By making adult skin cells behave like a specific class of stem cells called pluripotent cells, scientists are looking to establish the field of regenerative medicine and test drugs in new ways.
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The ability of food to affect all of our senses, and recent technological developments that have made cooking a more precise exercise, have caught the attention of the professional art world.
So what will you be doing Sunday night? My advice: Watch more TV! Now you innovative and disruptive BIG THINK readers might think you don’t have the time. But that’s […]
Never mind remembering creative strings of data: Google is researching small devices — a USB card, a wireless “smart ring” — that will automatically log you into a Web site or database.
An algorithm developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University easily deciphers long passwords that make grammatical sense.
Who could have saved us from the global financial crisis? In a word, women. The release of the Federal Reserve’s transcripts of policymaking meetings up to 2007 has shed new […]
Surveys that compare student test scores from different countries often fail to take socioeconomic differences into account, say the authors of a new study.
Researchers mined data from 8 years’ worth of comments on a road rage complaint Web site and created a taxonomy of behaviors that could be helpful in new driver education.
Enjoy the inauguration of Barack Obama, Democrats: it may be the last opportunity to cheer a president from your party for quite a while.
The president won reelection with the help of the science of mass persuasion, a very particular, advanced use of predictive analytics.
How can we train our brains to think like Sherlock Holmes? We need to develop the core skill of mindfulness.
Nearly 40 percent of high school and college students surveyed say they will own a gun in the future, and an additional 20 percent say they’ll consider it.
For many in my parents’ generation, the half century between now and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 seems like the blink of an eye. The […]
Hey all, I have a couple of commitments that have been demanding a lot of my time this week, so blogging has been light. Bear with me – I’ll be […]
A good friend–I’ll call her Tandy here–is a huge fan of meditation. She spends a good hour each day practicing “mindfulness.” She credits her practice with a more calm demeanor, […]
I know I’m not the only one who had to search the Internet to find the channel number for OWN, the poorly-rated network Oprah Winfrey launched in 2011. My sudden […]
One day, I found a press release from an academic journal, calling attention to one of its articles. That is unusual enough, since the kinds of articles that Aaron Swartz–a […]
We live in an increasingly visual society, in which our lives are now catalogued as a flood of images – everything from where we traveled to what we had for […]
This month, Wrangler’s “revolutionary” line of jeans infused with skin-soothing extracts will be available on the online shopping site ASOS. (Sorry guys, this one’s just for the ladies. For now.)
The liner is made out of a special type of cardboard that mimics the layer of spongy cartilage separating the bird’s beak from its skull.
Humans are blessed, and cursed, with a risk perception system that mostly gets things right, but sometimes creates what I call a Risk Perception Gap, when we worry more […]
Several Japanese construction companies have developed efficient and environmentally-friendly ways to demolish tall buildings without resorting to explosives and wrecking balls.
The combination of plastic particles and nanoscale cubes can be used to create stain-resistant clothing and protective body gear, among other things.
Although many are still in the development stage, expect to see more devices designed to electronically nag you into doing better.
The argument over guns is a complex topic, but we ought not to dismiss arguments because they do not square with our gut feelings – regardless of whether we want more or less guns, more or less laws.
In an e-mail conversation I had some time ago, a Christian minister attempted to convince me that atheists, despite what they might say, live life on the basis of faith […]
Penn Jillette says healthy skepticism involves maintaining the distinction between what you think and what you feel.
Today’s announcement of NASA’s deal with Bigelow Aerospace for the addition of an inflatable module to the International Space Station hints at the company’s future goals.
On Monday, I suggested that Justice Thomas might build on his first moment of non-silence in seven years. “If he wants to demonstrate that he takes his judicial role seriously […]
A paper’s authors say that contrary to several decades’ worth of movie images, space travelers would see a steady bright light rather than streaks of stars.