We’re already used to describing our online social identity as a “digital tattoo” – something that we carry with us permanently wherever we go. So what if it were now possible to […]
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It’s a fact of life in the 21st century that we’re all very busy. If you do a gut check on yourself, you’d likely admit that you are busier this […]
Spreading luck around isn’t as easy as it sounds.
A rejoinder to the author of the Neurobonkers blog post criticizing my take on Edward Snowden.
Youth unemployment has reached crisis levels in several European countries: 39% in Italy, 55% in Spain, and 60% in Greece. Now, early retirement, a so-called economic fix that I’d hoped […]
The election of moderate Iranian presidential candidate Hassan Rohani represents an opportunity for the West to engage Iran with fresh negotiations over its nuclear energy program.
As of this weekend, Google has begun testing Project Loon, in which solar-powered balloons flying 12 miles above the Earth to provide Internet to participating locations in New Zealand.
Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who went public with the NSA’s clandestine data mining operation, forms part of an increasing crossover between government and private cybersecurity organizations.
Hundreds of companies now offer lessons to children of immigrants living all over the world. While some say it’s a timesaver, others are concerned about radical influences.
Consider this individual: She has appeared on ABC’s “What Would you Do?” and is the ambassador for “Healing Hands for Haiti,” which aims to bring rehabilitation medicine to the country. […]
This week marks the launch of @SummerBreak, an eight-week series that can only be “watched” on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and similar sites. The goal: To reach Millennials on their own turf.
Feedback is important to every large organization, and complaints are one of the ways that big companies get feedback from their customers.
As privacy rights gain greater focus in the European Union, one group says that giving individuals the right to remove personal material from the Internet would complicate historical record-keeping.
A massive urban development program, in which the Chinese government aims to relocate 250 million peasant farmers to burgeoning urban centers, is set to begin in earnest this fall.
For some years now I’ve been involved with a small community group. It’s a shoe-string organization that depends entirely on volunteers. These curious creatures have a predictable life-cycle. It begins […]
It is just an extremely satisfying and wondrous moment when you think you’ve unlocked a secret of nature.
Figuring out how to build a brain is a very powerful intellectual exercise for sure, but the project is a long way off.
Until the late 20th century, Western approaches to mental well-being focused mainly on treatments directly affecting brain function (via surgery, electric shock or pharmaceuticals, for example) or insight-oriented psychotherapy intended […]
The population boom of the modern era–there are about seven billion people today living on the planet, up from two billion in 1920–has resulted in an aging world population.
If the Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov has his way, we will be able to trade our bodies in forholograms and have computerized brains in 32 short years.
Taking questions from readers online at The Guardian today, whistleblower Edward Snowden said the government can’t stop the truth from getting out, even if he is jailed or murdered.
The world faces a difficult task in brining energy to poor populations while mitigating the effects of climate change, which is why creating innovative energy programs must be a global priority.
A seemingly unintentionally ironic paper has just been published in Science titled “A HUMAN RIGHT TO SCIENCE“. I presume it’s an important paper because the title is in BLOCK CAPITALS. […]
I think we should all take a moment to consider the news that everyone who continues to protest in Istanbul’s Taksim square is to be considered a terrorist. Let’s just […]
The surveillance state is here, and it is apparently here to stay. The question moving forward is how effective the U.S. constitutional system and democratic culture will be in keeping the American version from slipping into Chinese mode.
I was pretty disappointed to read a post from fellow Big Think blogger, Steven Mazie. The backlash has been substantial, he has already had to rehash. His post begins with […]
Big Idea: Micro-Loans/Micro-Financing
Professor Benjamin Ginsberg of Johns Hopkins, the nation’s leading critic of administrative bloat in higher education, has a modest proposal worthy of Jonathan Swift himself. If we’re going to have the […]
Toddlers’ speech patterns were thought to lack the grammatical architecture used by adults, but new research suggests that children just learning to talk have already begun obeying grammatical rules.
As we move toward a more cashless society, the dangers of credit transactions are becoming more apparent as those vulnerable to abusing credit also increase in number.