With private companies announcing their intentions to mine the lunar surface and asteroids for precious minerals, legal questions have arisen over how far the concept of ownership can be applied.
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The Department of Defense is handing down two telescopes it built for spying purposes. By retrofitting the hardware, NASA will be able to look for dark energy at the edges of the Universe.
I interviewed Paul Zak, founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, for the first time two years ago. We met for a coffee at Neuroscience […]
Perhaps the world’s most fiercely original aerospace engineer, Rutan has pioneered beautifully designed aircraft that (successfully) go against the grain of conventional wisdom.
By measuring the planet’s atmosphere as light from the sun refracted against it, scientists will be better equipped to find and analyze the composition of planets outside our solar system.
Most of us, especially if we follow the principles of critical thinking, go through life slowly building up a patina of evidence supporting the beliefs that matter to us. Under […]
Warning: a Scott Walker victory in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election may finally inspire the rest of the Democratic Party to start acting like they really want to keep Barack […]
The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, characterized “cyber” as an “existential threat to the United States of America” in a recent issue of Fortune […]
Earlier today an anonymous US official confirmed the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi. Now, I don’t have a lot to say about al-Libi – other than to say wait for […]
Why would so many people take time off from their smart phones to watch the Transit of Venus through a telescope? According to Bill Nye, it is our human desire to explore. If we ever lose that desire, we’re not going to move forward as a species.
As Wisconsin voters stream to the polls today in the Gov. Scott Walker recall election, most commentators are warning that a Walker win would be a disaster for the left. […]
New research in The Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science finds that people who shop at organic food stores are more inclined to be judgmental. Organic foods “reduce prosocial […]
Would you be happier working for a company or being your own boss?
The quantity of knowledge contained by humanity increases by about five billion bits per second, yet our poor understanding of how information systems work could spell disaster.
Some Darwinians, such as Francis Fukuyama, Larry Arnhart, Jonathan Haidt and the late James Q. Wilson, openly and proudly acknowledge that the results of their research point in a moderately […]
Paypal founder Peter Thiel discusses how to think beyond professional tracks to find success.
George Soros last Sunday blamed Angela Merkel for the euro crisis – and gave her three months to fix it. Speaking at the 7th Festival of Economics in Trento (Italy), […]
Google’s effort to map every street in the world has given the company troves of data it can use to create self-driving cars. Today, innovation means extracting data in novel ways.
As Facebook considers extending its membership circle to include pre-teens, one parent is resolved to keep her kids off the social network so they can establish friendships in the real world.
Industry and government are pushing back against commercial Internet tracking, but most consumers don’t mind the intrusion too much. In fact, many even appreciate the tracking.
As machines like drones and automobiles become more independent of their human operators, they will increasingly face moral dilemmas. Will they know right from wrong?
I got a call from a friend last year. He had prostate cancer and wanted some help thinking through what to do. He had gone to his doctors for the […]
Why is democracy so difficult? Could be because it demands that each of us accept, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz said to me way back when I wrote this, “that […]
What’s the Big Idea? There are not only wrong answers — there are also wrong questions, says Slavoj Žižek, philosopher and author of Big Think’s most recent Book of the Month. And sometimes […]
Monique Leroux managed to get herself elected (yes, elected) as the first female CEO in the organization’s history.
On December 17, 2009 the US carried out a missile strike against what it believed to be an al-Qaeda training camp in the south Yemeni governorate of Abyan. Unfortunately, what […]
Silicon Valley’s wage gap and income inequality between men and women must surely rank among the worst in the country.
Reflecting on creating a start up while providing for a family of four, Eric Farkas has created a list of priorities that kept his business plans on track while honoring the more important things.
Today, the crisis in Europe has gotten worse for some countries; the recent U.S. employment rates are disappointing; China is looking strong, but will that last for long? Four years ago, countries were able to devise a plan to help prevent a global depression, so why not now?