The Future Attribute Screening Technology project (FAST) was not dreamed up by Philip K. Dick, but it could have been. Lead by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the initiative aims […]
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Big Think’s “Book of the Month” for March is The Start-Up of You, by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. For a quick overview and outline of their new ingredients for success, […]
If your school is planning to implement a one-to-one computer or tablet initiative, chances are a committee has been formed to plan, refine and ultimately kick off the initiative. Sometimes […]
The past 10 years or so of public atheist discourse, says Alain de Botton, author of Religion for Atheists, has been dominated by the idea that all religious belief is somehow […]
Animation from astrophysicists at the University of Colorado at Boulder demonstrates what travelling through a rift in space-time would look like as you free fall into a black hole.
The search for traces of ancient Martian life has been narrowed to 79 lake beds containing mineral deposits. Clay may have formed on the planet’s surface, preserving evidence of past life.
For those of you who missed last night’s debate on China vs. American capitalism hosted by Intelligence Squared U.S., here is the video. There was one decided winner with 85 […]
Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of all time, was born on this day in 1879 in the village of Ulm, located in the southwestern corner of the German Empire. Einstein […]
The latest climate change catastrophe scenario is now out: rising sea levels over the next century could flood 3.7 million people in over 500 U.S. cities, including New York, New Orleans and […]
John Stuart Mill’s argument against silencing dissent highlights important reasons we should never silence any view or idea, because of mere outrage or offence. Yesterday, I discussed the importance of […]
In an extraordinary move, a prominent executive at Goldman Sachs has resigned on grounds of ethical discomfort with a company culture of maximizing profits at clients’ expense. Greg Smith – […]
Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have simulated exploding a one-megaton nuclear bomb against an asteroid 500 meters in diameter. The results are encouraging.
In 2018, the space program is scheduled to launch a probe that will get closer to the sun than any craft before it, measuring data in the star’s outer corona where temperatures are hellish.
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory take on claims about the Mayan calendar and the end of the world, explaining away all the scenarios for a post-2012 apocalypse.
BY PEADER COYLE Nick Bostrom, a philosopher with a scientific background, serves on the faculty of the Future of Humanity Institute at the James Martin School at Oxford University. He […]
If you ever find yourself in a bar that takes art history trivia bets, here’s a sure winner: Who is the only artist to be named by TIME Magazine as […]
I hear quite often enough that my values (liberal if not worse, feminist, tolerant of same-sex marriage) are responsible for American marriage decay. This baffles me anecdotally, as I canvass […]
The speed with which KONY 2012 went viral around the world has been stunning. Even if you don’t love the politics of Invisible Children’s “Stop Kony” campaign, it’s hard to […]
Last month, I posted my review of “An Unquenchable Thirst”, Mary Johnson’s luminous and enlightening memoir about the twenty years she spent as one of Mother Teresa’s nuns. After writing […]
The incredible (and indeed untrue) story of President Taylor’s APE
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Dr. Francine Shapiro, a senior research fellow at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, director of the EMDR Institute, and founder of […]
Over the weekend, I looked back at this blog’s most popular posts from 2011. I like to believe they were popular because readers found them interested and recommended them to […]
Hacking is about having a small group of individuals who are skilled enough to attack much larger prey. Thanks to their attack, future technological innovations flourish—for a time…
So we’ve basically completed our two-year series of conferences, publications, and such at Berry College funded by a grant from the Science of Virtues project at the University of Chicago. […]
Smartphones are incredible education, business and entertainment devices but their ubiquity has otherwise normal people acting batty. Businesses must take the lead to restoring sanity.
What is the Big Idea? Attention foie gras lovers: your favorite French delicacy will now be made in China. The world’s largest goose farm and foie gras factory will open […]
The U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has the unique mission of protecting national security by maintaining technological superiority. If the new DARPA-funded “cheetah” robot is any indication, the agency is […]
What’s the Big Idea? Some genius at marketing giant BBH decided to outfit 13 volunteer homeless people in Austin, Texas with 4G Wi-Fi transmitters, turning them into human Wi-Fi hotspots […]
While private enterprise is not going to take us back to the Moon or to Mars, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says there is still a role for these companies to play.
A forthcoming paper explores the biomedical modification of humans in order to stop us from consuming red meat. This would have a mitigating effect on climate change.