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The powers that be are currently convening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But is this high-profile meeting of minds really the best setting for predicting and responding to the world’s future crises? Or does it fall prey to the same biases that triggered the recent recession in the first place?

Some lessons in media literacy are more painful than others. Listen up, kids. Despite what you read in the papers, you cannot get high on bath salts or plant food. […]

So the headline is a bit extreme to get your attention.  But let me share with you my favorite conservative response to our president’s challenging and unevenly interesting speech last […]

Around the globe in Japan, Kirishima, a volcano on the southern island of Kyushu, has started erupting vigorously. I haven’t been able to find many reports, but the Tokyo VAAC […]

Get a front row seat to what the future holds by tuning into a LIVE webcast called “Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box” on February 1 from 10am to 2pm PST on BigThink.com

Vladimir Nabokov, popular author and self-taught expert on butterflies, once put forth a theory of evolution for the Polyommatus blues butterfly. Today, his theory is getting some attention.

The girlie-girl culture being marketed to little girls is less innocent than it might seem, and can have negative consequences for girls’ psychological, social and physical development.

The Enlightenment left us with few resources for thinking about what the good life really is, and how we should live it, because the focus was on winning individuals their freedom.

Inspired by Tunisia, Egyptians began their protests online and then added hard tactics on the ground in their effort to bring down a crushingly effective police state.

Once upon a time, films would open, close, appear on video, then vanish. Now with dozens of television channels to fill and rentals going postal, some films never go away.

U.S. Supreme Court justices have ruled that corporations are “artificial persons”; the Spanish Parliament ruled that great apes are “legal persons.” So just what is a person these days?

What people are saying to each other is important, but how they are saying it may be even more telling. A new study finds that people who speak in similar styles are more compatible.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s nearly two-year examination of the 2008 crisis lays blame on two presidential administrations, regulatory agencies and big players on Wall Street.

Professor of the “social studies of science” at M.I.T., Sherry Turkle summarizes her new view with eloquence: “We expect more from technology and less from each other.”

If there was a central theme to the president’s remarks, it was innovation. He called for more investment in education, research, science and clean energy.

[IMPT] This post is likely to offend a few people – I decided to post it anyway. If you’d like to tell me your opinion about this article? Tweet me […]

More than even faith in the market, perhaps our most widely shared belief as Americans is our deep, almost fundamentalist commitment to the ideal of science and innovation as strengthening […]

The business world is full of what can be most kindly called “empty suits”—individuals who look the part but hollowly fulfill positions of power. In the art world, the empty […]

We don’t know about you, but we’re a little tired of conventional web searches. If you want to search anything (say Egypt), Google obediently proffers a number of sites starting […]

The global recession pushed climate change action toward the bottom of the geopolitical agenda. Yet President Obama bucked conventional wisdom Tuesday night by making  clean energy technology a centerpiece of his State of the Union Address. 

Where is the geographical midpoint of Europe? The question is straightforward enough, but the answer isn’t. 

Autism sufferers unquestionably have feelings. It’s processing them—and reading others’—that they struggle with.

What are the practical applications of cryogenics today?

Spacehacking is a common craft among urban dwellers who want to make the most out of their less-than-generous floor plans. From Japanese-born, German-based designer Yuya Ushida comes Sofa_XXXX – an ingenious […]

Academic journals, like universities, gain prestige by refusal. The smaller the number of applicants you admit onto your pages, the greater your glory. With logic worthy of Charles Dodgson, then, […]

Sometimes I think that people have an unhealthy obsession with Yellowstone Caldera. Sure, it is big, powerful and the stuff that disaster movies are made, but in terms of a volcanic system that poses a high threat to life/property in the U.S. on a daily basis, it is relatively low.

President Obama has fallen hook, line and sinker for the short-sided political view of our nation’s most efficient stimulus program.

Rupert Murdoch is on his way to the annual shindig of global movers and shakers at Davos. Quite what is moved and shaken at Davos is frankly anyone’s guess. But […]

Why do we underestimate others’ misery while knowing most of our own negative experiences happen in private, and we frequently put on a brave, happy face when socializing?

Demonstrating that one is able to conform to curricula currently trumps boldness; seat hours in the auditorium count more than audacity. I wonder if that’s really good for America, though.