All Articles

Companies like Apple need to constantly innovate just to maintain their present position. This is the harsh reality that businesses must face in the increasingly competitive global economy. Harvard Business School’s Linda Hill has advice for leaders in these challenging times. 

To be sure, our incompatible ideas of “work” and the workplace are a huge part of the problem. But so is the informal, perfectionist view that parenthood is something that swallows you up whole.

The theme of Turkle’s indispensable book is in its title.  It’s an old theme, originating, maybe, with the philosopher Rousseau.  Technological progress is at the expense of personal virtue and the relational […]

Today Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first Swedish winner since 1974 and the first umlauted winner since Herta Müller in 2009. The citation mentions […]

The world’s most expensive and complex ground-based telescope Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has just offered its unique views of deep space, including images of two galaxies colliding, here:

In his new book, 1493, Charles Mann gives us a rich, nuanced account of how the Columbian Exchange continues to reunite the continents and globalize the world. 

–Guest post by Faizullah Jan, American University doctoral student. Single Page View “We are the 99%,” proclaim the protesters participating in the Occupy Wall Street marches and sit-ins.  Without a […]

In an “important step” in stem cell research, scientists have for the first time succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells by injecting DNA from a skin cell into an unfertilized egg.

Scientists have created a working cloaking device using sheets of carbon nanotubes which create the “mirage effect” observed in deserts or on long roads in the summer.

The gap between controlling an artificial limb and feeling a physical touch has been bridged via a virtual prosthetic hand that monkeys were able to control using only their minds.

Companies need formalized processes for people with ideas to get to people with the influence to move on them, so the best new ideas actually reach those who can exploit them.

The man who changed the world: Apple founder Steve Jobs dies weeks after quitting as boss of firm he started in his garage. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg praises his “mentor and friend.”

For most people, there’s little difference between graffiti and street art.  To those within that circle, however, there’s a whole world of difference—even enough to drive them to destroy the […]

Steve Jobs, former chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, told Stanford University graduates three stories about connecting the dots, love and death. “Remembering […]

At Big Think, we believe a video is worth a thousand words, especially in this case, when we are so very stunned by a life that was cut off so […]

My inaugural post on Big Think drew a wide range of opinions from commenters. (New site, new community! It takes some getting used to on both sides.) But this comment […]

Mourn for a day. Think Different for the rest of your life. That’s the only thing I can think of. I’m still speechless at the news that Steve Jobs has passed […]

The European banking system is in worse condition than America’s banks were in 2008 or are now. Dexia is single bank needing a $238.9 billion infusion.

If past trends are any guide, this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature will go to a post-postmodern Francophone novelist from a forgotten duchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And yet partisans […]

The winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced this Friday, October 7th. Last week, a former Norwegian prime minister ignited speculation about this year’s winner by announcing, “It will be an interesting and very important prize … I think it will be well-received.” 

So the Big Think’s AGE OF ENGAGEMENT is advertising a showing of Carl Sagan’s hugely influential film CONTACT.  The film will be shown, appropriately enough, as an excellent example of how […]

Three astrophysicists who discovered that the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate, rather than decelerating, have won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. 

Want to build a strong and sustainable business, political movement, or religion? According to John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, the wise leader follows the example of one of the most ancient cultures on Earth: yogurt. 

Big Think’s newest blogger and atheist-in-residence, Adam Lee, asks magician and author Penn Jillette how he reconciles his atheism with his libertarian philosophy.

Readers in the Washington, DC area may be interested in this free event coming up at American University on Thurs. Oct. 27 and sponsored by the School of Communication.  A […]

Despite a dwindling budget, N.A.S.A. is planning ahead for missions to the moon, an asteroid or Mars by engineering a habitat suitable for astronauts on long-distance missions.

Compared with the Chinese who are developing space-based solar power, the United States does not have a long-range national space strategy or direction, and desperately needs one.

A revolutionary spaceship that that travels at 2,200 miles per hours would allow vacationers to reach any destination in less than two hours. It could become a fixture in the skies.

Any long-distance interstellar travel will span generations which means humans must find ways to procreate in space. Gravity is essential to the healthy development of our bodies. 

The genetic mutation that drives evolution is random. But here’s a list of some beneficial mutations that are known to exist in human beings