John Edgar Wideman has always been one of my literary heroes, from the top of his prematurely bald head, a smooth brown dome towering six feet five inches into the […]
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When does removing online content or editing it after the fact cross the line into censorship? In an intelligent article posted to Alternet earlier this week, Melinda Burns investigates the […]
From the great Carl Zimmer comes a link to a beautiful video of a siphonophore. (Click through jump to watch.) It includes soundtrack from the scientist who has discovered many […]
Just when you think you’ve seen them all, a new Vincent Van Gogh painting rises from seemingly nowhere. An 1886 painting titled Le Blute-Fin Mill (pictured) recently became the first […]
Violence has preceded this weekend’s election which will establish a four-year parliamentary-style government in Iraq under monitoring from 120 international officials.
After a hollow Copenhagen accord, Secretary Clinton signed a bilateral agreement with Brazil this week to combat deforestation, a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions.
General Motors plans to keep nearly 600 of the approximately 2,000 showrooms it originally planned to scrap in an effort to restructure the troubled company.
Defense Secretary Gates will review allegations of misconduct in Afghanistan levied against the company formally known as Blackwater during its training of an Afghan police force.
The Christian Science Monitor envisions a political compromise where trying the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal is exchanged for the closing of Gitmo.
A new conservation report finds that the American bison population could be rehabilitated if new government policy allowed the animal to roam free across the prairies.
The steady 9.7% unemployment rate is being interpreted on Wall Street as a sign that, as consumer demand stabilizes, businesses will begin hiring new employees again.
As television manufactures prepare to roll out their 3D-ready sets, engineers are slowly but surely taking on the next hurdle: 3D TV without the cumbersome glasses.
A referendum will be held his weekend in Switzerland to decide if government attorneys should be deployed to represent animals in court cases that involve animal rights.
Amidst concerns over violations of privacy, Homeland Security aims to operate 450 new body scanners at over 29 airports across the country this year.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel does not have a reputation for being a very nice guy. President Obama’s fixer—or “Rahmbo” as he’s known—was of course at the center […]
Today marks the first installment of Big Think’s new series on business sustainability, sponsored by Logica. For the next thirteen Mondays (through June 8, 2010), we will release in-depth discussions […]
Untreated chronic pain is not only an epidemic, it’s a crime. According to a groundbreaking new report by Human Rights Watch, the majority of the world’s population lacks adequate access […]
David Gelernter is not a man known for conventional thinking, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Yale computer science professor—whose digital-world achievements include the development of […]
Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ uses all his best tricks: visual splendor, darkness and Jonny Depp. But The Salon asks if the famed director has fallen down a rabbit hole.
Bad journalism has been lambasted by Warren Buffett, owner of one newspaper and director of another, who complains in a letter to shareholders that he has been misquoted.
The remnants of a vast sheet of ice lies hidden under Martian rubble, revealed by a new and wonderfully detailed radar map of Mars’ mid-latitudes.
An extended and extra cold winter brought on by a gigantic asteroid strike was responsible for wiping the dinosaurs from the face of the Earth.
The White House’s new cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt has denied that the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing.
Not getting enough sleep can cause fat to accumulate around your organs, a condition much more serious than being typically overweight, scientists have found.
A $1 billion budget for getting good food into America’s schools is “a far cry from what’s needed” to pay for healthy nutrition, writes The Washington Post.
A powerful group of anti-abortion House of Representatives Democrats are willing to “kill” President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless the procedure is banned.
German technologists have developed a new mobile phone that allows soundless communication by reading the movements of the caller’s lips.
There has been a surge in extremist groups in the United States, with armed militias driven by deepening hostility on the right to President Barack Obama and anger over the economy.
“I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at,” Georgia O’Keeffe once said of her abstract works, “not copy it.” Famous for her […]
The General Election has yet to be declared in Britain, at a time when the polls appear to be narrowing between the two main parties, the ruling Labour Party and […]