Nocebo effects pose a particular conundrum for doctors who, while they have an obligation to be honest with their patients about the possible effects of a drug, also want to avoid unnecessarily increasing the risk of symptoms
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We at Big Think are thrilled to join the YouTube partner program with the launch of Big Think Mentor, a subscription channel designed to meet a growing demand among our audience to see the world-class ideas on Big Think transformed into actionable tools to improve their lives.
Handwritten as in “no bubbles”: Next school year, copier giant Xerox plans to roll out its Ignite software to interested schools. It can grade almost any kind of paper, including essays.
After thousands of years, including two centuries of industrialization, steelmaking methods are reaching their physical limits. A group of scientists suggests a cheaper, cleaner alternative using electrolysis.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, your unconscious insecurities hold you back, and you need to be able to construct your failure narrative if you hope to reach your true potential.
This spectacular event occurs every year when the Moon nears the farthest point from the Earth making it appear too small to cover the sun, creating a ring of fire effect.
The constant posture of disbelief of the current is what makes science great.
Here’s what F. Scott Fitzgerald thought about his classic American novel “The Great Gatsby.”
Big Think Mentor connects world-class mentors with a global community of smart, driven users to teach the habits of mind and people skills we need to live happier, healthier, more productive lives.
Mary Roach takes us on a tour through the alimentary canal to explain our biology from the perspective of bacteria.
Seventeen-year-old Jennie Lamere’s Twivo beat out the competitors to claim “Best in Show” at a recent TVNext hackathon.
Mastery is accessible, in fact, much more so today than ever before due to the explosion of the information economy.
Not just clean, but cheap: Researchers in India say that for less than US$3 per year, a rural family could have at least 10 liters of safe water each day using their device.
Stephen Hawking, who suffers from motor neurone disease, uses Israeli technology as part of a computer system that helps him function and communicate.
The Eidos goggles and mask isolate and amplify certain inputs so that, for example, someone standing at the back of a crowded auditorium can hear a speaker as clearly as if they were sitting in the front.
Where did America’s workers go? The future of the American economy may hinge on the answer. The US economy added 165,000 new jobs in April and the unemployment rate fell […]
While additional chatter “dilutes the impact of the critic,” Brantley says “I don’t think it eliminates the necessity of them.”
Spacewarps.org is the newest project requesting public assistance with finding unusual astronomical objects: in this case, systems containing massive galaxies that bend light around them.
Of all of the applications for additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, food tends to be the most universally popular.
New research breathes life into an earlier theory about a possible connection between cosmic rays and the triggering of lightning during thunderstorms.
Digital cuisine is something that everybody gets excited about, and for good reason.
The power to make living creatures is something that we humans, and quite rightly so, tend to hold sacred.
According to NASA officials and other experts, meeting President Barack Obama’s directive will require clearing some significant technological hurdles.
Today’s “blacksmith” is a skilled designer/3-D Printer with highly developed skills in CAD design who is able to help locals prototype and create custom products that they concept for various uses.
Check out “the fairest system for payment of carriage or anything by air”. According to Samoa Air, they are the first airline in the world which charges you by the […]
“None of my videos have any common tie to them,” says Brooke Candy, a rapper who has offered her picks of YouTube as part of an original MOCAtv series called “YouTube Curated By.”
While recent focus has been on finding an Earth-like exoplanet in a system’s “Goldilocks zone,” one astrophysicist suggests that that zone might be made wider by taking other atmospheric conditions, such as greenhouse gas amounts, into account.
A group of hobbyists has embarked on a project that involves inserting synthetic DNA into plants to turn them into light sources. Needless to say, environmentalists are concerned.
Even as the U.S. East Coast braces for the arrival of the bizarre infestation of cicadas that happens with clockwork precision every 17 years, we’re already seeing an infestation of […]
How will the Singularity impact economic productivity?