“Computer simulations show that a stiff wind blowing from the east for 12 hours could have given the Israelites a land bridge that allowed them to escape Egypt over 3000 years ago.”
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“A newly-leaked study—which advises the German military—paints a bleak picture of the post-peak oil world, including a complete market collapse and various forms of social unrest.”
“Today, the ‘frankenfish’—a genetically modified salmon. Tomorrow, a ‘frankenpig’? Probably.” The Christian Science Monitor on the future of food in America.
How you sit and which hand you wright with may in part determine you political preferences. Recent research reveals that irrational processes account for much of our behavior.
Business and economics, not technology, are the real keys to progress in the energy frontier, says Department of Energy Under Secretary Steven Koonin.
What is intellectual property? What is privacy? These questions play out daily now, and those in a position to answer them occasionally shift their views, but the questions surrounding the […]
Two political action committees backed by former Bush political advisers Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie—American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS—have raised a combined $32 million so far this year. They raised […]
When it comes to marriage, most economists would expect that in societies with high income inequality, polygyny (one man with multiple wives) should exist. But while prosperous nations often have high income inequality, they rarely allow polygyny.
You’ve probably wondered how wildlife filmmakers are able to follow a polar bear and her cub across a year. Or get perfect close-up shots of a bear feasting on a […]
The NASA Earth Observatory posted an excellent image today of the erupting volcano Shiveluch on the Kamchatka Peninsula. This isolated part of eastern Russia is one of the most volcanically […]
The Feast Conference is a social innovation summit gathering some of the world’s most compelling thinkers and doers from a cross-disciplinary spectrum of innovation, inspiration and empowerment. Last year, The […]
The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the limbic system, is where the the brain processes and reacts to frightening stimuli. Because of its mechanism, our emotional responses to situations that feel dangerous are often unconscious.
“Brain imaging is not a very good way to test subtle distinctions [in the brain]…it’s like trying to find out something about New York City by studying New York State,” […]
While I was out of town last week I got a lot of reading done. One of the books I picked up was the paperback version of Palace Council by […]
“There’s no true power struggle within the Republican Party over ‘tea party’ candidates.” Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg debunks the media narrative du jour.
Subtitled Bollywood films are proving a boon to literacy in India. The Boston Globe reports that communities gather around old TV sets for entertainment and education.
“People’s willingness to believe or discount scientists depends mostly on ideology, or what a new study’s authors call ‘cultural cognition’.” The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“He’s been sly, sad, unwatchably private, two writers and a drag queen, and now he’s directing. Tom Shone traces the career of Philip Seymour Hoffman.”
“Are Georgia, Alabama and Florida fighting over water or over growth?” The Economist explains that population growth has put pressure on regional water resources.
“New case studies focus on rare illusory body perceptions that could answer questions about how we maintain a ‘self’.” Scientific American on how the mind invents the ‘I’.
“Food is at the center of health and illness and so doctors must make all aspects of it—growing, buying, cooking, eating—a mainstay of their personal lives and practices.”
“Knowledge is fleeting. Knowing how to think and behave is what endures.” The Frontal Cortex defends standardized tests as a way to measure intelligence metrics that matter.
“M.I.T. biological engineers have found a way to convert carbon-dioxide emissions to useful building materials, using genetically altered yeast.”
“Narcissists, new experiments show, are great at convincing others that their ideas are creative even though they’re just average.” Science on business and self-love.
When Frank Welsh wrote his outstanding one-volume history of Hong Kong, he titled it “A Borrowed Place.” In I Like Hong Kong… Art and Deterritorialization, Frank Vigneron, an Associate Professor […]
Imagine if a state defined embryos as people, giving full legal protections and rights to a collection of cells the size of the ball on a fine-tipped pen? Sound like […]
Sorry about the lack of posts today – I’ve been trying to get over a nasty headcold and my ability to concentrate on much has been less than great. So, […]
If a cliché is beautifully wrought does it save it from the evils of being cliché? David Brooks does not like what he refers to as the “Quiet Desperation dogma” […]
August may be behind us, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped thinking dangerously here at Big Think. At the end of last month, we asked readers to submit their own dangerous […]
In a special Big Think conversation arranged by Discover magazine and published online today, Dr. Antonio Damasio, a behavioral neurobiologist at the University of Southern California speaks with novelist Siri […]