All Articles

Every decision we make depends for its success on our ability to weigh the evidence and choose the wisest course, given our objectives. In session 5 of her Big Think Mentorworkshop on The Seven Essential Life Skills, Ellen Galinsky reviews the research and offers tips for building critical thinking skills in adults and children.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as part of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, released a report saying that menthol cigarettes likely pose a greater public health risk […]

The benefits of tourism in New York City (or any city) are not only financial. Tourists are anti-beacons: wherever they flock, residents like me immediately know where not to go. […]

It’s a hot debate. Should businesses make money off poor people? Paul Polak, the 79-year old entrepreneur, founder of the International Development Enterprises (IDE), and co-author of soon to be released The Business […]

Singapore’s JWT creative agency collaborated with Swiss fragrance company Givaudan to create “smell kits” that, when given to Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, help them remember younger, better days.

Harvard researchers took inspiration from the cooling ability of skin for their microfluidic circulatory system, which can save energy and lower air-conditioning bills.

Kudos to Tyler Cowen for stimulating public debate on an important policy option.  Now if someone will just move away from the popular distortions and dysfunctional politics to confront the […]

It’s a huge stretch to blame ordinary Detroiters for the imprudence of their city’s municipal government.

Fox News this week has the not very surprising news that the Obama Administration is looking for social scientists to help form a “Behavioral Insights Team” that, like the group […]

English novelist, journalist, and short story writer Will Self counsels his readership to remain negative, or at least pessimistic, which is how his mother would have wanted it.

The company is conducting internal testing on a Google Now local news “card” that will push geographically relevant information to help users get to know their neighborhood better.

In a clinical trial of 62 patients diagnosed with moderate depression, individuals who received online psychotherapy were relieved of more symptoms than those who saw psychotherapists face-to-face.

What is grit?  Grit has been defined by researchers in slightly different but consistent ways.  It is hard work plus dedication, perseverance and persistence in the face of adversity, passion […]

Writers who now publish skeptical thoughts about the field of neuroscience are confirming what the public-at-large has known for five years, according to data gathered by Slate’s Daniel Engber. 

Researchers at Spain’s Universitat Jaume I are working on a technique that collects several different images of a person’s silhouette in motion and builds a unique “gait signature.”

Girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, lover, significant other. We really don’t have any good way to refer to unmarried romantic partners (see?) in English.

Microbiology students at Penn State-Erie treated the handles with a silver-based compound and found that they successfully killed bacteria transferred to them from a person’s hand.

In 2011, as a Google Science Communication fellow, I spent several days with other scientists and academics at the company’s headquarters learning about new tools and strategies for engaging the public […]

If Miki Agrawal weren’t an actual person, you would think she had been designed by a consortium of Silicon Valley startups as the embodiment of millennial DIY entrepreneurship. The French-Canadian […]

Chemical analyses of ancient cheese-making tools, found in modern-day Poland by archeologists, are shedding light onto how the consumption of dairy products influenced the rise of Europe’s first farming societies.

This past weekend the 2013 CrossFit games ended, once again crowning Rich Froning as the fittest man on Earth.  CrossFit is a combination of high intensity workouts that combine power […]

As artist Robert Williams grew up in his often dysfunctional, divorced home in the 1940s and 1950s, his mother wished he’d become a cowboy. After seeing Cecil B. DeMille’s 1935 […]

Jules Verne used the failed project as inspiration for his last adventure novel

Veterinarians have observed that people are more willing to improve the lives of their pets through diet and exercise than they are to tackle their own health challenges. 

The consumerization of health care will outfit patients with personalized digital devices while making them more responsible for preventative care, i.e. maintaining their own health.

A new paper claims that even if all global carbon emissions stopped tomorrow, it would take time for the world’s temperature to normalize, by which time sea levels will have already risen over some coastal areas.

A working group of cancer experts formed by the National Cancer Institute has recommended that the word “cancer” be used more sparingly, even eliminating it from some common diagnoses.

The area historically believed to be the home of Adam and Eve has been restored to its original marshland, 20 years after Saddam Hussein’s infrastructure projects turned it into a desert.

Scientists at the University of Michigan have found a way to preserve vital intestinal function through courses of chemotherapy treatments, preserving the health of the patient for longer.

Earlier this month, the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act was introduced as a bill in Congress, proposing that the spot where the Apollo 11 team landed be made a national park. Reactions range from ridicule to enthusiasm.