A new study finds that by having a plan B, we may unintentionally sabotage our initial plan.
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Rumors of a terrorist gunman escalated at LAX. A panicked crowd trampled an old woman, snapping her femur. In our best Dick Cheney voice: “If you allow blind fear to disrupt society, the terrorists have already won.”
Now that we know the closest star has a potentially habitable planet, it’s time to ask if it’s really like ours. “To consider the Earth as the only populated world in […]
A team of Harvard researchers 3D prints a fully autonomous octopus-like robot that runs on a chemical reaction.
One of the fathers of string theory proposes a new equation that may reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics.
As this stark map shows, domestic violence against children is still legal in most of the world.
A group of expert geologists declared that a new epoch influenced by human impact has begun.
Seattle has a new plan to reduce HIV, drug overdoses, and stray needles: it wants to let addicts shoot heroin and smoke crack legally in monitored spaces.
SETI researchers have found a major radio telescope signal and are trying to nail down where it’s from.
Images credit: New York Times, 10 November 1919 (L); Illustrated London News, 22 November 1919 (R). If the cloud situation had played out differently, the United States might have confirmed […]
What kind of person could withstand a trip to Mars and back? NASA and Hi-SEAS is trying to find out.
Alien life may be so different from us that we wouldn’t even recognize it as life.
Improvisational theater, an often overlooked genre, involves dynamic lessons on listening that can help all kinds of professional relationships and improve conversation.
https://players.brightcove.net/2097119709001/4kXWOFbfYx_default/index.html?videoId=5093427476001 In 1946, we made history by photographing the Earth from space for the first time. How far we’ve come! “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an […]
In Netflix’s “Stranger Things” characters enter a parallel dimension. Could this actually happen?
The latest Starts With A Bang Podcast holds the answers. Our Universe has been expanding and evolving since the hot, dense, expanding state known as the Big Bang first came to […]
Studies suggest that giving elementary students homework does more harm than good.
A new pipeline could ruin their water supply and sacred sites, say the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes.
In 1835 Alexis De Tocqueville toured the United States and recorded many elements of living in a democratic society. We can use his observations to better understand the society around us.
Sleep psychologist Shelby Harris reviews ideas about what dreams may be.
We’re looking back in time when we look across the light years, so what’s different between what we see and what’s really there? “I saw a star explode and send out […]
Are life-saving drugs no different than milk or widgets? Should we treat everything on earth as a profit source? That way mechanized madness lies, whereby “your money or your life” is somehow seen as an acceptable business plan.
North Korea announces a new on-demand video service for its citizens.
Spontaneous, deep talk on surprise topics. On this week’s episode of Think Again – a Big Think podcast, Alison Gopnik, one of the world’s foremost experts on child cognition, learning, and development, and host Jason Gots discuss play, artificial intelligence, and the trouble with “parenting” as a verb.
Or can moving at relativistic speeds through a general relativistic Universe change everything? “Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can […]
According to letter sent to income college freshmen, the University of Chicago will not use trigger warnings or act as a safe intellectual space for students.
Advances in our understanding of cognitive processes are proving tremendous. When it comes to understanding consciousness, you might say the ghost in the machine is a chemical engineer.
Plants can even ward off invaders through “Earth’s natural internet.”
Authorities in France and Scotland are taking very different approaches to Islamic dress in their societies.
A small village in western Minnesota has just re-elected a dog as their mayor for his third term.