All Articles

Maitri, Petya, Deni and Monika, all in their mid 20s, thought that it was a shame how the granny knitting talent is going to waste and decided that Bulgarian babas ought to take their deserved place in the world as the “knitting gurus” that they are. 

1. Dark lightning Thunderstorms need to vent electrical energy, and they can do so in two ways. There is the Ben Franklin way and there is the extreme way: dark […]

Forget about immortalizing yourself.  Don’t waste money.  Don’t waste time.  Don’t waste thought or anxiety on having yourself frozen or your brain frozen.   Don’t curtail all your everyday enjoyments […]

According to a new study, the frequency and intensity of clear-air turbulence affecting transatlantic flights will increase significantly by 2050…and yes, we do have climate change to thank for it.

In Brian Sykes’s 2004 book Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men, he described how male fertility could be decline to the point where men will no longer be able to reproduce naturally. […]

Skip Arnold tends to put his body in strange places, often while naked, and often in great discomfort. For instance, the naked man strapped to the hood of an eighteen-wheeler driving along […]

Since the Victorian invention of the modern, romantic concept of childhood, images of the innocent child have dominated Anglo-American culture and its art. Even nude images of young children that […]

Prayer effectively deals with sympathetic magic—the notion that your thoughts can alter reality from a distance, or influence outcomes in your life which you have no conscious control over.

Just as artists are using technology to enable participation, doctors need to do that too.

Congressional lawmakers are understandably miffed about the latest Cuban holiday of international superstars Beyonce and Jay-Z, who spent the weekend in Havana celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary accompanied by paparazzi, bodyguards […]

On the question of whether or not black people can swim the answer is yes, no and maybe. I asked the question in my book of a very special panel. […]

1. The Topless Revolution Targets Putin  “Putin leered like Benny Hill at a topless protester,” was the headline on The Reliable Source. Gawker has the video of Putin giving the thumb’s up. […]

Not current smartphone users, who already have lots of app options: It’s the estimated 1.5 billion — most of them in the developing world — who are expected to buy their first smartphone in the next four years.

Fellow pseudonymous neuroblogger Neuroskeptic(to whom I owe a great deal in inspiration) has published a fantastic piece in Trends in Cognitive Sciences ($) on the benefits to science of anonymity. Last November Neuroskeptic became […]

The American Founders were deeply suspicious of Democracy, and structured a Constitution designed to protect both personal liberties and property from the tyranny of the majority.  But the critical problem […]

Taking the paywall concept in a different direction, a Dutch news site offers its readers the option to subscribe to an individual journalist’s “channel” for a small fee.

“Although we often stereotype givers as chumps and doormats, they turn out to be surprisingly successful.” So writes Adam Grant in his celebrated new book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary […]

I often have pointed out that interviewing people gives me the opportunity to shut the fuck up.  I don’t have to talk. There’s certainly this idea that interviewing doesn’t involve […]

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the charge that conservatives are bad because they hate science.  But it’s just not true.  Here’s a beginning of my explanation why. We […]

We live in an amazing era of technology-driven transformation that’s redefining how we sell, market, communicate, collaborate, innovate, train, and educate—all in an amazingly short period of time. With that […]

Like many sites, BigThink has a Terms of Use section. If certain members of Congress have their way, an amended Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could make violating those terms a criminal offense.

With the slow death of “appointment television” comes an increasing tendency for spoilers to pop up in unexpected places. Writer Sean T. Collins discusses fans’ and critics’ attempts to preserve the suspense.

As autonomous cars slowly move closer to reality, designers from different disciplines are looking at how they will change the rules of the road, as well as the road itself.

As in biology, diversity is a good indicator of culinary origin

When I was a teen-age consumer of cheap paperbacks about worlds more interesting than this one, I noticed a clear and sharp split between readers who loved SF (spaceships, time […]

The Belgian founder of five clinics says the poor are most acutely affected by pain and as a result are the ideal candidates for “humanitarian acupuncture.”

There’s no doubt that there’s going to be an international market for biotechnologies.  And you’re going to have consumers going from one place to another trying to find enhancement technologies.  But […]

We all know that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.  No secret there.  We can’t keep growing the way we have been over the last decades or centuries […]

A government initiative that originally focused on hotels in certain districts of Ho Chi Minh City has now been expanded to all hotels in an attempt to combat unsafe sexual practices.

City officials installed four ewes in a half-acre field next to the municipal archives building for a mere $335. They will munch on grass, and fertilize the field, until this fall.