All Articles

Researchers have long understood that playing action-packed video games can boost one’s cognitive and perceptual abilities. A new study claims to have found the reason: These types of video games improve one’s ability to learn new tasks. The problem is that a conflicting study claims the exact opposite. 

“Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say, which is one of the most important things to know for an artist.”

Did you know October was National Bullying Prevention Month? Researchers at Clemson University are finding that campaigns such as NBPM are not reaping the results organizer had hoped.

Wise Women Rise to the Top There’s a big difference between being smart and being wise, and also being intelligent, frankly, says futurist Edie Weiner. Why We Need More Women […]

There are monster galaxies in the Universe thousands of times the size of ours. But none of them are spirals like us! “Sometimes, I sit alone under the starsand think […]

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation.”

The United State owns the market on personal data with companies like Facebook and Google. This puts America in a position of power when talking about privacy rights. But that may mean being at odds with the international community.

Why aren’t millennials saving money? One reason is that the crippling recession has made the generation distrustful of banks. Another is that they hardly have any money to save, especially after paying down debt.

When prison populations began to surge in the mid-20th century, it changed the entire social dynamic of incarceration. Prison gangs grew out of a need for inmates to organize and defend themselves.

Google has launched “Google Bus Bangladesh,” an educational program aimed at teaching 500,000 young Bangladeshis about the internet. Bangladesh is the world’s 8th most populous nation yet many of its 157 million people remain offline.

About three-quarters of Americans—74 percent, to be precise—believe in God. This 3-question quiz can help predict if you are likely to be among that majority.

There are three primary ways that mobile technologies change our behavior:  1. By making things easier 2. By interrupting us 3. By giving us feedback By Making Things Easier: Let’s […]

The nature of our Universe defies our intuition. That just might be the greatest thing of all. “I asked the Zebra,are you black with white stripes?Or white with black stripes?And […]

Facing several controversies involving scientific complexity, the European government created a Chief Science Adviser to provide independent objective expertise and input into policy making. when some groups didn’t like what the science said about genetically modified food, they objected to the whole idea of independent science advice to government. The EU government has caved to public pressure and abandoned the Chief Science Adviser function. We should ALL be scared by a move away from evidence-based policy making, toward a solely values-based approach.

Winter is coming, bringing along with it an icy chill and one more reason not to go to the gym. But there are a few personal strategies and mental hacks you can employee to get yourself geared up for your workout.

Employers who provide their workers with an on-site canteen or cafeteria tend to sport workforces with higher morale and boosted productivity.

Humans weren’t a part of the mosquito’s diet thousands of years ago, and researchers have isolated the genes to prove it.

Every person who ventures into the company of others engages in persuasion.  Granted, at times it may be annoying to engage in conversation that requires you to develop effective arguments, but if such conversations are on the wane or largely absent, then important relationships can slip toward reliance on manipulation, coercion or even toward a lack of any significant communication at all.  

The president of Iceland explains the secret to the Nordic countries’ recent economic and social success. Social welfare programs such as free access to education and healthcare have proved to be a boon to the free market economy.

Tech entrepreneur Brad Templeton returns to Big Think to discuss how Bitcoin disrupts the finance industry.

The severity of a given climate strongly correlates with the extent to which a god intervenes directly in human affairs and supports a clear moral code.

What if money was like food? Life’s limits hold lessons for healthy self-interest (individual and collective).

Slow Down Your Brain to Get More Done, with Steven Kotler The best-selling author discusses hypofrontality — literally the slowing of the brain’s prefrontal cortex — and how it allows […]

“I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down.” -Jack Kerouac

How has President Obama agreed to cut carbon emissions with bitter opposition in the legislature cemented by last week’s midterm elections?

We’ve just landed our first-ever probe on the surface of a comet. Here’s what it means, and what we’ll learn. “I must trust that the little bit of love that […]

Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion Sam Harris describes the properties of consciousness and how mindfulness practices of all stripes can be used to transcend one’s ego. Ray Kurzweil: […]

A recent study out of Russia concludes there are two new sleep types: those who are most productive at the start and end of the day but feel sluggish during the middle hours, and the reverse.

Rather than clear arable land for solar power farms, engineers have proposed using the millions of square miles of roadway and parking lots to gather in solar energy.

A week from today, researchers will gather for a neuroscience conference in Washington D.C. titled “Gut Microbes and the Brain: Paradigm Shift in Neuroscience.”