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“Everybody in the space program, everybody who’s a doctor, got interested in science when he or she was seven or eight years old… not when they were 16 or 18. That’s where you spend […]

While 2015 gives us all a fresh start, we can consider the Big Bang until today to be “One Universe Year.” What comes next? “And now we welcome the new […]

Companies are spending billions on digital and much of it is wasted because they’re actually missing three big things in terms of how they’re approaching it. One is they really don’t […]

The death knell for the banner ad is tolling and few are lamenting its decline.

Despite it’s reputation as an “infinite range” force, the realities of our Universe place a limit on its reach. “In my dreams and visions, I seemed to see a line, […]

Big Data is a big deal. Not only is it a major asset in today’s tech-driven economy, it also has the ability to tell stories about who we are as […]

Data matters. It’s important to harness data to find more efficient ways to operate. But making data a higher priority than your workforce is extremely unwise.

This is a common refrain: businesses today that employ strategies of staticity fall behind. Those that innovate leap forward. But if the refrain is as common as we suppose, why do so many companies allow themselves to ignore innovation?

Over a 22-year career at Goldman Sachs, Robert S. Kaplan had the opportunity to run various businesses and to work with or coach numerous business leaders. He says that successful leadership is less often about having all the answers—and more often about asking the right questions. In Part 1 of The Leadership Challenge, Kaplan explores three strategic key questions that leaders need to ask themselves.

Kepler took a look at 150,000 stars, searching for habitable worlds. Based on what it found, how many should be in our galaxy? “I’m sure the universe is full of […]

The results of a new study suggest that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) can help reduce the severity and length of migraines in chronic adult sufferers. 

I’ve been thoroughly dismayed by Facebook the past couple of years. Maybe it’s a quirk of memory, but I don’t remember my feed being so full of political sparring and […]

Whatever your native language, you’ve probably noticed that city people speak it differently than do country folk. But so what? It’s also true that Chicagoans speak a bit differently than […]

The last serious anti-Big Bang scientists went to their graves lamenting the lack of good alternatives. Here why there are none. Image credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team. “We were […]

Are we becoming too obsessed with the idea that people can’t think straight? When I began blogging here at BigThink five years ago, I would have said no. After all, […]

As the importance of interpersonal interaction grew, so did variations in our ancestors’ facial appearance. This why the face and it features are the most diverse parts of the human body.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, speaking yesterday at an urban solutions summit, shared visions of various tech transit projects he’d like to see instituted in his city before 2020.

While Sam Harris doesn’t necessarily condone their use, his experimentations with psychedelic drugs were indelible in the formation of his worldview and understanding of consciousness. 

In her recent Big Think interview, Perel explains that sexuality and marriage have experienced a radical shift over the past few generations. What was once considered a dutiful bond now serves our more individualistic culture driven by love and desire. Where these two feelings meet and diverge is at the core of eroticism.

Junheng Li, Founder and Head of Research at JL Warren Capital, has a unique expert’s perspective on both Chinese and American markets. That’s because she was born and raised in Shanghai […]

We’re attending the 2014 Learning and Leadership Development Conference this week, and we hope some of you are, too. This annual conference, hosted by the Human Capital Institute, is a […]

Jane Goodall is one of the world’s foremost primatologists and a UN Messenger of Peace. Ever  since her first trip to Africa in 1957, Goodall has dedicated her life to […]

Big News! Climate change makes news! There’s sustained, high-profile coverage in the major media this week, prompted by the UN Climate summit in New York. It’s great news that climate change is making news. But it’s also sad, because as soon as the events are over, coverage will fade away, at least until the next meeting, or the next violent weather event, or the next political controversy stirred up by those still trying to promote doubt. 

For many people, art museums feel like a foreboding foreign nation with a language all its own. Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary, National Gallery, offers an immersion class in how to speak fluent “museum.” 

People who leave comments in online forums to deliberately provoke angry and emotional reactions from others are not much nicer in real life, according to a study published in the journal Identity and Personal Differences.

Social networks have allowed billions of individuals to communicate and collaborate in a variety of ways while online technologies have helped business create frictionless purchases at the consumer and business-to-business levels.

If you’re a recent college grad frustrated that the salary you needed to pay your private student loans never materialized, you have the sympathy of Daniel Altman, Big Think’s Chief […]

With limited land space and widespread public distrust in nuclear power, the Japanese have taken to the seas to cull energy by installing sprawling solar power plants that float right on the water.

Although Bitcoin holds an advantage in being the first and most popular cryptocurrency, other digital denominations are attempting to cut into the market.

The average Facebook user now has about 338 friends, though the median number is quite a bit lower: 200. This means that while half of all Facebook users have 200 […]