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A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.
Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
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The search for extraterrestrial intelligence
What's the Latest Development? In a paper published in the latest issue of Science, MIT planetary scientist and astrophysicist Sara Seager suggests that the search for habitable worlds -- currently focusing around Earth-like exoplanets orbiting in an area commonly called "the Goldilocks zone ...
This article originally appeared in ReaClearScience's Newton Blog. You can read the original here. It's amusing and intellectually stimulating to seriously ponder the existence and characteristics of alien life. But like quantum mechanics, such contemplations can easily wrack the mind, leaving ...
What conditions are scientists looking for in their search for life on another planet? The presence of water is key, explains Bill Nye, aka The Science Guy. Want another candidate to sustain life? Liquid ammonia. And yet, as Nye points out, we haven’t found anything on Earth or even near the Earth ...
Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS telescope have studied over 100 nearby red dwarf stars over the last six years. 40 percent of these common stars were observed to wobble, a reaction caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet. Based on this small sample ...
"And I'll know my song well before I start singing" -Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall What's the Big Idea? With SETI's search for extraterrestrial life getting a second lease on life, two questions must be raised: How do we make contact? And how do we make meaningful contact? That is ...
The fourth potentially habitable planet in our galaxy has just been discovered, 22 light years from Earth. This planet, called GJ 667Cc, is too large to be called Earth's twin. It might more properly be called Earth's Big Brother. GJ 667Cc is 4.5 times the mass of Earth, and it orbits its star in ...
Every Wednesday, Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below and check back on Wednesdays to see if he answers it. Today, Dr. Kaku addresses the following question: A ...