Using lots of brains each doing small tasks to together complete major jobs is not new but is enjoying a renaissance. Examples include Mechanical Turk, CrowdForge, and CastingWords.
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One of the world’s most wired countries, South Korea, illustrates the downside of high speed internet and real name verification–an epidemic of hacking, data theft and botnets.
The latest episode of Boss had so many parallels to the Herman Cain saga, I thought I was watching a “ripped from the headlines” episode. A political neophyte with a […]
Andrew Karre, the editorial director of Carolrhoda, and two other Lerner Publishing imprints, wrote a blog this afternoon called #yamatters. It is arguably the most coherent distillation I’ve ever read […]
Researchers have found a way to shrink the size of the medical lab to the size of a microchip, using advances from nanotechnology to pave the way for radically new […]
The second dip of the worldwide recession is a bit like that scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, where two guards stupidly stare at a horseless knight approaching in the […]
If you were a regular commenter on the old site, you’ve probably noticed a shift in the commenting community since Daylight Atheism came here to Big Think. The old site […]
–Guest post by Andrea Garvue, American University graduate student. In 2004, Rescue Me on the FX Network provided the United States with its first taste of the entertainment industry’s take […]
Roberto Díaz was the principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony orchestra. Watch as he explains why bringing a hundred musicians together in to one synchronized ensemble is not easy – it’s a feat of human expression well-deserving of our attention.
Do stubborn people actually win? Maybe the reason they take such an aggressive approach every time is that it works, says Steven Pinker.
Merkel and Sarkozy appear to have agreed on a fast-track eurozone consolidation on a take it or leave it basis as far as the rest of the E. U . is concerned.
Say “Miami” and, depending on your age, certain things come to mind: Crockett and Tubbs, senior citizens in cabana wear, LeBron James. In a generation or so, another association may […]
–Guest post by Brittany Noble, American University graduate student. The digital age continues to change news media and the way the public receives information. As a leading example, Americans are […]
Be careful what you tweet. Just ask Ashton Kutcher, who tweeted that September 11 — the start of the football season — was “the greatest day of the year.” More recently, […]
As I wrote last week — with unemployment dropping below 9% for the first time since the start of 2009 — public belief and concern over climate change may be […]
How can individuals and groups of people adapt to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds? The answer can be found in a number of new histories of the Second World War, which offer invaluable lessons for the 21st century.
Last week when the Egyptians voted in an open election for the first time in decades, having won the right to this inspirational exercise of democracy by standing up […]
I was on train last Sunday night traveling through Brussels when my 12-year-old son looked out the window and excitedly proclaimed, “They have a red light district!” He was right; […]
As barbarians, says Lawrence Summers, economist and former President of Harvard.
Though it won by a seeming landslide, the results of Sunday’s Duma election in Russia reveal rising discontent among the Russian population. The results are really a disaster for Putin.
Calls are rising in the West for tougher actions against Iran. Here’s why Obama must strongly embrace a cold-war-style strategy of containment. Patient vigilance is called for.
Egypt’s euphoria over the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February later gave way to a creeping realization that the regime had not been toppled at all. What lies ahead?
After long wallowing in slow growth, there is cautious optimism that Africa now has a real chance to follow in the footsteps of Asia, thanks partly to the commodities boom.
“A second-class intellect but a first-class temperament” was Oliver Wendell Holmes’ assessment of Franklin Roosevelt, reflecting an old and widespread notion that the smartest and most ingenious person in the […]
During the REM stage of sleep, the brain’s stress chemicals shut down while the mind processes the day’s emotional experiences which we witness as dreams as we doze.
Apropos of my recent posts on whether Unitarian Universalism is welcoming to atheists, I just got the winter 2011 issue of UU World magazine. And guess who wrote the blurb […]
Scientists are beginning to understand more fully how exercise improves cognitive function. They believe a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor is released when we work out.
Hallucinogens are increasingly being studied for legitimate therapeutic uses, such as dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, chronic pain, depression even terminal illness.
Between the ages of five and eight month, infants develop surprisingly complex moral attitudes, considering the context of an action when determining whether it is right or wrong.
–Guest post by Kristen Moses, American University graduate student. On July 20, 2011, the UN declared a famine in two regions of southern Somalia due to the worst drought in […]