A lateral line organ for slow co-engaged science for hot messes

Surfacing the connections between science engagement, engaged science, and sustainability sciences, we urge a re-evaluation of sustainability science's beneficiaries and goals, by advocating a transdisciplinary approach to address sustainability challenges, based on a relational ontology.Thinking with posthumanist, feminist new materialist and Black feminist theories, we consider the importance of multispecies attention and empathy in scientific research.We propose a concept of evolving new perceptual organs in humans to enhance collective responsiveness, inspired by the lateral line organ in fish and their collaborative intelligence for navigating contemporary social and ecological crises and injustices in 'hot messes'.