Philosofro (fi – los – uh -fro): A magnificent hair nebula worn by one of the greatest thinkers of our time.
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Over at Republican Narrative Central the high priests of political mischief need to take Frank Luntz off speaker this afternoon and spend some time on Twitter instead. #40dollars, the hashtag […]
The United States is following its peer nations in Western Europe and is projected to become a majority unmarried and “post-marriage” nation within the decade, according to research released this […]
News of the demise of Kim Jong Il, leader of the ‘hermit kingdom’, or the World’s last Stalinist State, North Korea, shouldn’t have come as a surprise; after all, he […]
While space exploration seems like a job only for companies with enormous resources, NASA is increasingly turning to small businesses for innovative ideas in exchange for research contracts.
With all apologies to the memory of Theodor Geisel, it’s not the Grinch stealing Christmas this year—it’s Banksy! In Cardinal Sin (above), Banksy takes a replica of an 18th century […]
Microsoft co-creator Paul Allen wants to make an airplane that can launch satellites and perhaps manned crews. Is the engineering feasible or is this the next Spruce Goose?
Given the rate at which the Kepler spacecraft is discovering planets outside our solar system, it seems only a matter of time until a foreign rock is found to be capable of sustaining life.
Contrary to popular belief, China’s dominance in the solar panel industry does not rely on its cheap labor source. Instead, it has been better at scaling production. But is that enough?
A team of scientists has discovered how to change plant biology to make crops more resistant to droughts. Increased food production and adaptation to climate change could result.
Scientists have discovered the smallest exoplanets yet known, and both represent the closest we have come to finding Earth’s twin. Using NASA’s Kepler telescope, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for […]
As the kind of writer who keeps his finger squarely on the cultural pulse, I’ve just watched the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” for the first time […]
In this excerpt from his lecture for The Floating University, Dr. Kaku explains that time machines do not violate Einstein’s laws of physics, and that future humans would be wise to build one and slip through a wormhole before the cooling universe extinguishes all known life.
As our political and media systems rapidly evolve, social scientists are revisiting and updating existing models, theories, and methods for investigating the effects of the media on political attitudes and […]
If 2011 is the year of Twitter Revolutions, what will be the big idea for 2012?
If you are in the throes of a metaphysical hangover, we offer you the cure: a whimper over the Mayan prophecy of apocalypse in the year 2012, followed by a shattering meditation upon the various ways the world might end.
Unrestrained obstructionism as a political strategy practically guarantees that the epitaph on the GOP’s 2012 presidential aspirations will read “too stupid to quit while they were ahead.” Is John Boehner […]
Legal experts have joined the chorus of complaints about the proposed PROTECT IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation, saying they’ll hinder bids for better online security.
As patient records have been digitized, an unintended consequence is that health data breaches have surged. The number of reported breaches is up 32 percent this year.
What would you do if Google, Facebook, Paypal or another site you and your business depend on suddenly decided, on the basis of a fraud detection algorithm, you were dodgy?
Read Write Web’s top stories about how the social web has helped us answer questions in 2011 includes the discovery of prehistoric earth-art and a photo archive of all species.
Facebook predicts that for the foreseeable future, the amount of information we share on the Web will double every year. Are we headed for an avalanche of daily trivialities?
Judging by the tremendous outpouring of support he’s received across the Web over the past week, comedian Louis C.K. may be the future of how stars create, produce and distribute their content on the Internet.
This trans-African colony could have rivalled Brazil for dominance of the Portuguese-speaking world.
What’s the Big Idea? As Newt Gingrich appears to have peaked, and now plunged in the polls, the latest candidate to enter the GOP Presidential speed-dating game is Ron Paul. […]
This idea was submitted and written by Ali Wyne, researcher at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. What is your […]
What’s the Big Idea? Will North Korea experience a smooth transition from Kim Jong-Il to the so-called “great successor,” Kim Jong-un? Big Think asked Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a political […]
The most powerful, courageous, penetrating, and eloquent dissident opponents of Communist tyranny were Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the Czech philosopher-playright-president Vaclav Havel (1936-December 18, 2011). We forget that their criticism was […]
Nine months into Syria’s uprising and the peaceful protests against the regime of Bashar Assad are now accompanied by a growing insurgency.
Will the conflict between intellectual property and the value of sharing knowledge be resolved?