Red Tails is without a doubt the most expensive ABC after school special ever made. I went home after seeing it and immediately downloaded A Soldier’s Story from Amazon to […]
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The notion that we have a three-dimensional map inside our heads is an illusion, says a British neuroscientist. Instead, we locate our surroundings along horizontal and vertical planes.
Even people hailed as geniuses have plenty of mediocre and outright terrible ideas. What separates them from the rest is their ability to filter the good from the bad. How do they do it?
A simple and cheap device that stimulates the brain with a mild electric current appears to improve our capacity to learn skills like mathematics or a foreign language. Should we use it?
An excellent article by Bill Wasik in Wired UK discusses the role technology and connectivity play in the creation of unruly mobs (as opposed to the peaceful protests seen widely […]
‘Sex and the City’ star Cynthia Nixon recently said she chose to be gay, sparking a conversation over whether choosing to be gay entails the opposite ability: choosing not to be gay.
All I can say is thank you to the readers who suggested that I pick up 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I loved it. But it wasn’t because of the language, […]
The digital age is transforming medicine, making more data available to more people. The risk is that too much information can result in over-correcting health problems which don’t exist in the first place.
New research finds that government regulations that restrict the supply of abortions performed after 15 weeks gestation in the state of Texas increased the price of late abortions by 37% […]
For those who are interested, here’s my schedule for the next few months. I’ve got a few SSA speaking events, a conference or two, and one big announcement! • On […]
People with narcissistic personalities show greater levels of stress hormones in their bodies, according to new research. In the long run, that can mean higher rates of heart disease and hypertension.
After finding that the H5N1 bird flu virus can be willfully mutated and made communicable, a rare 60-day moratorium on research has been imposed. The study’s author argues testing must resume.
In a preliminary study, two patients have reported better vision after doctors injected stem cells into their eyes. The study is set to be expanded, using larger doses of stem cells.
I’ve had a busy last few months, and I confess I’ve fallen behind on my book reviews. (If you’re not familiar with these posts from the old site, I sometimes […]
Keeping up with the Joneses just got harder, with Facebook finally flipping the switch on its new Timeline Apps that make it easier to share every fleeting moment of your […]
Co-directors of Stanford University’s school of design discuss practical changes individuals and business can make to transform their physical space into a creative and collaborative workshop.
In the fourth round of the Australian open on Sunday, Nicolas Almagrohit his opponent Tomas Berdych in the face with the ball as Berdych approached the net for a volley. At the […]
BIG THINKER Robert de Neufville has said, quite correctly, that Romney is the favorite for the Republican nomination two weeks in a row. But it’s a little misleading to say he […]
Privacy experts estimate that your personal privacy — your online activities that companies such as Google are collecting and offering to marketers and advertisers — could be worth up to […]
President Obama has announced a plan to increase the federal tuition loan fund, double the amount of work-study programs and create incentive programs to drive down tuition costs.
an Iron Chef style creative contest in which you’ll have 72 hours to write a short piece of science fiction inspired by our surprise “big idea.” The best entries will be published on Big Think’s homepage, visited by 1.5 million viewers a month.
It’s not easy to take on Vladimir Putin. Just ask Nikolai Maksimov, who was thrown in prison, or Boris Berezovsky, who was forced into exile. Both men are billionaire tycoons who […]
At a time when the legal status of the corporate corpus is the subject of intense political debate, organizational entrepreneur Brian Robertson maintains that businesses aren’t acting human enough.
In this guest post, David Bellos, director of Princeton’s Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, demolishes the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. New Yorkers have more words for coffee than Eskimos do for snow, he says.
Once on top, ambitious female leaders can fall prey to the same behaviors that have created gender bias in the workplace. Selena Rezvani calls for a little solidarity, a little sisterhood.
What’s the Big Idea? If seeing is believing, then how do we come to know? One common misperception holds that vision springs directly from the eyes. True, the eyes, ears, and […]
In 2009, the Roman Catholic church convened an “apostolic visitation” – a sort of modern-day auto-da-fe – a rare step taken when the Vatican feels that a church-affiliated institution has […]
People with synesthesia “inhabit a strange no-man’s-land between reality and fantasy. They taste colors, see sounds, hear shapes, or touch emotions in myriad combinations.” We recognize this condition in infants, as well as artists, who seek to defamiliarize perceptions of reality.
On January 19-21, the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists hosted a major summit of more than 100 social scientists, scientists, professionals, and political leaders […]
It is a horrible irony when many of the world’s farmers, supplying food to local and global markets, are themselves on the verge of starvation, says Gates. We need another green revolution.