News of ongoing economic uncertainty surrounds us. In delivering his semiannual monetary policy report to Congress recently in Washington, U.S. Chairman Ben Bernanke urged drastic reduction in the government’s long-term […]
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Let me state this upfront: There is no such thing as a “divorce” gene. Not that it stopped many media outlets from reporting that such a gene had been discovered […]
We all know them: parents whose children run wild in public, allowed to behave in ways that make the rest of us cringe and calculate privately how we can avoid […]
Diane Ravitch tells Big Think what really matters when it comes to learning, inside schools and out. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not K-12 teachers who are most responsible.
The famous start up incubator Y Combinator, which is responsible for products like Reddit and Dropbox, is now accepting applications from teams and individuals who don’t have an actual business idea.
Want to the change the world but can only draw pretty pictures? You’re not far off! Here are some tips on how to use graphic design—images, branding and web design—to inspire social change.
Want your child to be successful? Help her build self-control. Most middle-class children already receive enough cognitive stimulation to develop intelligence close to its full potential. In contrast, many children have room to increase their self-control.
In a country like Turkey, with its long history of military secrecy and governmental scrutiny and control of the press, it’s tough to separate fact from rumor. It is widely […]
In a brilliant new twist on the theme of “fathers and sons,” Israeli director Joseph Cedar’s film Footnote examines the rivalry between two generations of Talmudic scholars at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. […]
What is the Big Idea? World Health Day is on April 7 and the theme this year is Aging and Health. The World Health Organization provided some key facts about […]
Over the last two weeks, pink slime has become the safe food movement’s equivalent of the Kony 2012 campaign.
Back in 2004, Jon Stewart famously hijacked CNN’s hyper-partisan “Crossfire” show, calling on the hosts to “stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.” Rather than fostering real debate on the issues […]
Last week Rush Limbaugh said of Sandra Fluke, “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it.” […]
Specific to climate change and energy related activities, environmental groups outspent conservative groups and their industry association allies $394 million to $259 million.
Sometimes there can be a gap between identifying what you naturally gravitate toward and how that translates into your full-time work. Here are three steps to help you bridge that gap.
As one of the first dot com entrepreneurs, Ben Way had raised 33 million dollars by the time he was 17, then lost it all before he turned 20. Now he’s back with fresh ideas and millions of dollars.
A new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that in comparison to young Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, today’s high school seniors and college freshmen are […]
Sometime in the first half of the first millennium B.C.E. a group of Canaanites distinguished themselves from their neighbors by advocating the worship of Yahweh alone, to the exclusion of […]
Former hedge fund analyst Salman Khan has caught the eye of Bill Gates and other powerful philanthropists with his online education experiment which could revolutionize traditional education.
The real world has never been more real, with the latest proof being the release of the much-hyped Retina Display on the new iPad from Apple. This new tablet screen, […]
Want something else to worry about? Worry about worrying too much. The evidence is building that chronically elevated stress shrinks your brain! A study in press at the […]
It’s no secret that Wall Street has many critics today — from without, from within, and from those on their way out. The latter case, of course, refers to Greg […]
I’m getting excited for the Reason Rally next weekend in Washington, D.C., which promises to be the largest and most spectacular atheist gathering in recent history – possibly the largest […]
Quick. Grab a pencil. Some crayons. A notepad. Wrap your brain around this Friday’s Big Enigma from Ivan Moscovitch’s The Big Book of Brain Games. Share a photo of your solution […]
John Horgan, author of the book The End of War argues that warring or violent behavior is not innate to human nature. Horgan shares the belief of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead that war is a cultural innovation.
1n 1947, Ukranian refugee Ihor Ševčenko wrote to England and persuaded George Orwell to authorize a Ukranian translation of Animal Farm. Over six decades later, writer Andrea Chalupa tracked down the story of this extraordinary man.
What is the Big Idea? Graffiti artist P183, whose real name is Pavel, canvasses the streets of Moscow at night armed with a can of spray paint. One of his […]
If Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus shown above seems a bit off, you’re right. In this version of “Venus on the Half-Shell,” the goddess is almost half her self, thanks […]
The development of artificial intelligence took big steps with Siri and IBM’s Watson. And the progression of that technology is set to grow at an even faster rate in the future, says Ray Kurzweil.