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We’re somehow hard-wired for stories that have a beginning, a middle and end, stories that really teach us about the past. 

Have we already reached peak car? This is the term that urban planners are using to describe the decline in vehicle miles traveled per person. 

On the shortest night of the year, a galactic giant — the faintest Messier object of all — towers overhead. “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. […]

“Eclipse watchers” have been dying to catch a glimpse of this image, captured in clear skies in central Africa, which depicts the Sun’s total eclipse on November 3. 

Researchers at a Chinese university have printed live human liver cells with high rate of success, ensuring that 90 percent of the cells leave the printer alive.

Non-interference was probably the most important thing that happened in my professional life. 

For two years, researchers tracked over a million Facebook adults who were married or “in a relationship.” Among many findings, they learned that the more mutual friends a couple had, the more likely it was that they’d break up.

There’s something deeply and profoundly philosophical about the gradually decline of the Europeans: It’s going on for over a century now. MOST observers will have heard about the latest US […]

We normally think of the Big Bang as the very beginning of our Universe, but we now know the story goes back even before it. Here’s how. “The aim of science […]

“Competition creates efficiency,” is preached as if it were a law of nature. But nature itself teaches a different lesson.

A team of Washington high school students has developed an easy-to-install lock that teachers could quickly place on a door in case of an intruder emergency. They have received a grant to help them develop the product further.

Yes, say Michigan Tech researchers, who compared the costs of purchasing certain common inexpensive household items against the costs of printing them at home. The savings was significant.

Impostor syndrome is common among highly successful people–particularly women, minority groups, and people from cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds that are different from their peers.

Now that the Higgs has been discovered, the Standard Model is complete. But are there any other new particles? “The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws […]

When the President gives a speech today, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells Big Think, “you might hear the pundits tearing it down before he even finishes the speech.” 

Am I the only one fascinated by the issue of currency conversion in literature? When a posh fictional nobleman is rumored to have an income of such-and-such, or when a […]

Critics contend that multiple-choice tests only encourage two things: rote memorization and hand-eye coordination.

As study after study shows, women receive an enormous amount of abuse for any online activity: whether as journalists, sex writers, performers. Just being a woman (online) is sufficient to […]

Over the past few years, government has discovered that it can accomplish a lot when it sets aside the notion that human beings are rational. Rather than giving people good […]

The mechanism for changing your mindset through messaging is the same as for changing a physical behavior: a targeted and limited resolution practiced relentlessly until it becomes automatic. 

Our problems have gotten worse and they’re getting worse faster and faster because that’s the nature of exponential growth.

“Every day I live in mortal fear of offending someone.”  An old friend of mine tells me this over dinner. He shouldn’t have to be afraid. He’s not bigoted or […]

Over the short haul, they all work. Even four grapefruits and a prune a day will do the job for a week or two. The real issue is stabilizing your weight. That means forever.

In the heart of our nearest big galaxy cluster, a massive spiral fights for its life. “Ali always said I would be nothing without him. But what would he have been […]

So the new X-Men film trailer is out. It’s being Tweeted, Facebooked; it’s probably rising through the ranks of YouTube, Vimeo and so on. It’s easy content for sites, a blessing of […]

If you can think of a human activity or occupation, there will be people who love it and live for it and others who couldn’t bear it. 

The video below, released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mars Express, is a stunning flyover of the planet, showcasing grabens, dendritic valleys, lava flows and the highest known mountain in the Solar System. 

I feel women really need to be running their own companies so they can set new ground rules for how you can be a mother, a good mother and also participate in society.

Why is a manufacturing job superior to a job in any other sector?

Coursera is a service that allows top universities around the world to share their material online. Without spending a penny I’ve completed courses on Coursera from universities including Stanford and […]