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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.
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Big ideas in the news from around the web
What's the Latest Development? The rising field of neuroaesthetics asks whether our brains are structured so that paintings and other artistic productions move us in a certain way. "One neuroimaging study, conducted at University College, London, set out to explain how we experience beauty in ...
What's the Latest Development? A number of new neuroscience projects, combined with an important theory about how the mind works from infancy, may facilitate large advances in artificial intelligence in the years ahead. One new and promising direction is called deep learning. "Basically, it ...
What's the Latest Development? The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor, say scientists who have made attempts to meet the human brain on its own evolutionary terms. In experimental conditions, when logic puzzles are integrated into stories where characters transgress social ...
What's the Latest Development? When people participate in market transactions, their moral standards fall substantially, supporting behavior they claim to oppose, such as child labor, workforce exploitation, or meat production involving cruelty to animals. In an experiment, several hundred ...
What's the Latest Development? We all want to help our friends and loved ones but sociologists have found that helping too much—substituting our efforts for the efforts of those we're trying to help—tends to blunt their chance of success. In general, say experts, the more involved parents become ...
What's the Latest Development? The American Cardiovascular Association, the nation's largest heart health organization, recently told Americans that owning a dog will likely decrease their risk of contracting heart disease. "People who own dogs certainly have more reason to get outside and take ...
What's the Latest Development? Rather than having a password to access your numerous online accounts and a key for your house and car, your heartbeat may one day allow you to enter all these locations. The familiar blip on an ECG machine which represents your heartbeat, known as a PQRST pattern ...
What's the Latest Development? For many, migraines are on the short list of conditions that can strike seemingly without provocation and be completely debilitating. But now, a pharmaceutical company in the state of Washington hopes that a new antibody injection can block a specific protein known ...
What's the Latest Development? A new psychological condition called autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is emerging to describe people who become fascinated with otherwise boring activities, e.g. watching videos of people folding towels or running hair dryers. "Presumably the feeling has ...
What's the Latest Development? As the number and variety of products containing caffeine grow, the Food and Drug Administration has entered the fray with public statements about market regulations designed to keep absurd products, such as caffeinated oatmeal, waffles and syrup, away from ...
What's the Latest Development? As one of many gaming companies attempting to get closer -- literally -- to their audience, Valve is currently testing biometric devices that will track the quality of a player's perspiration during a game. The tests involve measuring the pH level of the gamer's ...
What's the Latest Development? Researchers from universities across the country, participating in a study for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), have found that two types of nanomaterials -- made from titanium dioxide and carbon respectively -- caused inflammation ...
What's the Latest Development? Citizens in rural Nepal, Cambodia, and nine other Asian countries have greater-than-ever access to the Internet and all its benefits, thanks to the efforts of the PAN Localization Program, also known as PANL10n. Since 2003, this group of software engineers ...
What's the Latest Development? Workers looking for a change of pace at lunchtime might want to take advantage of several new midday dance parties popping up at different places around New York and other major cities. Food takes a distant back seat to music at Lunch Break, a free event sponsored ...
What's the Latest Development? After being refused a request to see public data records collected from automated license plate readers in the Los Angeles area, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are now suing the city police department and the ...