Researchers say emotionally intense music releases dopamine in the brain, the same chemical that creates a sensation of reward while eating good food, having sex or taking drugs.
All Articles
Women’s psychology is better suited to keeping the peace, say some of today’s top minds. Informed by evolution, women have a greater incentive to negotiate with those around them.
In the last 50 years, cancer has proven to be more resilient than we first thought, but inexpensive genome sequencing could allow us to create individualized cancer treatments.
The “slippery slope” is a popular argument in the same-sex marriage debate. Where do you draw the line, opponents argue? If you start allowing marriage between people of the same […]
Scientists have discovered a class of chemicals that stick strongly to the sugary shell which coats the HIV virus. The coating enables the virus to slip past the body’s immune system.
Summary: The Roman Catholic equivalent of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Infidel”. A luminous, extraordinary account of one woman who devoted her life to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, saw the organization […]
As NPR recently reported, there’s a high price to pay for being a black atheist in America. African Americans who come out of the closet as nonreligious may be cut […]
I don’t think I’ve ever written this sentence before, but here goes: There’s been so much good news on the pro-choice front lately, it’s hard to keep up! Since my […]
A particular version of the sex chromosome predisposes men to contracting heart disease. While environmental factors remain important, an important genetic link has been discovered.
In a new Harvard survey, a majority of doctors said they had been overly optimistic about a patient’s prognosis and ten percent said they had told patients something that was not true.
The American culture has developed an adversarial relationship to food, often concentrating on what not to eat. The age-old practice of ‘mindful eating’ may restore our body to health.
A new tour at the Museum of Modern Art in New York has many seeing red over “seeing” Reds in the collection. As reported in Art News, Artist Yevgeniy Fiks’ […]
When asked by CNN’s John King what he thinks about the Pentagon’s recent decision to allow female troops to serve nearer the front lines of battle, Rick Santorum replied that […]
On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 2010 district court ruling that California’s Proposition 8 forbidding same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. It was the first time a federal […]
Last time, in the introductory post, I suggested that evidence is more important than outrage. Outrage indicates how outraged individuals want the world to be; evidence tells everyone how the […]
In the continuing flap over the Obama administration’s decision to require Catholic institutions to provide birth control under the new health care law, both sides have failed to come to grips with the complexities of religious liberty.
Diversity in all senses encourages creativity and innovation by fusing together two or more ideas that are traditionally separate. Specialists are often too narrowly focused.
At the annual Loebner Prize Competition, robots compete against humans trying to convince judges they are actually human. Might the judges determine your boss is actually a robot?
This semester, students from a diversity of majors at American University are participating in an advanced seminar I am teaching on science and environmental communication. For the first part of the […]
On China’s microblogging site Weibo, rumors of Kim Jong-un’s death surfaced earlier today when bloggers posted that he was assassinated in Beijing. Media outlets have yet to issue any official […]
Thinking of starting a business, but unsure of where you will find the cash to open the doors? Here are a few tips on how to launch a business with little to no money out of pocket.
Welcome to a new feature on the Floating University blog, FU Asks, where we open up the academic debate on our e-learning platform to the Big Think community. This week […]
Question: What do VCRs, Betamax players, condom use in Thailand, and hybrid corn seeds in Iowa have in common? Answer: The adoption of these innovations each followed a logical, predictable […]
An evolutionary biologist named Jaroslav Flegr argues that many house cats carry organisms that invade our brains, leading to mental disorders like schizophrenia as well as causing suicides and car crashes.
It’s no secret that Americans spend too much. So what can they learn from China, a country where households save over a third of its income for a rainy day?
It’s a sad but true fact that most data that’s generated or collected—even with considerable effort—never gets any kind of serious analysis.
Dean Kamen’s Slingshot is “a prophylactic disguised as a drinking fountain,” write Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler in a new book.
I saw a tweet yesterday—“How Obama Could Have Killed Bin Laden Harder”—that cracked me up. Intrigued, I clicked on the hashtag #CPACpanels and saw several people who populate my Twitter […]
The American myth of the lone innovator, from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs, no longer fits the complexity of technological progress or the interconnectedness of communication systems.