Guest Thinkers — November 6, 2009

The Commoditization of Female Sex

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Recreational intercourse isn’t anything new. But wouldn’t you think that today’s women are more in touch with their wants and desires in the bedroom? Gender expert Elizabeth Debold begs to differ.

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

A liquid spill on a dark surface forms the shape of a skull next to the mouth of a tipped-over glass bottle.

Big Think Books

Murder, she measured: The impressive science behind Agatha Christie’s poisons

Kathryn Harkup, chemist and author of V Is for Venom, joins Big Think to discuss why Christie isn’t just a brilliant writer but a unique science communicator.

A grayscale portrait of a man in a suit is centered between a grid background and a photo of someone skiing on snow, symbolizing the future of collaboration. Abstract wavy patterns fill the upper center.

Business

The Snorre Kjesbu interview: “Collaboration will become truly immersive”

Snorre Kjesbu — SVP & GM of Cisco’s Employee Experience group — has a bold vision for the future of human interaction.

Infographic illustrating three steps to measure the Hubble Constant, showing Cepheid variable stars, supernovae, and galaxies at increasing distances with redshifted light—highlighting how these methods reveal that the hubble tension is real.

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Is the Hubble tension a real problem?

Is the Universe’s expansion rate 67 km/s/Mpc, 73 km/s/Mpc, or somewhere in between? The Hubble tension is real and not so easy to resolve.

A composite image showing a galaxy with red circles marking stars on the left and multicolored expanding rings with Earth on the right, all set against a grid background, illustrating concepts like Hubble tension studied by Wendy Freedman.

Starts With A Bang

Is the Hubble tension real? Exclusive interview with Wendy Freedman

Different methods of measuring the Universe’s expansion rate yield high-precision, incompatible answers. But is the problem robustly real?

A woman, resembling a paranormal investigator, holds a rectangular glass dish above her eyes, which are illuminated by light shining through the dish in a dark setting.

Big Think Books

Why don’t Americans trust experts? Just ask a paranormal investigator.

For his new book, “The Ghost Lab,” Matt Hongoltz-Hetling spent time with paranormal investigators to understand their relationship with science and society.

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Guest Thinkers

United Nations Barcelona Climate Change Talks: Final Day

The top United Nations authority on climate change said that a binding treaty aimed at reducing the world’s carbon emissions is no longer a possible outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.