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
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 ...
“Conflict in the Antarctic over whaling is set to escalate, despite calls for calm after a Japanese ship tore the bow off a protest vessel yesterday. The hardline Sea Shepherd group said it had no intention of withdrawing from the southern waters after the loss of its $2 million ‘stealth boat', Ady ...
Fossilised footprints dating back 395m years have shed new light on the “evolutionary milestone” of the transition of aquatic fish into terrestrial animals. “The fossilised tracks of one of the first four-legged creatures to walk on land have been discovered in a disused quarry in southern Poland ...
“The Central Intelligence Agency should be asking some painful questions this week about its performance: How could a suicide bomber have flown to Detroit despite a strong warning to a CIA station that he might be a terrorist? How could a Jordanian double agent have penetrated a CIA base in ...
“A new image from NASA's Hubble Telescope has provided astronomers with the earliest snapshot ever taken of galaxies in the universe's infancy, about 600 million years after the Big Bang. The deep look into the ancient cosmos revealed baby galaxies very different from those that exist now. ‘We're ...
Google’s rival to Apple’s iPhone hits the market to a fanfare of adulation and scepticism in equal measure – but can it live up to its “superphone” tagline? “On a day of hoopla at Google's headquarters in California, executives at the company called the Nexus One the first ‘superphone’, a device ...
Planet Earth could soon be wiped out by an explosion of a star more than 3,000 light years away according to research by American scientists. “The star, called T Pyxidis, is set to self-destruct in an explosion called a supernova with the force of 20 billion billion billion megatons of TNT. Although ...
Three Democrats, two senators and one governor, have ditched plans to run for re-election striking the latest blow for President Barack Obama’s Democrat administration. “Taken together, the decisions by Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota as well as Colorado Gov. Bill ...
Yemeni police have captured what is believed to be the key Al-Qaeda chief behind the threats on foreign embassies in the capital Sanaa, according to security officials. “Mohammed al-Hanq had evaded arrest on Monday during a security force raid in Arhab, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Sanaa, in ...
“The National Association of Realtors said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in November, dropped 16 percent to 96.0, after rising for nine straight months. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast pending home sales, which lead existing home sales by one to two months, falling ...
An American pilot has pleaded guilty to being over the alcohol limit as he prepared to take off from Heathrow Airport in London, England. “Erwin Washington, 51, from Lakewood, Colorado, was arrested in November last year on a flight that was due to leave Heathrow Airport. A breath test showed ...
The G-Spot, a theoretical female erogenous zone, has been dismissed as “subjective” by scientists in London who carried out tests on identical twins between the ages to 23 and 83. “Lay down your sat-navs, the journey is over: the destination a mirage. Or is it? According to new research carried out ...