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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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Big ideas in the news from around the web
“If you're logging in for the first time in a few days and catching up on health care reform, you've probably read a few articles about how the issue will play in the 2010 midterm elections, assuming Congress passes a bill sometime early in the new year. Some people think the issue will help the ...
“On a quiet August day in 2002, a physics professor named George Gollin was working in his office at the University of Illinois when an ad popped up on his computer screen. The product on offer: college degrees. In a nearby computer lab, the ads leaped from one monitor to another, seeming to spread ...
“Japanese researchers said Monday they had developed a "hummingbird robot" that can flutter around freely in mid-air with rapid wing movements. The robot, a similar size to a real hummingbird, is equipped with a micro motor and four wings that can flap 30 times per second, said Hiroshi Liu, the ...
“Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the ...
“An Israeli government plan to build nearly 700 homes for Jewish families in Palestinian-dominated East Jerusalem drew fire Monday from the Obama administration, which called the plan a hindrance to relaunching peace talks. ‘The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem ...
“A British man convicted of drug smuggling was executed in China early Tuesday, despite appeals for clemency from his family, human rights groups and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, according to British officials. The man, Akmal Shaikh, 53, was executed in the far western region of Xinjiang ...
“A growing chorus of Republican officials is pledging to push for a full repeal of health care reform legislation, weeks before a bill actually lands on the president's desk for signing. In an email to the Huffington Post, Alex Conant, a former RNC press secretary and an adviser to possible 2012 ...
“Somali pirates hijacked a UK-flagged chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden on the same day they released a Singapore-flagged container ship, pirates and maritime officials said today. Pirates told Reuters they had received a ransom for the Singaporean vessel Kota Wajar and freed the ship with its ...
“The operator of a popular BitTorrent search site said Monday he will likely challenge last week’s landmark decision by a U.S. judge declaring such sites unlawful and no different from conventional peer-to-peer piracy services. ‘We do think from our preliminary review there are a number of issues ...
“Fans of history and poetry are hoping the city of Methuen gets a $3,000 grant to preserve an attendance log that poet Robert Frost used when he taught grammar school more than a century ago. The bound volume is in need of the care of preservationists and the city has applied for a grant from the ...
“The premise that hunger makes food look more appealing is a widely held belief -- just ask those who cruise grocery store aisles on an empty stomach, only to go home with a full basket and an empty wallet. Prior research studies have suggested that the so-called hunger hormone ghrelin, which the ...
“The newest big thing insolar power is a set of solar panels so small that they could be mistaken for specks of glitter. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratorieshave produced “microcells” that are thinner than a human hair, which are made from crystalline silicon and use 100 times less material ...
“China's new high speed train made its debut Saturday, December 26, 2009, with average speeds of 217 mph. The Harmony Express traveled 683 miles from Wuhan to Guangzhouin less than 3 hours, a trip that previously took 11 hours. Compare that to Amtrak's Silver Meteor - the 641-mile journey from New ...
“In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen. A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent several of its top field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top ...
“When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father in Nigeria reported concern over his son's ‘radicalization’ to the U.S. Embassy there last month, intelligence officials in the United States deemed the information insufficient to pursue. The young man's name was added to the half-million entries in a ...