All Articles

We all think we know what it means to be conscious, but it is hard to pin this down in a precise, scientific way—as USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explains in our video. Every weekday in September, Big Think will offer a new insight into the human brain in our new “Going Mental” blog.

Using lasers to manipulate the weather sounds like science fiction, but researchers at the University of Geneva have done just that. In May, Dr. Jerome Kasparian unveiled the results of […]

Chef Wylie Dufresne believes in playing with his food—but not in the usual sense of the phrase. In his popular New York restaurant, wd-50, Dufresne applies molecular gastronomy, a field […]

If Americans were paid to eat less and exercise more they might be motivated to lose some weight—and save us a bundle on health care—says Dr. Barry M. Popkin, director […]

I don’t have to write anything today, because the professionals have done my job for a change. Eugene Robinson, Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd, who are all political pundits I […]

One of the richest sub-worlds of blogging is the Atheist NetRoots.  As I described last week, popular atheist bloggers such as PZ Myers have developed a loyal and engaged following […]

With the Web tipped to soon eclipse friends as the primary way of finding mates, researchers are relishing online dating as a potent peephole into dating behaviour.

Researchers have found that most migrating birds and other animals are just “following the leader”, which has serious ramifications as their habitats become more fragmented.

Ross Douthat ponders baseball’s decline into sordidness as Roger Clemens becomes “one of the many…superstars credibly accused of using performance-enhancing drugs.”

Are Americans right to be pessimistic about the prospects of their children being better off economically than they are? Gary Becker examines the grounds for this growing sentiment.

Skype is one of Michael Arrington’s “can’t live without” products but the way people use it is driving him crazy, hence this primer on appropriate Skype etiquette.

The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker blames the media for fearmongering over the ‘Ground Zero mosque’. “For one thing, it’s not at Ground Zero. Also, it isn’t a mosque.”

Notions of the tormented artist and of us being ruled by our moods are unhelpful and outdated today, especially in the field of mental health. Tom Wootton explains why.

The New Yorker examines Churchill’s real legacy and finds he was a “Hamlet in reverse”, as well as the greatest modern instance of the romantic-conservative temperament in power.rn

Financial reforms will only work — and prevent disasters — if they take into account human nature and disincentivize greed. The latest proposals fall far short, warns Neal Gabler.

“How is it that we have we learned that when our phone buzzes with a message we MUST respond?” It’s time to question how our digital identities impact on our true selves.

This past week, a number of top experts stopped by the Big Think offices for a video interview. Among them were lawyer and Innocience Project co-founder Barry Scheck, child and […]

According to a new study by scientists at the Astromaterials Research Science Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, “Mud volcanoes themselves are an indicator of a fluid-rich subsurface, and they […]

Last week I posted somewhat optimistically about media reports suggesting a rebirth for independent bookstores. In reply, below is a guest contribution from my colleague Paul D’Angelo, a professor of […]

Entomologist and National Geographic writer/photographer Mark Moffett knows a lot about bugs. Having studied marauder ants under renowned insect biologist Edward O. Wilson at Harvard, and then gone on to […]

How are cutting-edge conspicuous consumers blowing their excess cash? Fantasy fish tanks, according to the New York Times. The Home and Garden section devoted hundreds of words to the “six-figure […]

Wind turbines are more likely to prompt an association with the Northern California hills, where wind farms grace the vast landscape with their unseemly efficiency, than with the hustle-and-bustle of […]

We really are undergoing a clash of civilizations, Ayaan Hirsi Ali says. Hirsi Ali argues that political scientist Samuel Huntington was right when he wrote in 1993 that future conflicts […]

“A new kind of chlorophyll that catches sunlight from just beyond the red end of the visible light spectrum has been discovered.” The discovery could help advance bio-fuel research.

An agriculture expect says a relatively simple solution could provide food security to sub-Saharan Africa: roads. More paved roads would bring rural communities out of economic isolation.

“In a Spiegel interview, Nobel Prize-winning German author Günter Grass talks about why he doesn’t fear death and why he thinks the Brothers Grimm had ‘oral sex with vowels’.”

“I still think that in going the way it has gone, policy debate has coarsened itself.” Mark Oppenheimer at Slate laments the exaggerated competition in once-civil team sports.

Despite widespread skepticism over the ensuing renewal of peace talks between Israel and Palestine, The Economist says the negotiations are more promising than Bush’s attempts.

Making $70 million in just the last five months, author James Patterson is America’s, and the world’s, richest author. The catch? He employs a team of five people to write his books.

“New technology could allow people to dictate letters and search the internet simply by thinking, according to researchers at Intel who are behind a mind-reading computer project.”