Jim McManus visited Big Think today to talk about the poker habits of the men who have inhabited the White House. The stories he told come from his new book […]
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In the 1960s, the world seemed on the verge of a global food crisis, as the population grew faster than the food supply. As I wrote last week, thanks largely […]
It looks like the Iranians have balked on their promise to ship lowly enriched uranium to Russia. One wonders if the whole thing was a ruse to tamp down the […]
We criminalize drug addicts in this country. To Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, that would be equivalent to putting someone with Parkinson’s in jail. Drug […]
The United States’ Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act takes effect on Saturday. Subsequently, it will be illegal for employers to use genetic test results to make decisions about their employees, or […]
Later this evening, the literary community finds out whether David Small’s “Stitches” will be the first graphic novel ever to win a National Book Award. This morning, Big Think asked […]
Big Think conducted a special interview today with George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente. As the world’s largest nonprofit health plan and hospital system, Kaiser Permanente is a micro-healthcare system unto […]
The world is on course for a “catastrophic” 6 degrees centigrade rise in temperature, meaning that the worst-case predictions for climate change are coming true.
A letter written by former US president Abraham Lincoln to a schoolboy around 150 years ago is to go on sale.
A businessman has pleaded guilty to setting fire to $200m worth of vintage wines in what is believed to be an attempt to cover up a pyramid scheme.
Privacy concerns have been raised after a leading genetics company pioneering personal DNA testing went bankrupt yesterday.
Senate leader Harry Reid is planning to include a public option so that states can opt out of his version of the healthcare reform bill. But what else could this volatile debate trigger?
Young children who are insensitive to fear are more likely to go on to commit crimes, according to psychologists.
Conjoined twin girls joined at the head have been successfully separated after 29 hours of surgery.
Something big lies beyond the visible edge of our universe, according to the largest analysis to date of galaxy clusters.
According to a new study, a now-extinct breed of miniature goats had bones that resemble a crocodile’s.
An Australian senator has accused the Church of Scientology of being a criminal organization and has called for its investigation by the police.
The Obama administration is finally getting serious about closing Guantanamo. The main obstacle to closing the military prison has always been that it wasn’t clear where to put the approximately […]
For all of us, coping with the death of a loved one is intensely traumatic. For sufferers of “complicated” grief, however, the trauma itself never seems to die; rather than dissipating over time, it becomes a […]
Expectations for the Copenhagen summit next month are dropping like a cartoon anvil. Where once there was talk of a comprehensive international accord on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, now the great […]
Stewart Brand’s latest book, “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto,” contains a dagger in its subtitle. To write a manifesto on behalf of “ecopragmatism” is to imply that the current […]
A variety of English media reported today that the Times of London will begin charging its customers for 24-hour access to the Times’ website by spring. The Times, roughly the […]
It’s becoming a familiar theme. An election is held somewhere in the developing world that is hotly contested. The opposition cries foul and demands a recount. Allegations fly as both […]
Steven Pinker’s attack on Malcolm Gladwell in the New York Times Book Review was more lucid and entertaining than it was intellectually honest. Pinker’s take-away claim is that Gladwell’s work […]
Spare some change? This past Thursday, the New York Times ran a special section on giving, the big front page story of which was all about giving small. You know, […]
“You Better Not Cry” author Augusten Burroughs treats fans to a second Big Think interview this week, just in time for the holiday season. Famous since his 2001 bestseller “Running […]
An underwater photographer was shocked when a leopard seal tried to feed him a live penguin.
An anti-depressant pill is being hailed as the “female Viagra” after the drug was proven to boost women’s flagging sexual drives.
Research on chimpanzees suggests that human language has its roots in the gestural hand communications of our primate ancestors.
Social-networking site Facebook is increasingly being used as a tool for thieves to target people – but also for cops to catch them red handed.