In her introductory video for “Pottermore,” the recently unveiled web portal for all things Potter, J. K. Rowling promises an enhanced multimedia experience for “the digital generation.” She also announces […]
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Usually I’m a pretty reasonable person. However, over the past day, various items in the media have begun to drive me mad. Maybe I’ve been watching too much of Ramsay’s […]
Fox News is going on the offensive against its nemesis, the liberal think tank Media Matters. Over the past ten days, the network has run more than 30 segments calling […]
The latest brain-computer interfaces give people control over their real-world environment: opening and closing doors, controlling the TV, lights, thermostat and intercom, etc.
PowerPoint ban? The software is boring employees and costing companies billions in lost work, say the brains behind the Anti-Power Point Party. Could a PowerPoint ban take off?
Combining top-down and bottom-up approaches, a new low-cost method could enable the creation of three-dimensional nanostructured materials that serve a variety of functions.
Video calling is the newest battleground between Google and Facebook, as the two tech giants angle to become the place where you identify yourself online and connect with friends.
When companies outsource their manufacturing, suppliers close or move, engineers learn different skills, local colleges drop job-training courses, and the whole ecosystem shrinks.
I have no idea which White House staffer twitterized President Obama’s answers to the questions Twitter users tweeted at the Twitter Town Hall the White House hosted yesterday. I’m sure […]
With the cost of genotyping falling at a rate faster than Moore’s Law, genetics could be used to answer some of the burning questions of the social sciences.
What’s exciting (and simultaneously scary at the same time) is that people are finally realizing that all of this data that we are accumulating about our bodies and our lives has economic value.
Tara Sophia Mohr has a challenge for working women. “You’re brilliant and thoughtful, but could you move a few more inches in the arrogant idiot direction please?” Be an arrogant idiot is rule #5 of Mohr’s 10 Rules for Brilliant Women.
Legendary oilman and billionaire entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens will visit Big Think’s studios next week. Submit your questions for the tycoon in the comment section below. Our editorial team will […]
Today is the day that the sound of chickens coming noisily home to roost was heard all over the United Kingdom. It began with a BBC radio interview of the […]
It is not overstating it to say that the world will be watching Washington these next couple weeks, nervously, since the global economy relies on the full faith and […]
What’s worse, taking steroids or lying about it to Congress? What the Roger Clemens perjury case tells us about our “national epidemic of lying.”
Let me share with you an alarming study that came to my attention a couple of years ago. Americans are now drinking more BOTTLED WATER than BEER. Ther persons who reported […]
It seems that our attention is being brought back to Iceland every few months when it comes to volcanism – and this shouldn’t be any surprise, the north Atlantic island […]
The next-generation spaceship chosen to fly American astronauts into orbit and back may look a lot like N.A.S.A.’s soon-to-be-retired space shuttle—and it even has N.A.S.A. roots, too.
The world’s insatiable demand for the rare-earth elements needed to make almost all technological gadgets could one day be partially met by sea-floor mining, says a new report.
Oil leaked from an Exxon Mobile pipeline near Laurel, Montana, has spread fifteen miles from its source, five miles further than previously thought, contaminating the Yellowstone River.
While carbon dioxide emissions have risen steadily from 1998 to 2009, global temperatures have not. Scientists say Chinese coal-fired power plants that release sulfur have cooled the planet.
One of the strangest theories to come out of theoretical physics is that the universe is a projection of a two-dimensional shell. New evidence suggests this hologram theory is false.
As N.A.S.A.’s space shuttle program prepares for its last launch ever, some say the political compromise that initiated the shuttle program also compromised decades of research.
When I found out today about the death of American artist Cy Twombly at age 83, I quickly ran a gauntlet of reactions: one, I have to write about him; […]
Which scientific idea–offered up by experts such as Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking and others–will impact our world the most? See our top contenders and vote for your favorite.
Dr. Gary Small says in the future you will wear a headband that will read your thoughts, so when you think a thought it will be translated wirelessly.
Ken Auletta’s profile of Sheryl Sandberg in The New Yorkeris an excellent companion to Sandberg’s TED speech of last December. The latter was passed like a Dead bootleg among a […]
I was talking to a friend’s son this weekend about his love life. He is tall and handsome so I figured that at the age of 17 he probably has […]
We are now in the heart of the summer after the long weekend (well, at least here in the US) … and it means that I’m within a week of […]