Initially employed to provide security in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater expanded its operations to assist the CIA in classified operations.
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Before going to Copenhagen, England and France have secured $11bn to help Africa cut emissions and switch to low-carbon industries.
From Artificial Car Noise to Zombie-Attack Science, the New York Times Magazine lists the year’s most interesting innovations and ideas from A to Z.
Despite American climate change deniers, Louisiana’s coastline is one the fastest disappearing in the world due to rising sea levels.
A US-run prison in Iraq became a training ground for extremists where explosive techniques and suicide bombing was taught to inmates.
Google introduced a tool at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that uses its Earth and Map technologies to monitor deforestation with the goal of preserving the earth’s carbon sinks.
A new social media website named Blippy answers the question: “What are your friends buying?” by making their credit card transactions public.
The House of Representative narrowly passed a sweeping financial reform bill that creates new government oversight boards; now the bill goes to the Senate.
Everyone’s running their mouth about COP15 this week. No progress will be made; great progress will be made!; developed countries won’t put enough money on the table; developed countries will […]
Multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz composer Maria Schneider visited Big Think today for a conversation that, like her work, spanned genres and art forms. Topics covered included the influence of dance […]
A key assumption in many social sciences is that people have preferences, and that these are both knowable and stable. That’s the point of surveys on every subject from whipped […]
In a recent NPR interview, National Book Award finalist Daniyal Mueenuddin spoke with arresting candor about Pakistan, using the word “feudalism” to describe the structure of life in the Indus […]
It was easy when you knew which writers were writing what in your favorite newspapers. Now, if you’re like the rest of us, you’re constantly combing the internet for fresh […]
I joined a panel yesterday on BBC Radio’s “World Have Your Say” that included former Nobel Peace prize winner Jody Williamson to talk about President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech. […]
In recent years, the ancient debate over how male and female brains differ has generated competing parenting theories, academic scandals, and heated media debate. In her Big Think interview, Chicago […]
Was President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech more political than polite? And was it the speech the Nobel committee wanted to hear?
The mystery of a giant light spiral in the Arctic has been solved after the Russians admitted it was a Bulava missile fired from a submarine.
The United Nations wants Western powers to spend more than $2.1bn per year for the next five years and at least $60bn overall during that period, reports Fox News.
Futuristic 3D videogame-esque film “Avatar” is a “triumph of technology storytelling” for a writer/director who had to propel the special effects he wanted into existence.
Hostage negotiations are continuing after at least nine of the 57 detainees being held by gunmen in the Southern Philippines were released.
A joint bid from oil companies Shell and Petronas has today secured a contract for one of Iraq’s “supergiant” oilfields following a two-day-long auction of the resources.
Do-It-Yourself retail stores will soon be stocking solar panels so climate change-conscious customers can pop sustainability into their trolleys and wheel it home.
Google.org has demonstrated a new tool which, if implemented, could help to combat climate change by monitoring the state of the world’s rainforests.
Grave robbers have stolen the body of Tassos Papadopoulos, the former president of the Republic of Cyprus, a year after his death.
A simple genetic “flick switch” can transform female ovary cells into male testicular ones according to scientists who have been experimenting on mice.
My dad read me Jack London’s The Call of the Wild when I was nine. I graduated from high school in a city that makes a big deal of its […]
There have been myriad memorable speeches, and memorable lines, from our current President, but perhaps today’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech will be remembered as his finest. Its lyricism was notable, […]
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently told Maria Bartiromo, “maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” That […]
Historian Kim Phillips-Fein sat down with us to discuss the roots of the modern conservative movement in the U.S. Along with discussing its conflicted philosophical origins, she also spoke about […]
The Columbian Journalism Review exposes some Huffington Post trickery. Variety.com is scheduled to put its content behind a paywall. While Microsoft and Google have partnered up with Twitter and Facebook for […]