Despite the emergence of social media, social change still requires the use of physical space. Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park are proof of America’s dwindling public sphere.
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If I had to give the Occupy Wall Street movement a piece of advice, I would tell them to focus their growing chorus against Wall Street excesses on corporate governance […]
The Indian motor company Tata has been marketing its newest model, the Nano, as the world’s cheapest car. But sales have been abysmal as people shirk the stigma of poverty.
Wikipedia is universally relied on and universally distrusted. On the one hand, it’s a stunning repository of knowledge that has rendered the World Books of my not-so-distant childhood utterly obsolete; […]
How a riddle involving one river, two islands and seven bridges prompted a mathematician to lay the foundation for graph theory
A string of new studies suggests that the modern chase after happiness—and even happiness itself—can hurt us. Happy, it turns out, is not always the way you want to be.
Donating your brain to science is no easy decision. After consent is given, interviews are held at the donor’s home in order to gather information on their mental functioning during life.
Public support for income redistribution policies during the recession plummeted, especially among the poor. Why are so many acting against their own economic self-interest?
This serious and thoughtful—and maybe great—film is quite the labor of love. It’s a film about broken families and broken lives made by the father-and-son team of Martin Sheen and Emilio […]
Makeup is not just about good looks. Wearing makeup increases people’s perceptions of a woman’s likability, her competence and her trustworthiness, according to a new study.
It’s not always best to be polite. Steering around the truth to spare someone’s feelings can cause confusion and even have dire consequences when a person’s safety is at risk.
Well, I’ve been on Big Think for about two weeks now, and I’m starting to get used to the place. It’s a different experience from my old site, no doubt […]
Earlier this year, novelist Jane Smiley contributed an entertaining and provocative piece to Big Think’s “How to Think Like Shakespeare” series. In it she wrote that while composing A Thousand […]
Engineers have used carbon nanotubes to create artificial muscle that moves like an elephant’s trunk, which could be used to propel microscopic nanobots through the bloodstream.
Clinical trials show marijuana might be useful for pain, nausea and weight loss in cancer and HIV/AIDS and for muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis. But research funding is sparse.
New technology could make it easier to monitor and design vaccines against H.I.V. by monitoring how T-cells, key components of the immune system, react to new drugs.
After WWII, birth rates in the U.S. rose dramatically. During the war, relatively few couples could afford to have children, and many young men were on the front lines anyway. […]
One of the major changes that’s come with the new site is that here, every post has to have an accompanying image. I’m not complaining – I had always meant […]
As regular readers know, I’ve devoted considerable time to writing about the child-molestation scandal engulfing the Catholic church. The core of this story isn’t that there are child abusers within […]
How is it that in our search for individuality we all end up in the same place, chasing the same trends while drinking the same drink while staring at the same app on the same phone.
Gender stereotypes that fueled the sexual revolution of the ’60s have been replaced by a new set, say University of Michigan researchers. In a new paper, they seek to debunk them.
Hemingway wrote of courage as grace under pressure. In Private Acts: The Acrobat Sublime, Harriet Heyman writes of grace under the pressure of gravity and the courage demonstrated by those […]
Now into its fourth week, the Occupy Wall Street movement lacks a visible leader and a single set of demands. Is that a tenable platform for political change? It just may be.
Legendary biologist E.O. Wilson has been a pioneer in his field for decades. Now is working on an interactive textbook which he estimates may revolutionize how students learn.
There is a race on to control the architecture of online learning. While that race has been running for the past decade or more, largely dominated by a software for-profit […]
Photo Credit: Jennifer Dessinger Adam Gopnik calls Jonathon Keats “a poet of ideas, whose work always rests on a solid basis of scientific research and resolves in a startling, semi-serious […]
What’s the Big Idea? As the world watched London burn under the strain of economic uncertainty this past summer, the legendary entrepreneur and art world financier Asher Edelman warned that […]
Anita Perry, your public complaint that your husband Rick’s campaign is being “brutalized by our own party” has guaranteed that further mayhem will ensue. I know, I know – your […]
Punk rock is not dead. In fact, Henry Rollins sees it everywhere around him. “The kid who throws his spaghetti from the high chair onto his father’s face, he is […]
Despite spending more time working than any other group, women with advanced university degrees are having more children than other college-educated women. Why? Because the growing divide between the rich […]