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A new study of Minnesota-based marathon runners calls into question how heart-healthy endurance running is. 

Fancy a game of Japanese chess?

What happens when Shakespeare goes to prison? His works humanize prisoners and open them up to reform in a way that the prison system fails to, says author Margaret Atwood.

It’s not appealing to authority that’s the problem; it’s the false authorities and what comes next if you accept their nonsense. “When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask […]

How we talk about love has become blurry "low resolution language" (it's life-organizing force is often dissipated on trifles). But looking at richer love language can help us improve our aim. And remind us that universal human rights came from a special kind of love that we all need.  

The polls are in, and what will be the deciding factor in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election is something a little more human. 

Few business buzzphrases draw as much interest (and ire) as “disruptive innovation.”  Disrupt or die, the thinking goes. Old orders must make way for new. At the Barnes Foundation, home of Dr. Albert Barnes’ meticulously and idiosyncratically ordered collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces left just so since his death in 1951, three artistic innovators aim at questioning and challenging Dr. Barnes’ old order.  Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff, Fred Wilson: The Order of Things invites three award-winning, contemporary installation artists to disrupt the existing paradigm at the Barnes and assist us in seeing Dr. Barnes and his collection in a whole new way.

If you’re old enough to remember the 1970s, Lynda Carter playing the title character in the TV show Wonder Woman (shown above) from 1975 to 1979 remains what you think […]

Chicago native Judy Cohen Gerowitz became Judy Chicago in 1970 for many reasons. One was to throw off her father’s and husband’s names and the male dominance behind that practice. […]

Vivian Maier took about 150,000 pictures during her lifetime, but never showed a single one to another living soul. When she died in April 2009, Vivian was remembered as a […]

Recent examples from major media outlets targeting harmless individuals demonstrates a major ethical failing – as compassionate persons and responsible writers, commanding a platform. This doesn’t mean writers must never […]

One of Sandberg’s important points, in my opinion, is that women should cross the bridge of work-family conflict when they get to it.

Some progressive Christian bloggers I respect have been writing enthusiastically about a new book, Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which they say proves that the Bible has […]

Was Shakespeare gay? Stephen Greenblatt says that Shakespeare inhabited a world in which "it is much more possible to express homosexual passion and enact that passion without triggering a social crisis."

The Olympics gives spectators permission to say things about athletes’ bodies that they would never say in polite company.

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you’ve been treated to a steady stream of ads for what promises to be NBC’s lamest comedy in recent memory: “Guys With Kids.” As […]

A childfree friend of mine once memorably wondered why moms are so “judge-y” toward each other. I’m loath to reinforce the rhetorical overkill of calling this judge-y state the “mommy […]

I’ve never understood those weight guessing games offered at your more low-rent carnivals.  Yet, across the country, people hand over their hard-earned dollars, driven by a curiosity about whether their […]

The line of battle for the future of public education is clear. The first side has money, powerful political connections, and an infrastructure of nonprofit organizations with paid staff. The other side has this: the ability to become a true grassroots movement. 

Eighteen months ago, I interviewed President Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives first ever democratically elected leader, for al Jazeera TV in the capital, Male. Then, as now, this small Indian Ocean […]

I can still vividly remember reading, back in 2001, the New York Times Magazinewrite-up on the release of The Corrections. It began: Some days, Jonathan Franzen wrote in the dark. […]

Mapping the many paths from fully bearded to clean-shaven

Margaret Cho, the "Patron Saint of Outsiders" reveals the secret to overcoming barriers. 

His statue has stood outside the York Art Gallery for a century now, but most passersby don’t know the name of William Etty or the works that once made him […]

Earlier this year, novelist Jane Smiley contributed an entertaining and provocative piece to Big Think’s “How to Think Like Shakespeare” series. In it she wrote that while composing A Thousand […]

My inaugural post on Big Think drew a wide range of opinions from commenters. (New site, new community! It takes some getting used to on both sides.) But this comment […]

On the anniversary of William Shakespeare's death (and possibly his birthday too), Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Jane Smiley wrote this personal reflection for Big Think.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JASON SILVA AND TECHNO-ECOLOGIC SCHOLAR RICHARD DOYLE Richard Doyle also goes by mobius, an indicator of just how important interconnections are to him – and how transformative, […]

Maybe it was a good thing that I was headed out of town the day Juan Williams got whacked by the NPR head honchos. Because it probably wouldn’t have taken […]

Batwoman is gay. Originally introduced as part of DC Comics’ 52 series as part of a push to introduce more minority superheroes, the new Batwoman was fleshed out by Greg […]