Scientists have discovered the smallest exoplanets yet known, and both represent the closest we have come to finding Earth’s twin. Using NASA’s Kepler telescope, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for […]
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As the kind of writer who keeps his finger squarely on the cultural pulse, I’ve just watched the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” for the first time […]
In this excerpt from his lecture for The Floating University, Dr. Kaku explains that time machines do not violate Einstein’s laws of physics, and that future humans would be wise to build one and slip through a wormhole before the cooling universe extinguishes all known life.
As our political and media systems rapidly evolve, social scientists are revisiting and updating existing models, theories, and methods for investigating the effects of the media on political attitudes and […]
If 2011 is the year of Twitter Revolutions, what will be the big idea for 2012?
If you are in the throes of a metaphysical hangover, we offer you the cure: a whimper over the Mayan prophecy of apocalypse in the year 2012, followed by a shattering meditation upon the various ways the world might end.
Unrestrained obstructionism as a political strategy practically guarantees that the epitaph on the GOP’s 2012 presidential aspirations will read “too stupid to quit while they were ahead.” Is John Boehner […]
Legal experts have joined the chorus of complaints about the proposed PROTECT IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation, saying they’ll hinder bids for better online security.
As patient records have been digitized, an unintended consequence is that health data breaches have surged. The number of reported breaches is up 32 percent this year.
What would you do if Google, Facebook, Paypal or another site you and your business depend on suddenly decided, on the basis of a fraud detection algorithm, you were dodgy?
Read Write Web’s top stories about how the social web has helped us answer questions in 2011 includes the discovery of prehistoric earth-art and a photo archive of all species.
Facebook predicts that for the foreseeable future, the amount of information we share on the Web will double every year. Are we headed for an avalanche of daily trivialities?
Judging by the tremendous outpouring of support he’s received across the Web over the past week, comedian Louis C.K. may be the future of how stars create, produce and distribute their content on the Internet.
This trans-African colony could have rivalled Brazil for dominance of the Portuguese-speaking world.
What’s the Big Idea? As Newt Gingrich appears to have peaked, and now plunged in the polls, the latest candidate to enter the GOP Presidential speed-dating game is Ron Paul. […]
This idea was submitted and written by Ali Wyne, researcher at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. What is your […]
What’s the Big Idea? Will North Korea experience a smooth transition from Kim Jong-Il to the so-called “great successor,” Kim Jong-un? Big Think asked Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a political […]
The most powerful, courageous, penetrating, and eloquent dissident opponents of Communist tyranny were Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the Czech philosopher-playright-president Vaclav Havel (1936-December 18, 2011). We forget that their criticism was […]
Nine months into Syria’s uprising and the peaceful protests against the regime of Bashar Assad are now accompanied by a growing insurgency.
Will the conflict between intellectual property and the value of sharing knowledge be resolved?
The Tahirih Justice Center is one of the U.S.’s foremost legal defense organizations for immigrant women and girls fleeing human rights abuses such as domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, […]
Kim Jong-un’s youth means he’s likely to keep his head down for a few years while North Korea is run by elder statesmen. Stability is expected to ensue, which China will welcome.
Withdrawing the troops from Iran is about the only truly popular thing Obama has done in the last two years. But many still think the invasion was the right decision.
Europe is falling apart, and a frustrated international community appears unwilling to lend Beijing a hand. China’s problems are still manageable, but they require strong leadership.
Along with Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, the former Czech Republic president and leader of the Velvet Revolution was seen as an emblem of democracy for millions worldwide.
Scientists have found a fascinating pattern: children better at combining sights and sounds tend to score higher on intelligence tests. Ability to compute conflicting information is key.
Research shows that too few or too many adverse experiences generally leave people with worse coping skills than those who have had ‘the optimum’ number of bad times.
In top news this week, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And in other news: • A paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that the […]
As we are rapidly getting closer to the end of 2011 which has been quite an exciting year for the education startup scene, I want to take a quick look […]
Freelance writer and editor Molly Oswaks on how first cocaine and later an ADD diagnosis and medication gave her clarity and attention consistency after a life mostly spent adrift.