Sean Jones
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October 29, 2009 | In Future
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Ted Kennedy: Is Love the Answer?
During our interview with him, Big Think asked Ted Kennedy to give his counsel: the primary lesson he had learned, the key insight one should take away from his historic life. It is a question we ask often, and usually one that sends interviewees through stages of stuttering, dithering, and occasional fraught silence. You can’t blame most people for being slow to respond to such a loaded question, but Ted was different: he had his answer instantly. Read More
August 26, 2009 | In Love, Sex, & Happiness
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A group of Scottish scientists are beginning one of the biggest computer backup projects in history: they’re creating an “accurate to within 3mm” 3D model of Mount Rushmore, so it can be recreated in case it is ever ruined by climate change, natural disaster, or war. The Guardian reports that this is only the fist in a series of efforts to create and archive 3D models of hundreds of at-risk heritage sites throughout the world. The fact that this effort with a… Read More
August 24, 2009 | In Future
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The Most Effective Pickup Line?
It may be, "I'm taken." The New Scientist reports today on a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology study finding that single heterosexual women prefer men who are identified … Read More
August 21, 2009 | In Love, Sex, & Happiness
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When it comes to thinking big, it doesn’t get much bigger than determining the most significant year in human history. The Economist’s MoreIntelligentLife.com has launched a poll asking visitors to weigh in on the subject. The winner so far? 1439, the year Gutenberg invented the printing press. It is followed closely by 5 BC, the year of Jesus’s birth. 1953, the year DNA was discovered, is a distant third. And what was the most recent year suggested by the editors? … Read More
August 19, 2009 | In History
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Miller-McCune is reporting today on a Personality and Social Psychology study indicating that a connection to nature not only has stress-reducing and healing qualities, but that it also makes us kinder people. Green spaces promote selflessness, empathy, and peaceful coexistence. How do Big Think experts weigh in? Read More
August 18, 2009 | In Belief, Environment
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Today, Tara-Parker Pope of the New York Times "Well" blog reports on a flurry of studies suggesting that, contrary to popular opinion, running may in fact be good for your knees. Not only does the repetitive strain have little ill effects, but it can also prevent the arthritis associated with other impact sports. The reason for this is, b… Read More
August 13, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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Researchers are learning about the human brain from a system that is more similar to our gray matter than you may think: ant colonies. Just as neurons navigate through your head in a choreographed but mysterious dance, ants work together in a complex ways in order to make the colony far exceed any individual ant’s potential. Seed reports on how the research of computer scientist James Marshall and biologist Nigel Franks into ant colonies is leading to answers about the general principles of organiza… Read More
August 12, 2009 | In Identity
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Glued to the TV at 3:30PM? You Have Company.
The New York Times recently presented an eye-opening graph derived from the American Time Use Survey. This unique project seeks to map out what Americans are doing every day, broken down minute-by-minute. The results reflect our under-employed age. At 3:30 PM, 13% of Americans are watching TV and movies - 27% are working. No word yet on what percentage are reading the Big Think blog. Check out the link for mor… Read More
August 11, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Judd Apatow: comic visionary, insightfully raunchy, slacker hero… conservative crusader? Ross Douthat smartly makes the case that Apatow is leading the charge in making socially conservative lifestyles seem cool to a young, hip—and receptive—crowd, especially with his recently released Funny People. It isn't the first time Apatow has been profiled by the Times for his Read More
August 10, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Here goes. In what is either the last gasp of a dying industry or the long-awaited retrenchment of an American staple, the big-time newspapers may be going pay only. Rupert Murdoch’s declaration yesterday that he will be charging for all online news under his media empire spurred eno… Read More
August 7, 2009 | In Media & Internet
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First, Break All the Rules. Then, Enforce Them.
If you have ever wondered why your boss is such a stickler for the rules, the American Psychological Association has an answer for you that isn’t necessarily reassuring. It turns out that the degree of power a person has is linked inexorably to his or her reliance on rule-based systems. Whereas the powerful think about rules, the lowly think about outcomes. So what exactly are the reasons for – and the implications of – this change in perspective during the climb up the ladder? Read More
August 5, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Big Thinker and Harper's Magazine editor Bill Wasik appeared today in a New York Times op-ed musing upon the waning lure of New York City to young creatives. The replacement? Another crowded, dangerous, lewd megatropolis where, with some hard work and a dash of luck, you may make it big: the Internet. Wasik recently talked to Big Think about the siren song of the Internet, and also Read More
July 30, 2009 | In Media & Internet
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It's a question every writer asks themselves, either in the midst of sorting through overdue bills, during the dead hours of a suffocating block, or upon receipt of another rude rejection: why do I do this? Ta-Nehisi Coates, who discussed the subject with Big Think, recently posted about the Read More
July 24, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Crazy Artists: the Product of Natural Selection?
It's accepted wisdom these days that artists are not the sanest people in the world. If you don't know one personally, you can turn to several recent studies and popular articles for confirmation of that fact. But recently researchers are theorizing that mental illness itself may have been preserved through evolution, in… Read More
July 17, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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The institution of marriage hasn’t had a good go of it of late. Not only is the gay marriage debate sparking animosity, but straight marriage has also been the victim of several recent screeds. The general argument is that in this age of sexual equality when a wife no longer must rely on a husband for her lifestyle, a series of dramatic yet life-affirming love affairs may be ultimately more fulfilling than a long, yet typically flaccid, companionate marriage. Read More
July 16, 2009 | In Love, Sex, & Happiness
I'm a freelance writer as well as an editor and interviewer at Big Think. I'm primarily interested in arts & culture and have interviewed writers from Edmund White to R.L. Stine for a variety of national publications. Previously, I've worked with writers at Hachette Book Group as an editor and the Endeavor Agency as an agent. I live in Brooklyn, New York.
