Released on the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, a new film directed by Robert Redford centers on the tension between civil liberties and national security.
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Innovative startups are using virtual worlds like Second Life and Twinity as virtual classrooms for people to learn new skills and languages. Could this one day replace brick-and-mortar classrooms?
Many in the West assume that poor people or racial minorities are somehow not going to understand technology, but this sort of paternalistic view is dead wrong, says Ross.
Social media tools may push a society toward democracy, but they don’t fundamentally alter an individual’s capacity for social relationships.
As the single most-quoted author in the English language, it should not be much of a surprise that Shakespeare is often misquoted.
When the financial crisis struck, the ultra-cheap German supermarket chain Aldi saw an opportunity. It has been expanding rapidly in the US.
From low-tech gadgets enabling livelihoods in remote African villages to satellites that spy on human rights abusers, a look at some (not necessarily sexy) technologies shaping the future.
After its November launch, Kinect became the fastest-selling electronics device ever. It may be integrated into the Windows OS, leading to the Next Big Thing in web user experience.
A robot scientist has made a new biological discovery and many more might be possible if we simplified the language of science, the human scientist who led the development says.
A game-like environment will increasingly be innovation’s hothouse, the gamification industry claims. The World Bank has Evoke and UK government workers share ideas on Idea Street.
The far-reaching political changes that have occurred across the Middle East might actually have been predicted by looking at the data about the rapid pace of technological development in the region.
Today is the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. Shakespeare didn’t pull the trigger, of course, but his play “Julius Caesar” inadvertently triggered a series of events that inspired the act.
Advertisers are beginning to understand the “incredible power” of giving consumers virtual currency in gaming worlds in exchange for their purchases.
Making something great is the best marketing you’ll ever have. Once that’s done, just share everything you know to get the word out.
In a speech at George Washington university today, President Obama unveiled his plan to pay down the federal debt. Last week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed his own debt reduction plan, […]
It is important to know when things work. Especially because the media bias feeds us a disproportionate amount of negatively slanted news. It is also important to know that what […]
Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments in the 1980s which suggest that our behaviors are determined by our brain and only later interpreted by our mind.
For billions of years on this planet, there was life but no free will. The difference is not in physics—which has remained the same—but is ultimately in biology, specifically evolutionary […]
Einstein believed that free will was just an illusion, and that awareness of this lack kept him from taking himself and others too seriously. But Einstein was plain wrong, says Dr. Kaku.
It has now been one year since the eruption that closed the skies over Europe and captured the world’s attention. Before April 13-14, 2010, most people outside Iceland (or this […]
Researchers say they are ahead of schedule in a bid to discover (or disprove) the mysterious “God particle”–the stuff that makes stuff stuff. How else do objects get their mass?
China is moving more rapidly on renewable technologies and pushing ahead on emissions trading, while American initiatives are stuck in Congressional quicksand.
Japan acknowledges the Fukushima Daiichi plant crisis warrants the worst nuclear accident rating. The main threat now? Not a new explosion, but more earthquakes or tsunamis.
There are many reasons for us to visit Mars. A key motivation is that after Earth, it appears the most likely abode for life in our solar system. And there are some political factors.
Fifty years after Gagarin, plans abound for crewed missions into deeper space. A near-Earth asteroid landing, one-way trip to Mars, or hover point hiatus in mid-space, anyone?
It’s not easy to imagine today in our world of high-speed photography and camera phones what it was like to have your photograph taken in the 19th century. The still […]
The military is investigating the first-ever U.S. casualties due to drone warfare. Today Big Think takes a look at a day in the life of a drone operator and the psychological stress that remote warfare puts on our troops.
Last night three U.S. Supreme Court judges participated in the annual mock trial event in Washington D.C. Law professor Kenji Yoshino explains how these events use Shakespeare to teach us about justice.
First off, a big thank you to James Reynolds who took questions from my Volcanoes class here at Denison today. It was a great chat with the students! Now, we […]
If anyone imagined that the act of intervention by itself is always enough for the United Nations to emerge unscathed, one only need to look at the chequered history of […]