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When we think of the Internet of Things, we tend to think of our microwave talking to our mobile phone or our car chatting with our home air conditioning system. […]

Haiti. Chile. California. China. Is there something unusual going on in the earth’s crust, or is the recent spate of major earthquakes a statistical fluke? And do we have any […]

Ever wonder what it’s like to lead a life of chastity? Jesuit priest and author James Martin explains. “I find people can be freer with me. When I become close […]

Seeking the hidden causes of behavior, some scientists work on the scale of brain regions and neurons, searching inside people’s heads. Others work on the scale of crowds, neighborhoods and […]

You know all that stuff you’ve been told for years not to eat–like animal fat, eggs and butter? Well, Nina Planck, the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and […]

Bestselling author Lionel Shriver isn’t embarrassed to admit that her impulse to write stems from her feelings of social incompetence: “You know that feeling of having had an encounter with […]

A while back I linked to a couple of studies in which scary public-health messages had the opposite of their intended effect: These anti-drinking and anti-smoking ads made people want […]

“If ants wrote a stage play for human characters, it would look like this,” writes Barbara Kingsolver of E.O. Wilson’s first novel, Anthill. In a powerhouse-eco-figures play, the New York […]

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about the Large Hadron Collider in the news lately. After 16 years the LHC seems to be in the headlines each week, breaking speed, […]

Smart people have long had a history of quirky and inexplicable habits: Nietzsche wound up hugging horses, Freud couldn’t kick a drug addiction, Nikola Tesla adored white pigeons and loathed […]

Imagine no waiting room at the doctor’s office. Scratch that. Now picture no doctor’s office at all. In this practice, you make appointments via text, video chat or email, and […]

Over the past several years, China and Europe have sped by the United States in their development of high-speed rail systems. But now, as the New York Times reports, China might be […]

Vice President Joe Biden writes that the country’s new nuclear stance “leaves Cold War thinking behind” and recognizes that nuclear terrorism and proliferation are the biggest dangers to global security.

Tuesday’s court ruling, which found that the Federal Communications Commission does not have jurisdiction over how internet providers regulate their service, has sent the FCC’s national broadband plan back to […]

Insects have long been objects of fascination in classical literature, children’s nursery rhymes, and in the culture at large. Hugh Raffles’ interest in insects stemmed from his work in the Amazon, […]

Warming world, warming waters, coral reef die-off. You know the drill. But until recently, marine biologists knew relatively little about  what exactly was going on, on the bacterial level, when […]

According to Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize Foundation, the cost of getting you and your spacesuit into orbit could soon be about $120. That would mean a price […]

Today marks the fourth installment of Big Think’s series on business sustainability, sponsored by Logica. For the next nine Mondays (through June 8, 2010), we will release in-depth discussions with top European […]

“What do you see?” asks Alfred Molina as Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko in John Logan’s two-character bio-drama, Red, which just began a run on Broadway after a successful tour […]

The headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sums up the story’s coverage in countless other news outlets: “CNN’s ratings continue to fall; Fox News has best quarter in network history.” The […]

But not fast enough. It’s huge news that the latest employment report (pdf) shows that the country has finally started to add jobs. It’s the first substantial increase in the […]

When I read that Republican National Committee staffers had expensed nearly $2000 worth of “meals” at bondage-themed Hollywood nightclub specializing in simulated lesbian sex, I knew it couldn’t be an […]

We’re delighted to start our blog, Hybrid Reality, on Big Think. The blog is part of a multi-year research project examining human/technology co-evolution. We explore the implications of our complex […]

I spoke with one of Atlanta’s former mayors last week about the new advocacy organization she had just joined. Shirley Franklin, the first black woman to run the city, seems […]

After the Copenhagen Climate Council was considered a failure, how should we prepare for COP-16 in Mexico? Big Think’s live roundtable on March 26, 2010 in Houston was moderated by […]

“We want to make architecture that people like to use,” said Kazuyo Sejima, who with partner Ryue Nishizawa won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize yesterday.  “The jury somehow appreciated our […]

A few days ago, I posted about an unusual ad that appeared in my local subway stop. The ad featured a kid with a broken leg hobbling down a hospital […]

Today’s installment of our series “The Future in Motion” features Joseph Sussman, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and Douglas Malewicki, Aerospace engineer and inventor of the SkyTran.  The SkyTran is […]

The key to surviving global warming will be to develop an economy that empowers the impoverished to meet global clean-energy demands.

The health care bill was a huge, and even historic, victory for Democrats. In fact, the Democrats are on something of a roll. Not only did they manage to pass […]