Faced with plummeting endowments and overextended commitments, public universities are moving toward privatization, writes Edward J. K. Gitre, who worries about the long-term consequences.
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“Where is everybody?” the physicist Enrico Fermi once famously asked, disappointed that aliens hadn’t contacted us yet. Over 50 years later, Fermi would feel even more snubbed. As Paul Davies […]
David Lewis-Williams doesn’t think direct arguments against religion will have much effect on men unless they are gradually illuminated by science.
Everyone loves labels. Italian Renaissance, French Baroque, Classical Greek—such little conveniences help us understand and comprehend the often tangled and messy reality of artists and art movements, which, like any […]
When attempting to communicate effectively with the public about a science-related debate, which is more important, framing the message or conveying science-based facts about the topic? A forthcoming study (Word) […]
By mid-century there will likely be 9 billion people on the planet, consuming ever more resources and leading ever more technologically complex lives.
The way scientists conceive of time has change tremendously since Newton proposed the first concrete picture of time, and these new models open up the possibility of time travel.
This Monday marked the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma city bombing, an attack which killed 168 people and injured 680 more. As we know now (and as we were reminded […]
As part of their conversation series with scientists, the NY Times this week runs an interview with Harvard’s Eric Mazur featuring the headline “Using the ‘Beauties of Physics’ to Conquer […]
“How could you conceivably cut yourself off from other men and from the life they bring you in such abundance? In the name of what uncaring, ivory-tower kind of attitude?” […]
Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama’s new nominee for the Supreme Court, is by all accounts spectacularly brilliant. She was also, by all accounts, did a fantastic Dean of Harvard […]
Do specially made “extra small” condoms for children sound like a good idea, asks Marlon Abrahams, in response to a new safe sex campaign targeting 12-year-olds in Switzerland?
Alice Dreger, Ellen K. Feder, and Anne Tamar-Mattis made headlines this week with a post on Bioethics Forum entitled “Preventing Homosexuality (and Uppity Women) in the Womb?” The headline made […]
Hello, Big Think. Welcome to Focal Point, a blog about politics, ideas, photography, media, feminism, and more. I’m a freelance journalist in Brooklyn, New York. I do both print and […]
A woman who was considering IVF treatment after failing to conceive a child for more than four years has given birth to a little girl after using an iPhone application to get pregnant.
As Churchill said of democracy (“the worst form of government excepting those already tried,” to paraphrase), so historians might say of marriage—or at least, marriage as conceived in the late […]
Science writer Carl Zimmer has had a species of tapeworm named after him. It’s an honor, he says, that almost everyone on earth could conceivably share.
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The US goes by the motto In God We Trust (but only since 1956, when it replaced the ‘unofficial’ motto, E pluribus unum). A motto (from the Italian word for […]
Vanity Fair’sPresidential Profiles, edited by Graydon Carter, is a jewel. Or, a jewel-box: a tiny, elegantly conceived, and ruthlessly crafted jewel-box of a book. It will make you wish you’d […]
The world’s astronomical experts are gathering at the Royal Society in London to discuss aliens, with notable scientists agreeing that on a balance of probabilities “they exist.”
This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter […]
What happens if America and other rich nations like Japan and Britain default on their massive debts and end up bankrupt?
Radovan Karadzic is making a mockery of efforts to strengthen courts’ ability to try and prosecute accused war criminals. Karadzic faces charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, […]
Biofuel development is going to add a lot more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than previously estimated, according to a new assessment published today in Science Express. In theory, fuel […]
Grammy-award winning singer Carole King has been raising her voice on the radio lately—not in song, this time, but in a plea for the Rocky Mountains. King hails from the […]
Apparently the evidence of design is all around us, I just don’t see it.
Leadership in Century 21 …
Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the CEO and President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, talked to Big Think this summer about the challenges facing our health care system. Today, when we […]
In the high-stakes world of sports marketing, the search for the next Jordan, Tiger or Lebron never ends, highlighted every year by a special “Next” issue of ESPN the Magazine. […]
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