyM GUEST LINKS Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VmTCfroAAAAJ IEA Nantes Fellow Profile: https://www.iea-nantes.fr/en/fellows/carlos-sonnenschein Biological Purpose Project: https://www.biologicalpurpose.org/people/carlos-sonnenschein ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos-Sonnenschein An Integrative Approach Toward Biology, Organisms, and Cancer (2018): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29119499 LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/AypMhvhWwjg Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:26 From Paediatrics to Cancer Research 0:05:23 The Oestrogen Paradox 0:08:43 Proliferation Is the Default State of Every Cell 0:12:27 Inhibitors of Inhibitors 0:14:06 "Growth Factors Don't Exist" 0:15:31 The Somatic Mutation Theory 0:17:41 The Society of Cells and the Tissue Theory of Cancer 0:21:44 Stars and Dogs: Funding a Minority View 0:23:49 Teaching Cancer Through Genetics 0:25:01 How Does Tissue Keep Cells in Check? 0:26:04 Metastasis 0:28:34 Prostate Cancer and Spontaneous Regression 0:30:38 The Cost of Cancer Treatment 0:31:49 Melanoma, UV and the Standard Model 0:32:24 Mutations Without Cancer 0:35:17 No Gene Causes Cancer: BRCA1, p53 and RAS 0:37:00 Why Targeted Therapy Isn't Targeted 0:38:03 When Treatment Causes Cancer 0:40:39 What Does Genome Sequencing Tell You? 0:42:24 Why Does Cancer Run in Families? 0:45:41 Trauma, Healing and Tissue Robustness 0:47:59 A Theory of Organisms 0:50:59 What Is Life? 0:52:18 Economics Is a Branch of Biology 0:53:36 Cellular Agency 0:58:36 Defining Life: Proliferation and Motility 1:01:36 When Did Cells Become Agents? 1:04:49 The Future of Cancer Research 1:09:52 Final Thoughts .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

  8. Oct 5

    #161 - Meet The Psychonaut Who Survived Extended-State DMT

    🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join Alexander Beiner is the writer who volunteered as a guinea pig for the world's first extended-state DMT trial. At Imperial College London, he was one of eleven people kept on a continuous DMT drip for thirty minutes. He is a co-Executive Director of Breaking Convention, Europe's largest psychedelic conference, and the author of The Bigger Picture. Expect to learn - The Chinchillas: hyperdimensional beings he had never seen in real life, speaking a visible language - The Reply: he sent a symbol back, they went ballistic, then got bored and left - The Pharmacology Problem: why tolerance to LSD and psilocybin does nothing to DMT - The Synchronicity: the stranger across a London road, and what he learned that night - The Spider Queen: a planet-sized entity that wrapped him in a web SPONSORS Get Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulder GS EPISODES MENTIONED Rick Strassman - Meet The Father Of Modern DMT Research: https://youtu.be/KeAZOj7tYsc Robin Carhart-Harris - No. 1 Psychedelic Scientist: The Entropic Brain Hypothesis, Consciousness & DMT Entities: https://youtu.be/t-GkE4YtLRk David Luke - Meet the Professor of Paranormal Consciousness - DMT Entities, Telepathy Tapes & OBE's: https://youtu.be/qLKD1gt1X5o GUEST LINKS X: https://x.com/AlexanderBeiner Kainos (Substack): https://beiner.substack.com/ Personal Site: https://www.alexanderbeiner.com/ Breaking Convention: https://breakingconvention.co.uk/performers/alexander-beiner The Bigger Picture - Author Page: https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/alexander-beiner LISTEN ON YouTube - https://youtu.be/aZnvPt9X3Dc Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:01:59 Why Changing Minds Isn't Enough 0:02:54 A Magic Mushroom Homecoming In Holland 0:05:33 Joining Europe's Largest Psychedelic Conference 0:06:44 Why He Signed Up To Be A DMT Guinea Pig 0:08:03 Half Of DMT Users Meet Autonomous Entities 0:10:38 Meeting The Hyperdimensional Chinchillas 0:14:25 He'd Never Seen A Chinchilla In Real Life 0:15:14 "They Were Speaking A Visible Language" 0:17:47 Why Priming Can't Explain The Chinchillas 0:21:33 The Metaphysical Shift After 100 Episodes 0:26:21 DMT Immunity And The Cross-Tolerance Mystery 0:28:07 Why Psychedelics Make Avoiding Pain Harder 0:29:28 The Placebo Dose And The Prank Paranoia 0:32:24 Three Heartbeats To The Deepest Trip 0:35:06 Wired Up: The Hidden Rituals Of The Lab 0:39:29 Would He Ever Come Back? 0:40:22 Psychedelic PTSD And The Fear Of Madness 0:41:31 The Synchronicity He Still Can't Explain 0:46:37 If Everything's Conscious, Where's The Telepathy? 0:49:16 Why The East Talks Openly About Ghosts 0:53:45 The Planet-Sized Spider Queen 0:58:51 "This Is So Similar To What McKenna Described" .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com

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About

A Biology & Consciousness podcast chronicling the bio-singularity. 3x times per week I speak with leading scientists at the bleeding edge of Neuroscience, Consciousness and Biology. No idea is too strange, tackled with genuine curiosity and technical rigour. Come follow the journey as I have my brain melted and ontology warped on a regular basis. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is founder of Giants Shoulder.

Information

  • Creator
    Evan McGloughlin
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    174
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Evan McGloughlin
  • Show Website
    Giants Shoulder

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