Quick. Grab a pencil. Some crayons. A notepad. Wrap your brain around this Big Enigma from Ivan Moscovitch’s The Big Book of Brain Games. Share a photo of your solution in the […]
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Design experts say the furniture of the digital age will be dematerialized, meaning a minimalism no longer imposed by style alone but by the material necessities of digital devices.
In a previous thread, again buried in a huge pile of comments, there was one I wanted to highlight: Now you talk of pregnancy as a real life threatening thing […]
We have devoted a fair amount of attention on Big Think to the ongoing saga of Apple’s relationship with its Taiwanese-owned electronics supplier Foxconn. Why do we care about this story […]
Maybe the brain evolved a lot like the way big pieces of software get developed.
Bano, a mother of five who lives in the ancient quarter of Lahore—the cultural center—was without power for days. She wanted to make goat stew, a family favorite and a […]
Now that SCOTUS deliberation over the constitutionality of portions of Obamacare is going much worse than most liberals predicted, left-leaning pundits are screaming “judicial activism!” which is cute, though I […]
What is the Big Idea? A new mobile app that helps young Beijingers hook up is a runaway hit, according to Economic Observer. Weixin, which means “tiny message” uses geolocation […]
Richard Dawkins, the most famous “atheist” on the planet, has argued “the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other.”
Mitt Romney will win the nomination. Rick Santorum’s victory in Louisiana only delayed the inevitable. Santorum gained just 5 delegates in Louisiana on Romney, who is still 295 delegates ahead. […]
Today, the question of how people make decisions is an animated and essential one, capturing the attention of everyone from neuroscientists to lawyers to artists. In 1956, there was one person in all of New York known for his work on the brain: Harry Grundfest. An aspiring psychiatrist, Eric Kandel chose to take an elective in brain science and found himself studying alongside Grudfest at Columbia University.
When last we heard from him, experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats was building a celestial observatory for cyanobacteria. From their petri dishes, billions of these microorganisms would study images from the Hubble telescope, coming to conclusions unavailable to our more highly developed brains. Months later, they’re still at it, and we can barely begin to imagine what they are thinking.
Children whose parents were responsive at 18 months of age show more extended and imaginative play at four years, while children whose parents were directive spend more time in the immature pattern of merely touching or looking at toys.
Craig Taylor’s Londoners is a humbling reminder that, for all the restless energy we put into categorizing, labeling, and compartmentalizing the world, the only way to understand people and places as they really are is to shut up and listen.
Do you remember the scene in the The Breakfast Club in which Brian, the lovable geek played by Anthony Michael Hall, is asked what he would need a fake I.D. […]
One theme that consistently emerges in Teju Cole’s work is an interest in creating space, through literature, for those bits of real, complex experience that can find their expression nowhere else.
The all-knowing device used in the TV program Star Trek has been brought to real life by cognitive scientist Peter Jansen, who equipped the machine with an impressive array of sensors.
A start up backed by a Skype co-founder is giving away free smartphone covers that provide about a gigabyte of free wireless per month. Internet is a right, not a privilege, says the company.
In this interview with Big Think, Henry Rollins talks about how important it is to travel, and how his time on the ground around the world has allowed him to connect more deeply with the issues he cares about and break stereotypes while doing it.
What’s the Big Idea? Steve Mahan is 95 percent blind. And yet he was able to get into a car and drive a pre-programmed route from his California home to […]
Unwrapping the paintings for our “Abstraction” exhibition, I had a shock or at least a wonderful surprise. I called to my associates and said, “Wow, who of you managed to […]
The very technology that keeps us constantly connected to work can also create a new understanding of labor in the modern age. The no-hour work week means using technology humanely.
Will moving money to digital devices widen the digital divide or provide a way for everyone to participate in a new economy that will run on exciting new digital innovations?
How soon until you can roll up your computer screen like a newspaper? Two recent developments will make computer screens and e-reading devices flexible enough to bend.
My previous post on the term “mansplaining” was turning into a zombie thread, so I had to drive a stake through its heart. But there’s more that needs to be […]
The duality is right there in her name: Francesca Woodman. Woodman, daughter of two successful artists and a promising photographer herself, cherished childhood memories of family trips to Tuscany and […]
Deep water exploration is the hip thing to do these days, whether you’re James Cameron hanging out with “extremophiles” in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean, or if you’re […]
Think the private sector has a monopoly on innovation and government is just hopeless bureaucracy? Not DARPA. It’s the agency that invented the Internet and flies at Mach 20.
Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, are developing a suite of satellites armed with powerful lasers to change the course of asteroids that threaten Earth.
I can still vividly remember reading, back in 2001, the New York Times Magazinewrite-up on the release of The Corrections. It began: Some days, Jonathan Franzen wrote in the dark. […]