Major scientific endeavors like space exploration require decades of planning and funding sources that can weather economic downturns. Will the results of the Google Lunar X Prize competition stand that assumption on its head?
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Astronomers have discovered a huge mass of water — some 140 trillion times the amount of water in all the Earth’s oceans combined. This water is 12 billion light years from Earth, evidence that water existed in abundance when the universe was young.
They live in a parallel society, a world apart, where they obey an alien law and pray to an alien God. Their liberal allies foolishly promote toleration and claim these […]
The MLS All-Star game tonight pits league All-Stars against Manchester United. Game time is 830pm EST on ESPN with Thierry Henry and David Beckham suiting up for the MLS side. […]
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22turns fifty this year, and like its hero Yossarian, it seems destined to survive for the long haul. It’s the best kind of literary paradox: a classic that […]
Thierry Henry leads MLS in scoring but close behind is young American forward Brek Shea who bests Henry for goal of the week with a half-field steal of the ball […]
The Link TV network — along with PBS — is one of only two non-profit networks you will find on cable TV. Caty Chattoo, a faculty colleague in the School […]
Today’s lesson from Sherlock Holmes deals with learning to cull and to cultivate knowledge in such a way that your decision process will be optimized for the question at hand, […]
A lone Norwegian man has carried out the largest attack against his country since World War II, exploding a bomb in the capital of Oslo and attacking a camp of Labor Party children.
The White House is warning that world markets could react negatively to the game between Democrats and Republics over who will crack first in negotiations over the nation’s debt.
State failure, it appears, does not necessarily go hand in hand with other human woes, such as poverty. Some countries with rising incomes remain plagued by poor governance.
The credit agency Moody’s has slashed the Greek government’s debt ratings into junk territory, warning that the nation’s newest bailout deal implies a sovereign default.
U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the U.S. has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses.
Marching through the Met a few weeks ago, my family found ourselves suddenly in a room full of works by Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, and Lucian Freud. I motioned to […]
A frame device is a catchphrase that instantly conveys a specific meaning and storyline, sparking conversations and trains of thought about why an event might be a problem, who or […]
Like me, many readers were probably saddened by the news last week that Borders is shutting all of its remaining outlets. In comparison to Barnes Noble, I often found Borders […]
If you are a fan of Big Think, the newly re-launched Science and Entertainment Exchange website will offer you hours of interesting reading and viewing. A program of the National […]
Researchers suggest that happy delusions help when looking at your partner in a general sense and over the long term. But be more realistic on the short term details, they warn.
Poverty means making more trade-offs and resisting more temptations due to limited resources—depleting the very willpower people might have used to lift themselves out of it.
What if it turns out that pornography use actually reduces the desire to commit violent sexual crimes? It is a controversial idea, but one supported by recent scientific studies.
Despite our world now driven by precise measurements of data, being vague, imprecise, unclear and ambiguous may yield benefits in our personal and professional lives.
I wrote severalarticles about memorization on this blog already and last week I learned about a new scientific study that proves once more that the use of the Internet can […]
We like to think the traits that make life sweet are those that make it long. But a recent long-term study of longevity over decades suggests that’s not so.
At the very least, says Marcia Angell, we need to stop thinking of psychoactive drugs as the best, and often the only, treatment for mental illness or emotional distress.
Click here to read the Ukrainian language version of this article. Many scientists believe that a rock about 6 miles across plowed into Mexico 65 million years ago, killing the […]
Through the launch of his 20 Under 20 Fellowship initiative, billionaire entrepreneur and hedge funder Peter Thiel is engaging in one of the most radical experiments yet about the future […]
Next year is the latest deadline set by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (G.P.E.I.), the multinational body charged with dealing with the disease. A new report says this deadline is at risk.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health and a growing number of pharmaceutical companies are sharing intellectual property to make AIDS drugs more available to third-world countries.
Carlo Maria Broschi, better known as Farinelli, was one of the most celebrated opera singers of all time, and the 18th century equivalent of a rock star (“One God and […]
The first book of philosophical essays in years with a shot at being advertised on the evening news asks what big questions are posed by society’s acceptance and men’s use of Viagra.