Town Hall Seattle Science Series

Join the team behind Skipstone (an imprint of the nonprofit, independent Seattle publishing house, Mountaineers Books) for an evening of nature, literature, and advocacy to celebrate the launch of  Cascade of Life: An Artist's Seasonal Guide to the Wild Northwest  by author and illustrator Emily Poole, joined by Mountaineers Books Editor-in-Chief Kate Rogers. More than just a book launch, this eve...

A century of conventional farming has left our planet with sick soil, accelerating the interlinked crises of food security, biodiversity loss, water pollution, and climate change. In his new book,  ReGen: A New Future for Farming, Food, and Health , David R. Montgomery lays out a practical and productive vision for recovering soil health and safeguarding the future of food. The answer: soil-buildi...

In the illustrated guide,  Poking the Squid,  Perrin Roosevelt Ireland illustrates the splendid diversity of nature's eroticism. Chock full of delightful watercolor comics featuring pregnant seahorse dads, spider oral sex, and the four-headed echidna penis, Ireland takes us on a wild biodiversity ride through queerness, infidelity, consent, divorce, sex change, and even sexual cannibalism in the a...

The northernmost stretches of Alaska host an environmental wonder that very few people will connect with in their lives — millions of acres of largely undisturbed public land along the Arctic Circle. This region contains pristine tundra landscapes, unrestricted rivers shaped only by nature, and unique wildlife like polar bears, the only caribou herds in the United States, and more aquatic birds th...

Limits are the key to stimulating creativity, innovation, and collaboration. In a world that gives us seemingly infinite choices and prizes freedom above all else, we have an unprecedented number of options regarding what to do, who to be, and how to spend our time. All that choice is wonderful, but it is also overwhelming. The irony is that total freedom can be paralyzing, and unlimited resources...

Grief is one of the most universal yet isolating experiences we endure—and psychedelics may offer a path through it. This Salon explores how substances like psilocybin, MDMA, and 5-MeO-DMT are being used to support those navigating loss, whether from death, identity shifts, or life transitions. This session sheds light on how altered states can help us reconnect to love, soften the sharp edges of...

Try to imagine a world without birds. It's quite a challenge, given that we share the planet with tens of billions of birds spanning an astonishing 14,000 species. Birds find homes nearly everywhere that people do – and many places we do not – and their prowess and plumage have captivated human imagination throughout the ages. But impressive aerial feats and collective choirs of song aside, part o...

A conversation about the emerging potential of psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, in addressing eating disorders—a psychiatric area marked by persistent treatment challenges. This Salon dives into groundbreaking research showing how psychedelics disrupt entrenched thought patterns, ease cognitive rigidity, and foster self-compassion and emotional reconnection. April Pride and invited experts w...

Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard has long been fascinated by the sharing of natural knowledge. From the interconnected root systems she studied in her book  Finding the Mother Tree  to her ongoing work as an educator, Simard has learned to see the importance of cooperative efforts to share resources and knowledge. Joined in conversation by Seattle-based nature journalist Lynda Mapes, Simard expands...

Comedian, historian, and bestselling author Cate Osborn brings a special program derived from her live touring show, Wildly Unprepared . This evening features a curated portion of the performance, exploring the strange and surprising history of magic, spectacle, and belief, along with storytelling and conversation about curiosity, culture, and the stories we inherit. While this program draws from...

Local beekeepers, gardeners, and native plant experts join in a conversation about turning your own backyard into a native ecosystem oasis. Learn about the benefits of mason bees, the importance of best-gardening practices to protect Puget Sound salmon, and how you can make a difference in keeping our city climate change resilient. Featuring Dave Hunter, author of  Mason Bee Revolution: How the Ha...

Psychedelic therapy is rapidly gaining traction as a promising approach for addressing substance use disorders—from alcohol and opioids to nicotine and beyond. This session will explore how psychedelic compounds like ibogaine, ketamine, and psilocybin may help interrupt compulsive cycles, uncover root causes of addiction, and support sustained recovery. Featuring Dr. Nathan Sackett of the UW Cente...

