Mark Leviton | The Sun Magazine #1

Mark Leviton

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Mark Leviton lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. Lately he has been gaining weight and losing hair, but maintaining a positive attitude nonetheless.

— From January 2024
The Sun Interview

Under Fire

Thor Hanson on How Animals and Plants are Adapting to a Warming World

We’ve got changes playing out now with astounding rapidity. Biologists can see natural selection occurring over the course of a field season. . . . Studying these adaptations can help us identify the issues that are most important and the species that need the most help. This may not make us worry less, but it can help us worry smarter.

January 2024
The Sun Interview

No Small Wonder

Dacher Keltner On The Science Of Awe

Emotions aren’t discrete bubbles. They are blending into each other all the time. You might be feeling awe and wonder at the miracle of life, and also realizing that we all die, which perhaps moves you closer to terror. In our work we try to find what’s true in it all.

September 2023
The Sun Interview

All In The Family

Faith Friedlander On Adoption And Parenthood

Not every adopted adult needs the same thing, but I do think most adoptees, at some point in their lives, will want to look into their past. And someone in their birth family might come searching for them. With the Internet and readily available DNA tests, it’s not so easy to hide anymore.

October 2022
The Sun Interview

Made To Be Broken

Richard Albert On The Difficulty Of Amending The U.S. Constitution

The way Americans interact with each other now has made it clear that the Constitution was perhaps never deserving of all the praise it’s gotten.

August 2022
The Sun Interview

Gray Matter

Daniel J. Levitin On Why Memory Isn’t So Black And White

Seeing and hearing are selective. We register what is needed at the moment and unconsciously ignore other input. It may seem that our eyes are like a camera and our ears are like microphones, objectively recording everything, but . . . our senses are not at all like those devices.

February 2022
The Sun Interview

High Time

Alyson Martin And Nushin Rashidian On The Move Toward Legalizing Cannabis

Cannabis is legal in Canada for both adult and medicinal use. Mexico could legalize cannabis by the end of this year. The United States is going to be squeezed on both sides, with Americans vacationing in Cabo San Lucas and Montreal, using legal cannabis, and perhaps wondering why their own country isn’t moving forward with similar policies.

July 2021
The Sun Interview

Hidden Worlds

Merlin Sheldrake On The Unseen Life Around Us

Fungi are decentralized. They’re able to coordinate their behavior without anything resembling a brain. They can connect perception and action without having a special place to do so. The coordination somehow takes place everywhere at once, and also nowhere in particular.

May 2021
The Sun Interview

Many Voices

Cristina Beltrán On What Unites And Divides Latinos

I wish the Democratic Party would put more resources into these communities instead of waiting until shortly before an election and parachuting in a few campaign workers to do some half-assed Latino-turnout work. Latinos are not automatically the firewall for the Democratic Party.

October 2020
The Sun Interview

Not So Different After All

Frans de Waal On Animal Intelligence And Emotions

With the coronavirus we have another interesting issue: how we eat wildlife. Ecologists and conservationists have been saying for fifty years that we shouldn’t be eating everything on the planet.

July 2020
The Sun Interview

One Of Us

Mark W. Moffett On The Social Behavior Of Humans And Other Animals

It’s important to compare things that are pretty alike, like humans and chimps, with their evolutionary ties, but when you find similarities between things that are ordinarily seen as very different, like humans and ants — that’s where the new ideas come from.

April 2020
The Sun Interview

We Will Be Seen

Tressie McMillan Cottom On Confronting Racism, Sexism, And Classism

We are more comfortable in our culture talking about the distant past. We love black history; it’s black people we don’t like.

February 2020
The Sun Interview

To Protect And To Serve?

Alex S. Vitale On The Overpolicing Of America

It’s a mistake to think of each episode of police misconduct as an isolated incident that might have gone another way if different officers had been involved. It’s not about individuals. The problem is a political imperative toward overpolicing.

September 2019
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