And what might we learn as we collect new, never-before-seen data? If you took one of history’s top scientists from 100 years ago and dropped them into today’s world, what […]
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A live-blog event of a fabulous public lecture given by Katie Freese on the unseen components in our Universe. “If you take everything we know… it only adds up to […]
If String Theory has nothing to do with reality, what are our options? “I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all […]
They’re our best measurement of dark energy, even better than supernovae! “If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.”–Philip K. Dick Imagine you’re looking […]
Live-streamed from Perimeter Institute, & exclusive real-time commentary! “Every generation of physicists solves some old puzzles and finds some new ones.” –Dr. Kendrick Smith I want you to think back […]
LOVERS of the Big Think will rejoice at hearing about the world’s largest migration of brain: BEIJING – Thousands of philosophers are expected to descend upon China’s capital in 2018 in […]
Plus a bonus: perhaps the single most important achievement to all of humanity. “What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the Moon, […]
A few weeks ago Mayor of London Boris Johnson said some questionable things about IQ tests and the benefits of greed, income inequality and shaking boxes of cornflakes. Dorothy Bishop wrote an […]
Google Glass. Life Extension. Life Extinction. These are among the brainiest memes included in the inaugural post of our new blog, Mind Memes, which offers quick reads on the Internet […]
When I was in high school in the USA in the late 1980s, the big Asian language that many of my peers wanted to learn was Japanese. A half-decade later, […]
A frame device is a catchphrase that instantly conveys a specific meaning and storyline, sparking conversations and trains of thought about why an event might be a problem, who or […]
[I’m reviving my Blogs That Deserve a Bigger Audience (DABA) feature. If there is a blog that you think should be featured here, drop me a note.] Today the Crimson […]
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth).
Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay.
Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
This spring in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter […]
Part 1 of the Q&A from Dr. Boris Behncke of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania.