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.
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Did an early mistake in Edward Hirsch's life lead him to forge a career in poetry? "When I was eight years old my grandfather died...After he died I went down to the basement of my family house...and there was an anthology without any names attached to it. I read a poem called 'Spellbound' [by ...
Here's something that Deadheads could have told you 40 years ago -- there's a lot the Grateful Dead can teach you about running a business. In the March 2010 issue of The Atlantic, senior editor Joshua Green uncovers some of the management secrets of the Grateful Dead. In fact, as Green writes ...
In his piece in this week’s New Yorker on depression, and depression-related research, Louis Menand asks, “Is psychopharmacology evil, or is it useless?” Increasingly, skeptics say it’s the latter, and new tests telling us placebos are as effective as anti-depressants only bolster their view. But ...
"We may have democracy," Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." Justice Brandeis thought that eventually the people who controlled the wealth of the country would come to control the country itself. One way or another ...
Most Americans have heard of the movie critic and writer Roger Ebert. But what most people probably didn't know - what I didn't know - is that he hasn't been able to eat, drink or speak since 2006. That was the year when most of his jaw had to be surgically removed, the result of complications from ...
Concerns about GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s diabetes drug’s links to heart attacks have been reignited after a Senate report urged the Food and Drug Administration to make changes. “People familiar with the situation say agency leaders held calls over the weekend to discuss how to address complaints from ...
The Democrats are pulling out all the stops to entice independent voters by deploying volunteers from the Obama campaign arm known as “Organizing for America”. “After collecting pledges for millions of volunteer hours, O.F.A., under the auspices of the Democratic National Committee, is starting its ...
A diverse range of corals harboring unusual symbiotic algae in the warm Indian Ocean suggests resilience to future global warming, Penn State researchers have found. “’The existence of so many novel coral symbioses thriving in a place that is too warm for most corals gives us hope that coral reefs ...
The American Academy of Pediatrics is calling for sweeping changes in the way food is designed and labelled to minimise children’s chances of choking after recent deaths. “When 4-year-old Eric Stavros Adler choked to death on a piece of hot dog, his anguished mother never dreamed that the popular ...
A palm-sized device inspired by a tiny purple beetle that feeds on palm leaves could one day enable humans to walk up walls in manner similar to comic book hero Spiderman. “Engineers at Cornell University, in New York, invented the device that uses the adhesive power of water to create a reversible ...
The mass prescription of anti-retroviral drugs means that the global AIDS epidemic could be controlled and the disease eradicated within the next 40 years, according to predictions. “An aggressive programme of prescribing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to every person infected with HIV could stop ...
A younger ex-con who married a wealthy octogenarian widow, in what prosecutors allege was part of a massive swindle, has drawn attention to the vulnerability of senior citizens. “The day before Roger Greenberg, a then-66-year-old ex-con, married Evelyn Zucker, a then-83-year-old invalid widow, he ...
The discovery of an ancient hobbit-like species is rewriting the history of the human race, with scientists believing it was the little apemen, not Homo erectus, who first left Africa. Discovered on an Indonesian island six years ago, “the remains came from a species that turned out to be only three ...
Sudan’s government has denied reports of a secret deal with the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) which paved the way for a preliminary peace accord signed this week. “The preliminary framework agreement in Ndjamena includes a temporary ceasefire and sets groundwork on which negotiations ...
Just 24-hours after Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai warned western forces to minimise civilian casualties, a Nato air strike has killed 21 civilians including women and children. “The interior ministry said women and children were among those killed when the Nato-led force conducted a strike on ...