The social contract is clear: if you commit a violent crime, you go to prison. But what if you commit a violent crime because you have a brain tumor in a region of the brain that controls good judgment?
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News that Helen Frankenthalerdied yesterday at the age of 83 after a long illness is making a lot of people recall just how important a figure the self-described “saddle-shoed girl […]
It was an innocuous enough statement. The fact that it referred to an event that had occurred while much of the World – and particularly the Western media – was […]
While reading some remembrances of Christopher Hitchens, I came across a column which quoted this statement from his brother Peter, who was a believer: Like Einstein, he viewed ethics as […]
Never before has the poor been so well-armed. Not with guns, but with the weapons of the digital age. In civil societies, where democracies prevail, political succession and policy-making is […]
Kudos are in order for Craig Hardegree, a fellow Georgia blogger who discovered last week that the files from Gingrich’s first divorce were not sealed after all. Hardegree, a licensed […]
Americans are unhappy about just one thing: the erosion of our meritocracy.
The era of making big bucks from TV sets has gone. They are now so cheap that the profits have all but been eroded, partly due to oversupply caused by increased manufacturing.
For all that has been said in and about the Steve Jobs book, there’s plenty yet to say, for instance on whether the Apple founder’s accomplishments outshone his shortcomings.
Not only has Pinterest received $27 million in venture funds over the last few months, the site’s popularity has exploded from 1.2 million users in August to over 4 million today.
A $200 Google tablet, 1 billion Facebook users, Twitter a huge business, and mobile advertising booming. Next year should bring more than all this, says Business Insider Intelligence.
Augmented reality will be mainstream, digital assistants will guide our every move, everything will be translated on the fly, we’ll use digital scrolls. What else will 2025 bring?
That’s the conclusion of this study. The discovery that being married without children is one path to happiness vindicated the feminists, the liberationists, the authentic followers of Simone de Beauvoir. Authentic […]
Continuing a tradition I started last year, here’s a very personal, very subjective, “I can’t read everything, so I probably left out something, so mention it in the comments, OK?” […]
This ski season seems to be defying the laws of physics. When atmospheric temperatures are higher — which they have been — there should be more moisture in the air, […]
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. But eating that apple is not enough. Where you eat it matters almost as much. At least it did in the mid-19th […]
Since moving to Big Think, there’s a viewpoint I’m encountering more and more often. This belief holds that the New Atheism is tilting at windmills, because most religion is moderate […]
Stress. It is probably one of the biggest risks we face. The more worried you are that you might get sick, the more likely it is that you will, […]
Kim Jong Un is likely to consolidate his political power by sticking to his father’s “diversionary tactic”, namely using military force to divert public attention from domestic affairs.
Brazil’s rapid economic development–it is now the 6th largest economy in the world–is likely to come at the expense of the Amazon and its indigenous people, fauna and forests.
The unprecedented protests in Moscow at the weekend were new proof that Russia’s growing opposition movement won’t stand by idly watching Putin march to power.
Pakistan is drawing up what Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani calls “red lines” for a new relationship with the U.S. that protects his country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Revolution in north Africa and famine in Somalia grabbed the headlines in 2011 but Africa’s underlying mantra of the past decade has been growth, growth, growth.
As Christmas approached, the residents of Whoville got happier and happier. But did this positive emotion make the Grinch want to lash out? Neuroscience has some illuminating answers.
Using computerized machine learning and complex algorithms, UCLA neuroscientists are making advances in ‘brain reading’ where computers can decode our brain to understand our thoughts.
The emergence of neuroscience has shown researchers what happens to our brains when we daydream. Neither good nor bad in itself, daydreaming seems to be our default setting.
A year-long project by experts nationwide has led to a new definition of the term ‘recovery’ which is meant to help doctors, counselors and policymakers who oversee the field.
When depressed individuals were placed in an fMRI scan and shown photos of their mother, their reactions were much stronger than healthy people. The technique could aid in diagnosis.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published my opinion editorial, “The ‘God Particle’ and the Origins of the Universe – The search for a unifying theory is nowhere near over.” Subscribers […]
After a series of failures in the drug industry to slow or stop the inexorable decline of Alzheimer’s patients, doctors are now looking to the computer industry for new alternatives.