A major surprise from two genetic surveys — and of great interest to historians — is the genetic closeness of Europe’s two Jewish communities, explains Nicholas Wade. rn
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“South Africans live in separate but parallel worlds, and old divides continue to exist, 16 years after the end of apartheid.” Ullrich Fichtner on the violence, victories and hope.
With Asia expected to overtake Europe in pharmaceutical sales, researchers are focusing on the predominant diseases, and the medicines most likely to work, in emerging markets.
Worried that Twitter is shrinking attention spans, search engines lowering intelligence? Steven Pinker reassures us that I.T. is actually keeping us smart.
I.T. is waking up to the benefits of minimalism thanks to feature fatigue among consumers and strong demand from less affluent consumers in the developing world.
Meghan Daum opines on beauty amid a new book on workplace discrimination against the “unattractive” and a lawsuit by a woman claiming she was fired for being too attractive.
When Bill Frisell was young, he says remembers watching the “Mickey Mouse Club” on his family’s new television. “The leader of the Mouseketeers was this guy named Jimmy and he’d […]
Researchers hoping to fuse neuroscience with marketing are studying brain patterns of consumers with the goal of tapping into their subconscious material desires.
Apple’s strict policy against pornographic apps has resulted in an illustrated adaptation of James Joyce’s landmark novel Ulysses being censored; the novel itself was once banned for its sexual content.
One in eight people fled their homes in Northwest Pakistan in 2009 because of the war in Afghanistan; the area is a “human-rights free zone” according to a new report from Amnesty International.
Forty percent of the world doesn’t use toilets, says UNICEF, resulting in disease carried by dust and flies and contaminated food and water supplies — the toll is 2 million dead annually.
NASA says our sun is preparing for a stormy period and, according to the National Academy of Sciences, “A major solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.”
Ideological debates that lack context during a financial crisis are like a bikini, says Marc Lackritz of the Financial Times: “What they reveal is suggestive; but what they conceal is vital.”
Stanford Economist Paul Romer wants “dysfunctional nations to kick-start their own development” by leasing territory to foreign governments, an idea criticized as “neo-colonial”.
Garrison Keillor eavesdrops on some twenty-somethings at a local cafe and reasons that instant communication would have sapped modern literature of its best tropes, e.g. longing and reflection.
Among children whose parents consistently use mobile devices, “feelings of hurt, jealousy and competition are widespread,” says Sherry Turkle, director of MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self.
NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan asks: How can we account for the success of Indian American political candidates in the South given the region’s history of institutionalized racism?
Incumbent senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AK) narrowly managed to hold off a labor-backed challenge in the Democratic primaries from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Ben Smith reports that after the election a […]
The established poet William Carlos Williams wrote in 1956 of newcomer poet (and friend) Allen Ginsberg that he “sees with the eyes of the angels.” Williams most likely referred to […]
UCB Comedy shows what happens when someone upends a cup of joe at BP HQ. Photo credit: Flickr user TN Something Special Cakes, licensed under Creative Commons.
Speaking of green prefab houses, how many square feet, exactly, do you require before you’ll call it home? What about 220? I realize that, as a recently apartment-searching New Yorker […]
In just under a month’s time – July 7th to be precise – many Londoners will have cause to stop, think and remember that terrible summers day five years ago […]
Penn Jillette visited Big Think and talked about his early conversion to atheism, his libertarian views, the unique chemistry between him and Teller, the history (and the future) of magic, […]
The Middle East isn’t just the geographic center of the planet. With so much activism on different sides regarding the region, particularly with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict recently stoked […]
Bottled water is one of the environmental movement’s biggest scapegoats – and for a reason: Only about 10% of plastic bottles are recycled; the rest end up in landfills, or […]
Singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton is so famous that you might never have heard of him. That’s because he’s “internet famous” (i.e. he has a passionate fan base that he’s built up […]
USC’s vice provost of innovation, Krisztina “Z” Holly, thinks PhD programs need to change. If you think about it, it takes even the most amazing PhD candidates around the world […]
Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder and CEO of Seventh Generation—the eco-friendly manufacturer of cleaning, paper, and personal care products—stopped by the Big Think offices today to talk about about his thoughts on […]
There is a phenomenon going on out here in the blogosphere called “good information dissemination”, a trait that often distinguishes us lower paid or usually unpaid bloggers from the members […]
Having your body freeze-dried instead of cremated may reduce carbon and mercury emissions, Helen Knight finds in her look at how to make funerals more eco-friendly.