When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels  like  something to be us. Yet the fact that we have a subjective experience of the world remains one of nature's greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific inve...

Whether you're married, dating, or flying solo, Dr. Nicole McNichols has some sex advice for you. And you may want to pay attention because McNichols is not only the professor of University of Washington's most sought-after class in its history, she's one of social media's most popular educators on the topic of sex. Pulling from her book,  You Could Be Having Better Sex , McNichols shares the late...

As life expectancy increases, so does the need for mental, emotional, and spiritual support in later years. This Salon delves into the ways older adults are exploring psychedelics for healing, spiritual deepening, meaning-making, joyful intimacy and making peace with mortality. With insights from geriatric practitioners, researchers, and individuals with lived experience, we'll examine how today's...

What intelligence really is, and how AI's emergence is a natural consequence of evolution. It has come as a shock to some AI researchers that a large neural net that predicts next words seems to produce a system with general intelligence. Yet this is consistent with a long-held view among some neuroscientists that the brain evolved precisely to predict the future—the "predictive brain" hypothesis....

Seattle's 2021 ordinance decriminalized entheogens — plants and fungi that contain psychoactive indolamines, tryptamines, or phenethylamines—such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline cacti, and iboga. This Salon weaves together two threads: the little-known plant and fungal allies often left off the psychedelic main stage, and the laws that shape how we can (and cannot) work with them tod...

https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9798887702018 Your brain has a favorite beverage, a surprising way to add new neurons, and strong opinions about multitasking—and it's not what you think. In this engaging conversation, cognitive scientist Therese Huston and podcast host Katy Sewall unpack the small changes, many of which take 5 minutes or less, that can keep your brain sharp and your body calm...

Menopause is often portrayed as a period of decline, but what if it could be reframed as an awakening? Join co-authors Dr. Patricia Singh, psychotherapist and psychedelic integration specialist, and Kelly McGinty, nurse practitioner specializing in hormonal and integrative wellness, for a groundbreaking exploration of menopause as a transformative threshold. This session will delve into how psyche...

For 20 years, Dr. Shelley Sella saw patients whose diverse backgrounds and circumstances led them to the same difficult decision: to end their pregnancies. In her new book,  Beyond Limits , Sella draws from her experiences to offer a window into a typical week at her clinic, weaving together patient stories—including those of a mother navigating a devastating prenatal diagnosis, a woman confrontin...

It's only human to project the notions we already hold onto the world around us. We want to feel connected, and we start from what we know – categories, similarities, rules, expectations. But nature is endlessly expansive, at once wildly different from the societies we are used to and yet surprisingly similar to the nuances we hold as individuals. In her debut book  Forest Euphoria: The Abounding...

Explaining how and why our world works the way it does touches on so many fields of science: biology, chemistry, physics, and, of course, technology. However, according to researcher Blaise Agüera y Arcas, computation should also be part of the understanding of life on all levels – and going back further than one might think. In  What Is Life? Evolution as Computation,  Agüera y Arcas uses computa...

From  Silent Spring  to  Erin Brockovich , people have been captivated — and devastated — by stories of harmful chemicals and the many ways that they have altered and even ended human lives. From investigative journalist Mariah Blake comes a new book that recounts a small town being poisoned, a corporate cover up, and a grassroots movement to fight back. In 2014, after losing several friends and r...

Overnight, Dori became her parents' caregiver – a labor of love that lasted for seven years. Her mom was suddenly a partially paralyzed wheelchair-bound amputee and her dad was declining due to increasing dementia. She wasn't ready. This event is to help prepare anyone – those who have been, are now, or will be a caregiver – in other words, all of us! Whether it is navigating the health care syste...

Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world – but what does that mean for healthcare, scientific discovery, and human potential?   In  Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit , co-authors Craig Mundie, Henry Kissinger, and Eric Schmidt explore the profound implications of AI on society. In this collaborative event between Town Hall Seattle and the Institute for Systems Biol...