1.3 trillion bricks are manufactured each year worldwide. 10% of them are made by hand in coal-fired ovens, emitting on average 1.4 pounds of carbon per brick or 800 million […]
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Understanding the effectiveness of a marketing channel fully requires understanding the revenue impact that the channel drives. Both as a source of a prospect (e.g. prospects who respond to a […]
If the prosecution of John Edwards for campaign finance violations were to succeed, it would set a bizarre precedent. [Photo credit: IowaPolitics.com, Creative Commons.]
Waterbirths are so passe. Today’s elite stunt-birther wants the obstetrical equivalent of a fish pedicure, a koi assisted birth. From the FAQ: Why koi? Koi, or 錦鯉, are ornamental varieties […]
Yesterday, we celebrated Father’s Day. Today, let’s celebrate the wisdom of the female investor – or more specifically, what it is that generally makes her more financially successful over the […]
The online retail revolution has produced spectacular success stories like Groupon and Gilt Groupe. Adam Bryant of The New York Times talks to Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe, about where the industry is heading in the future.
1. So my post on NASA provoked a variety of most thoughtful responses. The ones by Brendan were the most detailed and philosophic, but they were all worthwhile. 2. Their […]
The New York State Senate has voted to legalize gay marriage, a major milestone for the gay rights movement in several respects. After Governor Andrew Cuomo signs the bill into […]
Over the past 50 years, severe weather patterns have cost 800,000 lives and a trillion dollars in economic losses. A new report puts much of the blame on climate change.
The global economy has bounced back strongly from the nadir of 2009, but recent data in key advanced economies have been disappointing. So where is the global economy headed?
After high food prices, slow growth, and heavy debt, there’s another force emerging that could block the global recovery: China’s property market is showing signs of rusting.
The Pentagon now has some 7,000 aerial drones, compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago. Whether for spying or unmanned airstrikes, the technology is being tested aggressively.
Cyber attacks against corporations and governments have grabbed the headlines lately but is all the noise just a consequence of new laws that compel the disclosure of such attacks?
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan has responded sharply to President Hamid Karzai’s escalating denunciations of American and N.A.T.O. forces and aid efforts in Afghanistan.
European finance ministers say they will release another round of emergency funds to Greece only if its lawmakers make haste in approving tax hikes and deeper spending cuts.
If the Vorticism movement had a headstone, it would confidently read “Here Lies Vorticism, 1914-1919.” Perhaps no other art movement had such a cut and dried beginning and end, yet […]
So, what is the difference between tantric sex and regular sex? The goal of tantric sex is for the man to postpone orgasm as long as possible whereas in regular […]
Capitalist societies believe in the possibility of endless growth. But Plato and other classical philosophers would have begged to differ.
Don’t pick on the sprouts, and don’t even pick on Organic. The danger here is the way you and I perceive and respond to risk, a subconscious decision-making process that often works well, but which sometimes can create risks all by itself.
Emerging research shows that handwriting increases brain activity, hones fine motor skills, and can predict a child’s academic success in ways that keyboarding can’t.
Why do economic bubbles seem so inevitable? Why don’t we ever learn? And can they be prevented? Jonah Lehrer asks why society resolves itself to the boom and bust cycle.
While descriptions of online addiction are controversial at best among researchers, a new study cuts through much of the debate and hints that excessive time online can physically rewire a brain.
U.S. scientists say they have developed an on-off memory switch that helped laboratory rats remember a behavior that they had forgotten. The research could benefit those with brain injuries.
Yale psychologist Paul Bloom wonders that if evil is empathy erosion, and empathy erosion is a form of illness, then is evil nothing more than a particularly awful psychological disorder?
“The trauma surgeon of Wall Street” tells Big Think about the ethical considerations he had to contend with in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
The smart money is on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination to challenge President Obama in 2012. Romney leads the early polls, and performed well in […]
Discoveries in recent years suggest that nature knows a few tricks that physicists don’t: Coherent quantum processes may well be ubiquitous in the natural world.
James Verone of Gaston County, North Carolina, purposefully held up a bank for $1 so he could receive medical attention in prison. After losing several jobs, he had no health insurance.
When the power imbalances between men and women are eradicated, say psychologists, women philander as often as men do. That’s because sexual infidelity is related to power, not gender.
Interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals may have given Europeans and Asians resistance to northern diseases that their African ancestors didn’t have.