We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.
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.
Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.
Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.
Big Think’s Edge learning platform for career mentorship and professional development provides engaging and actionable courses delivered by the people who are shaping our future.
Big ideas in the news from around the web
Two defense contractors, working for a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide, have been charged with shooting and killing two Afghan citizens in Kabul and wounding a third, prosecutors said on Thursday. “Justin Cannon, 27, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Norfolk ...
“Advocates for sex workers in South Africa have warned that this summer's World Cup could be a public health disaster. With up to half a million football fans expected to visit South Africa for the World Cup, and up to half of South Africa's prostitutes carrying the HIV virus, there have been calls ...
More than 200 former child soldiers have been sent home from Nepal after being disqualified for being recruited after the ceasefire code of conduct was signed in May 2006. “The first batch of 201 former child soldiers, 155 minors and 46 who were recruited after the cut-off date, left the Unified ...
“As you freeze your butt off in a winter whose severity the politicised weather forecasters of the Met Office utterly failed to predict, and as you wonder how you can afford gas and electricity bills which have been grotesquely inflated by taxes and legislation designed to ‘combat global warming ...
The New Jersey Senate yesterday rejected a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the state with a 20/40 vote against the motion striking a serious blow for gay rights advocates. “After an hour and 40 minutes of heartfelt speeches, just 14 senators voted in favor of the bill, with 20 opposed. Twenty ...
Thousands of enraged Egyptian Christians clashed with police in the city of Nag Hammadi yesterday after a drive-by shooting the previous night killed six Christians and wounded nine. “The attackers, who are still at large, had opened fire on several groups of Christians gathered to celebrate Coptic ...
Sexual abuse of detainees at juvenile prisons is a “systemic problem” according to a federal report which found that 3 out of 25 young prisoners are abused by their “carers”. “The study, which is the first of its kind, brings attention to the need for more training and accountability for staff ...
The only official survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs in Japan has died of stomach cancer in his nineties. Tsutomu Yamaguchi witnessed at close hand the nuclear devastation of two Japanese cities, and lived to tell the tale. Now it will be left to others to tell his incredible ...
Fat mass is important for increasing bone size in girls according to researchers who found that excessive dieting in young women greatly increases the risk of osteoporosis. “According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism ...
Japan’s new finance minister Naoto Kan has said it would be “nice” to see a weaker yen in order to aid the recovery of the Japanese economy, during a press conference “His predecessor, Hiroshisa Fujii, was criticised for tolerating a strong yen, which hurts Japan's exporters. Japan is currently ...
Americans will feel “certain shock” when a report detailing the intelligence failures that could have prevented the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing is published today. “In an interview Wednesday with USA Today, White House national security adviser James Jones said President Obama ‘is ...
A major upsurge in violence in Africa’s Sudan is threatening the country’s 2005 peace agreement according to a coalition of aid agencies based in the south of the region. “’’Sudan is at a crossroads,’ the 10 agencies say in a report released Thursday, ‘and the next 12 months could determine the ...
A suicide bomb in Russia’s Degestan has killed five “hero” police officers after they prevented the bomber from ramming an explosive-filled SUV into traffic police headquarters. Nearly 20 other officers were injured in the attack. “As a small, Russian-made SUV careened toward the building about 8 a ...
Egypt says it is losing patience with Hamas after violent clashes on the Egypt-Gaza border left one border guard dead and dozens of Palestinians injured. “Egypt warned Hamas on Wednesday night that there was a limit to its patience and that any attempt to provoke the Egyptian security forces would ...
The female cane toad can inflate herself to twice her size to ward off advances from smaller males vying to mate with her, according to Australian biologists. “The unusual tactic suggests that female anurans, as frogs and toads are called, may have far more power to select their sex partner than ...