I’m generally not so big in thinking in terms of decades or generations or centuries or hunks of time in general. Consider the Sixties. Is that decade really characterized by […]
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In some crucial areas of human cognition, we don’t know and we can’t fully trust ourselves. On the bright side, Daniel Kahneman’s work shows that the kinds of errors we tend to make are extremely predictable.
The redoubtable fashion critic Simon Doonan, author of Gay Men Don’t Get Fat,observes that a unique appearance is a political liability in the United States. Mitt Romney, he observes, is “so handsome that he runs the risk of looking too “plastic…like a TV anchor.”
So you want to be Henry Rollins, kid? Bad news. The job’s already taken. The good news is that following Henry’s three golden rules gives you strong odds of success on your own, unique path as an artist/entrepreneur – the one that only you can carve out.
Here’s how not to put yourself on an exercise regimen: by making a firm resolution, gritting your teeth each day through a 45 minute workout, then grimly enduring a salad.
Fracking is yet another example of the subjective, instinctive, affective way human cognition deals with risks.
The team behind the 2008 Beijing Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium are at it again. Herzog & de Meuron joined forces with Ai Weiwei to create this summer’s commissioned installation at the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in […]
The London-based School of Life’s Bibliotherapy program has a growing fan-base among Londoners who appreciate its relatively low-cost, non-medicalized approach to the anxieties that are characteristic of modern life.
Their are other places in the solar system which might harbor life, say astronomers. Given probable budget cuts, some scientists are criticizing NASA’s singular focus on the Red Planet.
Ideas Gone Wild is a new Big Think blog dedicated to your boldest, bravest ideas. Each week, on Wednesday, we’ll solicit contributions through Facebook on a specific topic. . . .
Using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, astronomers have found an alien solar system that exhibits the same structure as ours, with planets rotating on a single plane around their parent star.
SETI’s new director Gerry Harp wants to see more investment in high-risk, high-reward science. In a recent interview, he discussed how the search for aliens is advancing rapidly.
A friend recently asked twitter for some recommendations on what to read if they want to learn about Growth Hacking. Being a great marketer (fine, fine “growth hacker) is about […]
There has been a lot of noise recently surronding the prospects of virtual reality. With Google Glasses being showcased last month at the Google I/O conference, it seems – at the least […]
In recent years, the term “emergence” has become popular among scientists to describe the seemingly inexplicable leaps that occur in the evolutionary process when greater complexity bursts forth from lesser […]
The traditional teachings of spiritual enlightenment tell us that in order to be one with Spirit we need to shrink our egos down to the size of a pea. Those […]
What’s the Big Idea? Your colleague asks whether you agree with her perspective on a key issue, forcing you to take sides. Your six-year-old throws a fit just before bedtime, […]
What’s the big idea? The great incentive for using smartphones and social networks is to always be connected to one another, but it’s starting to look like always is too […]
Now that space exploration has been turned over to the private sector, we’re seeing a run of new space innovation that’s unequalled in history. Just two months after Elon Musk’s celebrated […]
“Mommy” has become an adjective. This is both perplexing and troubling. I’m so sick of hearing everything get modified with mommy. Shades of Gray is “mommy porn.” Slow-track, less-stressful jobs […]
All apologies to Michael Jackson, but in the art world, Andy Warhol will always be the King of Pop. The bewigged eccentric didn’t start Pop Art, but his works largely […]
Maybe we ought to give our U.S. political journalists and TV pundits the next hundred days off and let the British press report on our 2012 presidential elections instead. The […]
Well, here’s an announcement! My first-ever original article for Salon has just been published, “Rise of the new atheists: Should non-believers make an alliance with religious progressives?” In it, I […]
By the year 2020, the world’s leading maker of wireless network equipment estimates that machines will interface with other machines more often than they will interact with humans.
The best mobile devices of tomorrow will “embed” your identity, says Rebekah Cox, product designer at Quora and formerly of Facebook. Identity, she says, comes down to communication.
The problem of having too much information at your fingertips was a problem the poet and novelist Percy Shelley was already aware of by the 19th century. He proposed a solution…
So deeply rooted, says Tom Doctoroff, is the Western belief in individual freedom, that it is nearly impossible for us to accept the fact that in Chinese culture, the individual does not exist outside of her network of familial and communal obligations.
The discovery of the Higgs boson was a real milestone for physics, a tremendous vindication of the hard work of thousands of physicists and engineers for the past 30 years. […]
What’s the Big Idea? Until the 1980s, the scientific consensus was that the nervous system was fixed and incapable of regeneration. Growth of neurons was considered most active during prenatal […]
I’m trying to understand this. Someone called Kristen Stewart, who is a Hollywood actress, issued an apology for having a (brief?) affair: “I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment […]