You may have noticed that, according to the counter on the sidebar, I just passed 100 posts on Big Think this week. This is a milestone, but I hope it’s […]
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Imagine if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in 1992 and woke up yesterday. He would probably be amazed at the extent to which our national conversation on reproductive health has […]
MIT scientists have developed a way to deliver messages to cancer-causing genes using a method known as RNA interference. The tool could help treat neurological and immune disorders, too.
Body sensors linked with mobile devices are increasingly able to measure changes in your body. For those experiencing stress-related disorders, it could mean a new way of treatment.
Will advances in genetics that allow individuals to be treated for disease according to their unique DNA bring about the end of medicine? Some doctors are wildly optimistic. Others, not.
Practically every progressive Democrat in the country knows what ALEC stands for—American Legislative Exchange Council—and the true purpose behind it. Rich conservatives basically took the model that has been used […]
We’ve all been forced at some point to listen to someone yammering obnoxiously on their cell phone in a public place. But now we can fight back. Japanese engineers have […]
What is the Big Idea? Vladimir Putin’s waning popularity is prompting the opposition to allege that voter fraud is the primary explanation for his inevitable win in Sunday’s presidential elections. […]
You may think you are a good listener. Who doesn’t, after all? But many people show they are listening without hearing a word, resulting in miscalculations and bad decisions.
Quick. Grab a pencil. Some crayons. A notepad. Wrap your brain around this Friday’s Big Enigma from Ivan Moscovitch’s The Big Book of Brain Games. Share a photo of your solution […]
Like a superhero masking their “real” identity, Cindy Sherman may be the most photographed person in history whose “real” face (whatever that means) remains a mystery. Since the 1970s Sherman’s […]
Welcome to an ongoing feature on the Floating University blog, FU Asks, where we open up the academic debate on our e-learning platform to the Big Think community. This week […]
The British inventor says that from an engineering point of view, it is much more challenging to sell machines for their smallness than for their largeness, but that is the challenge of his work.
What if everyday life as I know it is irredeemably complicit in injustice? If this is the case, then does justice not demand that everyday life be overturned? These are […]
Francesca Minerva has been receiving death threats. Did she harm anyone? Did she stab, mutilate, or otherwise physically incite people to violence? No: instead she fulfilled her duty as a […]
–Guest post by Erin Brett, American University student. Although the great majority of climate scientists believe that climate change is a serious threat, only two percent of Americans mentioned the […]
The city’s mayor wants to take a regional path to growth, getting Chicago to cooperate with its 14 surrounding counties to capitalize on the area’s collective resources. But will that work?
It’s a Monday afternoon in Washington, DC. Do you know what your spouse is doing? I hate to break it to you, but 30 of them are sitting in their […]
A budding technology industry is making Detroit a small Silicon Valley, replete with dense office space and access to a growing community of entrepreneurial expertise.
Two business professionals differ in their views of launching a start up. One says entrepreneurs should trust their instinct. The other says being mindful of data pays dividends.
Thanks to prominent politicians like Rick Santorum and Orrin Hatch, America has been having a contentious debate this week about what it means to be a snob in today’s society. […]
I wanted to pull this exchange out of the comments, because I thought it was worth highlighting: “Science is constantly evolving and improving on itself”. I AGREE. The same as […]
Dear Readers, For the weekend, a few miscellaneous notes: If there’s ever a book you’d like to see covered on Book Think, please feel free to drop me a note […]
If Julius Caesar hadn’t accidentally burned down the Library of Alexandria, the story goes, we long ago would have colonized Mars. That notion, popularized by Carl Sagan, among others, is that the […]
What’s the Big Idea? Without realizing it, James Cameron has produced a parable about all forms of human communication, says David Bellos, a renowned translator and finalist for the 2012 National […]
A new study has isolated stem cells in human ovaries that could be developed into mature eggs, or ova. This discovery “opens the door for development of unprecedented technologies to overcome infertility in women and perhaps even delay the timing of ovarian failure.”
“If you can’t say Fuck, you can’t say, Fuck the government.” — Lenny Bruce In this video, Lenny Bruce excoriates the cultural impulse to censor “dirty words” over violent images, which […]
Whatever happens next week on Super Tuesday, the race for the Republican nomination is likely going to go on for a while. By winning the Arizona and the Michigan primaries […]
Have you ever considered for yourself what love actually is? Or do you assume you know what love is, based on what others may have said about this all-important topic? […]
What’s the Big Idea? Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka the science guy, if grownups want to […]