The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has decided to keep the Doomsday Clock’s hands at three minutes to midnight. It cites the impending climate change and risk of nuclear war as the primary reasons for keeping the clock where it is.
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Artists such as Glenn Ligon still look to comedian Richard Pryor to make sense of the African-American experience.
The first of the three great NASA disasters — Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia — happened 49 years ago. Look back. “If we die, we want people to accept it. We’re in a risky business, […]
This year’s Winter X Games awarded medals to Halo 5: Guardians competitors and some professional athletes aren’t happy about it.
A report from the National Council on Teacher Quality has found teacher-training textbooks aren’t based in evidence.
Rural states dominate the list of those most dependent on the $43 billion firearm industry for jobs, tax revenue, political contributions, and gun ownership, a fact that could prove decisive for Bernie Sanders this month.
The Orion Nebula demonstrates the answer. “So numerous are the objects which meet our view in the heavens, that we cannot imagine a point of space where some light would not […]
Professional women are at a disadvantage due to what’s called “the confidence gap,” an idea popularized by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay. Shine is a new company that seeks to close that gap one text message at a time.
Democracy is happening like never before, and it’s exploiting our deepest fears and failures.
“If the election for U.S. president were held today, who would you vote for?” Response options included all of the Republican and Democratic candidates in the race at the time, along with options for “Other” and “I would not vote.”
Wading into the gun control debate, Facebook has announced it will restrict person-to-person sales of firearms on its platform.
On the map, the changing fortunes of French baby boys’ names look like battles in a weird, unreported war.
The similarities between the Universe and a living being are striking and surprising. Could larger entities than us be alive? “Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to […]
Big Think’s Jason Gots reviews David McCullough’s 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography John Adams.
How “the stats” are being used often causes a fog of low-quality quantification. Multiple regression is widely misunderstood by researchers and journalists.
As the world works toward a zero-emission economy, Japan has had to get creative about building up its solar infrastructure.
New research shows that the most effective leaders, from Abraham Lincoln to Jeff Bezos, are always questioning their own convictions.
An unfamiliar new threat that harms babies, that we can’t protect ourselves from, that experts don’t fully understand, and about which the media is blaring loud alarms; Zika virus has several powerful emotional characteristics that make any potential danger feel much more dangerous than it might actually be.
Chinese activist Ai Weiwei is the most political artist on Earth. Did he just sell his soul to a department store?
And how close does the farthest one we’ve ever found so far come to it? “Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics […]
Planet Nine? More like “Planet maybe.” “Finding out that something you have just discovered is considered all but impossible is one of the joys of science.” –Mike Brown Last week, the […]
Out of those hundreds of friends on Facebook, you’d only count four of them as “true friends.”
All cities have clogged traffic arteries, post-industrial pockets of hipness, and districts that hate each other’s guts for no other reason than that they’re across the river from each other, or on opposite sides of the tracks.
Could Michael Bloomberg actually win? Or should he spend his billions on fixing our broken electoral system instead?
Google.org is trying to help refugees regain the lives they lost.
Photographer Eric Pickersgill has imagined a strange new world. One not unlike our own.
Tinder now offers free testing for sexually transmitted infections to users.
Is inertia of prior ideas the only thing keeping us from the next major revolution in science? This post was written by Brian Koberlein. Brian is an astrophysicist and Senior Lecturer […]
Researchers tested police on major misconceptions about the psychology of policing
Designed by Uruguayan-born, New York-based architect Rafael Viñoly, the new Laguna Garzón Bridge aims to reduce the speed of crossing cars and encourage drivers to enjoy the view.