Brain Immortal

Some ideas arrive with a clear purpose. Others wander in, sit down, and become unexpectedly difficult to stop thinking about.

I’m Ben Zimmerman. Brain Immortal is where I follow questions about life and neuroscience, how our minds and bodies change, and the strange things that happen when we take an ordinary question seriously.

Choose your thread

Essays are the main current: whimsical musings, arguments, and observations that don’t always fit a category. They appear when I have something worth saying.

Action Potential arrives every two weeks. I look across new neuroscience research, especially aging and cognition, and make an argument about where the field is going. Each issue separates what a study shows, what I think it means, and what it might change in everyday life. Sometimes the useful conclusion is to wait for better evidence.

Body of Evidence, from Intelligent Body Studio, is a monthly letter about chronic pain, coaching, and massage. It connects research with questions that come up in practice and offers ways to think more clearly about feeling and functioning better.

Excellent Schemes is for ideas I think deserve more time than I can currently give them. Named with a nod to algebraic geometry, it will contain persuasive white papers: the case for an idea, the objections, what it would take to develop it, and how support would help. This is the only paid stream: $5/month or $50/year, with an optional founding membership. Full papers will be available to paid subscribers as they are released.

Fiction in Progress is an early look at stories I hope will eventually become books. Follow a novel as it unfolds, one installment at a time, and join the conversation around it.

Read what interests you

Essays, Action Potential, Body of Evidence, and fiction are free. Excellent Schemes is the only paid stream. Choose which newsletters reach your inbox in subscription settings, or explore the newsletters page.

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