Highly abstract thinking represents a cultural adaptation to the complexity of modern technological society, but the complexity of contemporary life is not evenly distributed.
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People who live one standard deviation above the green space mean experience a decrease in mental distress that is about one-third as large as the difference between being single and being married.
A team of scientists from Oxford University have shown that zapping the brain with electrical impulses improves its ability to complete mathematical problems in the short and long term.
Computer scientists and artificial intelligence experts say that a project to create digital roundworms represents an essential stepping stone toward the fusion of life and non-life.
The good news is that the asteroid, which was discovered 15 years ago, will get “no closer than about 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers), or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon,” according to NASA.
Last November, I published an article here on BigThink called, The Apocalypse May Already Be Here, or “Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark,” where I shared some of my […]
Money is a very powerful symbol and it influences us in a number of different ways.
One of the greatest obstacles to finding your life’s task quite honestly can be your parents.
You only know how hard it is to be a responsible consumer after you’ve tried it – running laps around isles trying to find that one brand you know is […]
“I believe the children are our future.” Never has a more brazen tautology graced the opening line of a Top 40 song. But when Whitney Houston popularized these words in […]
While only three percent of the world’s surface is covered by urban landscapes, more than half of the human population lives in city environments. That’s changing human culture as well as human biology.
Pediatricians are encouraging children to play more video games, as long as those games run on consuls that depend on body movement, such as Xbox-Kinect and Wii, to move the game forward.
Biologists at Princeton and Johns Hopkins universities have created an artificial human ear—using a three-dimensional printer, no less—that detects sound better than natural human ears.
Without a stable set of fulfilling social relationships, psychologists say we are given to mainlining sugar and fat to stimulate pleasure centers in the brain. Practicing random acts of kindness is one remedy.
MIT scientists have combined a biosensor wristband, a special smartphone, and a mirror attached to a computer to create a system that lets its user review the emotional highs and lows of their day or someone else’s.
Microsoft’s TwedEx is one of several systems being developed that would use technology to deliver packages to people on the move using other people on the move as couriers .
The job of the human being, as you go through life, is to become less stupid.
And this is something that really could change the world if you would have more people that A, would care about truth, but would not only get stuck in their process of finding truth, but would also apply their knowledge and rationality towards steering the future towards better outcomes.
I hate being angry and so I hate the adversary exchanges that you frequently find in the social sciences and actually in the physical sciences as well where people are snide and they use sarcasm.
The issue of risk is absolutely central to being a creative person.
You copy the people to whom you are connected primarily and you come to copy them along a whole variety of traits.
A tool to help you consider an argument on its own merits instead of being tainted by your current feelings towards the person making it.
You need to recognize the cues and the rewards that you usually associate with smoking.
Marine biology professor David Smith and his students spent a total of 15 hours participating in lectures held 18 meters below the surface of the ocean. Sophisticated audio technology allowed them to interact with each other.
We have witnessed a complete breakdown of our society as it was envisioned as an opportunity society.
These virtual particles are really particles that simply are created from empty space, particle anti-particle pairs that exist for a time-scale so short that you can’t observe them by any measurement, but they’re there.
David Foster Wallace’s classic 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College was not well known until after his death. In the video below, this great piece of life advice is given visual accompaniment courtesy of The Glossary.
One of the things that’s happening now is your Smartphone is being more integrated with your car.
Obviously it makes a lot of sense to be eating insects.
Twice as many people means twice as much consumption. But it might mean three times as much innovation and we can see that throughout history.