“The messages lost through faulty translation in Afghanistan are sabotaging the mission there as badly as any physical enemy ever could,” warns Neil Shea.
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Strange, unworkable, controversial. That’s some of the reaction to a German proposal to prevent bosses from checking job candidates’ social networking profiles.
Writer and marketing guru Seth Godin is spurning traditionally published books. As Mathew Ingram notes, self-published PDFs and e-books are increasingly attracting such authors.
Eilert Sundt must have had a busy, happy week. As the president of the Norwegian Cartozoological Society, Mr Sundt probably is the world’s most prominent ambassador of the obscure discipline […]
Hurricane Katrina may have cost them their homes and split up their families, but some credit it as the impetus to reinvent their lives for the better, explains Nicole LaPorte.
Of the problems that afflict the U.S., “the underlying one is mental feebleness.” N.Y.T. Op-Ed Columnist David Brooks sets out the case for more mental courage.
“To develop real knowledge in a discipline, students must master facts and construct opinions about them.” Jonathan Zimmerman explains why final exams are antiquated.
“The main argument here is that pleasure is deep,” Paul Bloom writes early on in his new book, How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We […]
As a follow up to his guest post yesterday on the prospects for independent book stores, I asked Paul D’Angelo, a communication professor at the College of New Jersey, his […]
What do God, Dr. Frankenstein, and Lady Gaga have in common? They are all names that geneticist-cum-media-sensation Craig Venter has been called since announcing in May that he had created […]
We all think we know what it means to be conscious, but it is hard to pin this down in a precise, scientific way—as USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explains in our video. Every weekday in September, Big Think will offer a new insight into the human brain in our new “Going Mental” blog.
Using lasers to manipulate the weather sounds like science fiction, but researchers at the University of Geneva have done just that. In May, Dr. Jerome Kasparian unveiled the results of […]
Chef Wylie Dufresne believes in playing with his food—but not in the usual sense of the phrase. In his popular New York restaurant, wd-50, Dufresne applies molecular gastronomy, a field […]
If Americans were paid to eat less and exercise more they might be motivated to lose some weight—and save us a bundle on health care—says Dr. Barry M. Popkin, director […]
I don’t have to write anything today, because the professionals have done my job for a change. Eugene Robinson, Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd, who are all political pundits I […]
One of the richest sub-worlds of blogging is the Atheist NetRoots. As I described last week, popular atheist bloggers such as PZ Myers have developed a loyal and engaged following […]
With the Web tipped to soon eclipse friends as the primary way of finding mates, researchers are relishing online dating as a potent peephole into dating behaviour.
Researchers have found that most migrating birds and other animals are just “following the leader”, which has serious ramifications as their habitats become more fragmented.
Ross Douthat ponders baseball’s decline into sordidness as Roger Clemens becomes “one of the many…superstars credibly accused of using performance-enhancing drugs.”
Are Americans right to be pessimistic about the prospects of their children being better off economically than they are? Gary Becker examines the grounds for this growing sentiment.
Skype is one of Michael Arrington’s “can’t live without” products but the way people use it is driving him crazy, hence this primer on appropriate Skype etiquette.
The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker blames the media for fearmongering over the ‘Ground Zero mosque’. “For one thing, it’s not at Ground Zero. Also, it isn’t a mosque.”
Notions of the tormented artist and of us being ruled by our moods are unhelpful and outdated today, especially in the field of mental health. Tom Wootton explains why.
The New Yorker examines Churchill’s real legacy and finds he was a “Hamlet in reverse”, as well as the greatest modern instance of the romantic-conservative temperament in power.rn
Financial reforms will only work — and prevent disasters — if they take into account human nature and disincentivize greed. The latest proposals fall far short, warns Neal Gabler.
“How is it that we have we learned that when our phone buzzes with a message we MUST respond?” It’s time to question how our digital identities impact on our true selves.
This past week, a number of top experts stopped by the Big Think offices for a video interview. Among them were lawyer and Innocience Project co-founder Barry Scheck, child and […]
According to a new study by scientists at the Astromaterials Research Science Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, “Mud volcanoes themselves are an indicator of a fluid-rich subsurface, and they […]
Last week I posted somewhat optimistically about media reports suggesting a rebirth for independent bookstores. In reply, below is a guest contribution from my colleague Paul D’Angelo, a professor of […]
Entomologist and National Geographic writer/photographer Mark Moffett knows a lot about bugs. Having studied marauder ants under renowned insect biologist Edward O. Wilson at Harvard, and then gone on to […]