All Articles

The winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced this Friday, October 7th. Last week, a former Norwegian prime minister ignited speculation about this year’s winner by announcing, “It will be an interesting and very important prize … I think it will be well-received.” 

So the Big Think’s AGE OF ENGAGEMENT is advertising a showing of Carl Sagan’s hugely influential film CONTACT.  The film will be shown, appropriately enough, as an excellent example of how […]

Three astrophysicists who discovered that the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate, rather than decelerating, have won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. 

Want to build a strong and sustainable business, political movement, or religion? According to John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, the wise leader follows the example of one of the most ancient cultures on Earth: yogurt. 

Big Think’s newest blogger and atheist-in-residence, Adam Lee, asks magician and author Penn Jillette how he reconciles his atheism with his libertarian philosophy.

Readers in the Washington, DC area may be interested in this free event coming up at American University on Thurs. Oct. 27 and sponsored by the School of Communication.  A […]

Despite a dwindling budget, N.A.S.A. is planning ahead for missions to the moon, an asteroid or Mars by engineering a habitat suitable for astronauts on long-distance missions.

Compared with the Chinese who are developing space-based solar power, the United States does not have a long-range national space strategy or direction, and desperately needs one.

A revolutionary spaceship that that travels at 2,200 miles per hours would allow vacationers to reach any destination in less than two hours. It could become a fixture in the skies.

Any long-distance interstellar travel will span generations which means humans must find ways to procreate in space. Gravity is essential to the healthy development of our bodies. 

The genetic mutation that drives evolution is random. But here’s a list of some beneficial mutations that are known to exist in human beings

Welcome, all, to the new Daylight Atheism! I’m pleased to be officially joining Big Think as a blogger-in-residence. Whether you’ve just come across this site or are a long-time reader […]

–Guest post by Jan Lauren Boyles, American University doctoral student. Eloquent eulogies have wistfully mourned the Ghosts of Journalism Past – the muckrakers, the ink-stained wretches and the shoe-leather reporters. The […]

Can husbands and wives write financial contracts to reduce the level of infidelity in a relationship? Evidence from the unlikely source of Ugandan marriage contracts suggests that they can. In […]

Elon Musk is an advocate for interplanetary life, which will require great leaps in technology. According to Musk, the grand challenge is to “find a Moore’s Law of space.” In other words, we must think exponentially if we are to colonize another planet.

There are those who feel nervous about the prospect of privacy issues should Yahoo become Chinese-owned. But should Americans instead be welcoming direct investment from China?

Branson’s Twitter, Facebook and Google+ profiles are all equally personal and active, most posts related to his philanthropic efforts. Be authentic and organic, is his advice to other CEOs.    

A 40-something acquaintance is married, with two children. She’s been going through a job transition, so she and her husband are both working out of the home, and it’s not […]

We may like to think that “it’s just a game”, but rooting for our teams, and all the other groups to which we belong, is tied to nothing less than our very drive to survive.

How does Herman Cain become the bad guy for telling the truth, something every true blue member of the GOP says they want to see more of in a candidate? […]

Deeply rooted beliefs about medicine are being disrupted, and this was the subject of a panel at The Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas that took place on the island from September 30 to October 2.

Bloggers in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo are being terrorized by a drug cartel trying to silence those speaking out on drug-related violence. Anonymity is faulty protection.

Artificial Intelligence is coming to the iPhone. How will it change your life? The iPhone Assistant is the reborn Siri app, obeying voice commands but also adapting to your needs.

Is Facebook again using a cookies that tracks users across different web properties and back to the Facebook site. Entrepreneur and hacker Nick Cubrilovic says yes and asks why.

The story of war has always been told by men. But what happens when we look at war through the eyes of women? That’s the fundamental premise of an upcoming […]

Is it better to burn out, as Neil Youngsang, than to fade away? When it came to the drama of the Abstract expressionists, Jackson Pollock burned out like a supernova […]

Today, another Ig-Nobel Prize installment, this time from the actual winner in Psychology, Karl Halvor Teigen. The question: why do we sigh? Is a sigh, as that all-time greatest song […]

Your city is an egg. Most likely a scrambled one. 

So I saw MONEYBALL.  It’s a fine movie.  Brad Pitt has exceeded Robert Redford in his capacity to convey brooding and ironic depth—while adding envy, resentment, and parental love.  Jonah […]

Israel has become “increasingly isolated” in the Middle East because of its deteriorating relations with Egypt and Turkey, as well as the political tumult triggered by the Arab Spring.