A baby’s first smiles are not likely an expression of inner emotion but “first smiles teach infants the positive associations attached to a smile that we adults already feel,” says one professor of psychology.
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Not a recluse in her personal life, before the rights to her poems created feuds between her close associates, the poet’s life was complicated by a love triangle she initiated with a married man.
Would an xxx. domain for pornography make the industry easier to filter or would it simply increase the amount of explicit material available on the Web? And what does Steve Jobs want?
The Internet is a double edged sword for small retailers, says The Economist, providing a wider audience for niche products while giving big advantage to companies with economies of scale.
Naomi Wolf likes shopping for clothes too, but she knows brutal labor conditions lurk behind each inexpensive blouse. She calls on Western women to be more aware of cheap fashion’s true cost.
July 3rd marks an equally important day for American independence, says Walter Rodgers, recalling how the Union’s Civil War victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg presaged the modern state.
Leave it to a comic book icon to cause a flag-related stir as the 4th of July weekend approaches. Wonder Woman, everyone’s favorite 69-year-old Amazon, celebrated the 600th issue of […]
“Watching television has been a sort of half-time job for every man, woman, and child in the developed world for, you know, for decades now,” says NYU Interactive Telecommunications Professor […]
Thanks to the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s runaway hit, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” we tend to think of undercover operative agents as not only being uncommonly good looking but […]
Vice President Biden predicts that this, at long last, will be “the summer of recovery.” The stimulus bill is working, he said, and “more people are going to be put […]
Last night I met with an old friend in Central London, who used to be a journalist and who now works for a large, international company which makes good use […]
David Brooks and Gail Collins take on New and Old Media in their ongoing conversation at the New York Times. The career journalists think beat reporting is still crucial to worthwhile journalism.
Steve Chapman at The Chicago Tribune asks if gun regulation, following the Supreme Court’s move to strike down Chicago’s handgun ban, is like using a garden hose to defeat a forest fire.
Soccer’s peculiar resemblances to socialism is why America has yet to really succeed at the sport, says The Guardian’s American-in-Residence, Michael Tomansky.
While genes and lifestyle play their respective role in the aging process, deeper research further delineates between the two. Living past 100 may be in the genes, says Scientific American.
“Boys’ voices are breaking earlier; girls are developing breasts as young as six. But why?” Danish researchers began investigating when a church choir could not find enough pre-pubescent boys.
“Blood drawn with a simple needle stick can be coaxed into producing stem cells that may have the ability to form any type of tissue in the body.” This according to three new studies.
The idea that espionage always relies on cutting-edge technology is a myth, says The Christian Science Monitor, which divulges the five oldest, and still most effective, spy tricks.
The USDA is addressing the American health epidemic: “For the first time ever, our official dietary guidelines might address access to healthy food for poor people,” says Salon.
Martha Nussbaum says that when the President and politicians publicly admire the education systems of China and Singapore, they support learning systems at odds with an open society.
New research suggests that reciting maxims to one’s self, such as “Everyone makes mistakes,” can help the ego recover from guilt associated with acting against one’s principles.
Every year, millions of women and children across Southeast Asia are being enslaved and exploited in the multimillion-dollar human trafficking industry. This is one of the largest-scale human rights violations […]
If you are a Star Trek fan, you may long have been fascinated by the idea of a “replicator”; a device where you simply ask for something and the device […]
We need poetry in our lives. It is not a luxury. It is not only for an elite. And it does something that no other art form can do, even […]
Legal scholar Laurence Tribe told Big Think today that he found Elena Kagan’s performance in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings to be “masterful in every respect.” Kagan, who was previously the […]
Johanna Sigurdardottir, Iceland’s prime minister, just got married. That in itself might not be particularly noteworthy, except for one thing—she married a woman. When Johanna was elected in 2009, she […]
“I don’t consider myself an artist. I consider myself a creator.” As soon as I heard these words from Stephen Hayes through the phone, I sat back in my chair. […]
Researchers have demonstrated that “the neural circuitry that controls the sleep/wake cycle in humans may also control the sleep patterns of 17 different mammalian species.
“It seems fair to conclude that the 81-year-old, Canadian-born [Frank] Gehry is the most important architect of our age,” writes Matt Tyrnauer.