Culture & Religion

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Writer Ariel Levy on the silence around the animal facts of women’s physical lives, her comically awkward experience with the shamanic hallucinogen Ayahuasca, and much more.   

It’s durable, exponentially scalable, and it’ll last millennia, if not millions of years.  

A new study from the Netherlands shows a direct link between exercise and anxiety disorder and depression. 

When Shoshana Johnson decided to join the military, her intention wasn’t to make history. 

Poachers, hunters, and collectors are targeting animals on the endangered species list for their rarity.

A pair of Kickstarter enthusiasts, want to make coloring even more fun for you by merging Cards Against Humanity with the ‘boring’ crayon to make it… politically incorrect.

Art is a key source of wisdom (it’s effects can be powerfully mind-altering). Here are some examples from Shakespeare (from Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library).

The technology behind wireless charging or inductive charging was discovered by Nikola Tesla in the 1890s and utilizes an electromagnetic field to transfer energy between two objects. In chargers, an […]

Your bones would “explode.”

Will Smith defends entry of non-theatrical Netflix movies at Cannes.

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Author Mary Gaitskill on vulnerability, alienation, and Cerebus the Aardvark. 

A new study from Yale researchers found that people rate familiar fake news as more accurate than unfamiliar real news. This is a troubling finding that makes the fight against fake news increasingly difficult.   

This could lead to a small 3D printer used by soldiers to quickly make anything needed in the field.   

Hampshire College appoints some slime molds as scholars-in-residence.

His use of the drug may have inspired Dr. Timothy Leary.  

It really depends on who you ask, as one European poll found out. 

Nearly a half-century after Edward Abbey wrote Desert Solitaire, the book reminds us of the necessity of our national park system. 

If people figured out how to get along before religion, asks Frans de Waal, do we really need it?

A new study suggests that more anorexia and bulimia victims recover than was previously thought.

Haseef Rafiei, a young Malaysian architect, had a thought one day: what if we could convert the real estate industry into an automated vending system? 

If a maternal grandmother smokes, it increases her grandchildren’s risk of autism by 53%.   

Our “one beer an hour” rule of thumb is based on drinking a bottle of Bud. Now that more people are drinking pints of stronger craft brews, how do we adjust this rule of thumb?

Here are this week’s top comments on Big Think content from across the Web.

Not everyone sees color the way you do. There are a suite of tools available to help graphic designers work more inclusively. 

The world’s first malaria vaccine will be released in Ghana, Keyna, and Malawi in 2018. While malaria was eradicated in the US by 1951, it still kills over 400,000 people worldwide each year. Will this vaccine help eradicate malaria?       

A new study says some TV viewers are more moral than others. What kind of viewer are you?

The Bella Bella Heiltsuk will use these findings in negotiations over their traditional lands.   

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Lexicographer Kory Stamper on the slipperiness of language and how the sausage of dictionaries is made. 

Stanford University is offering medical trainees a real-time virtual tour through heart defects. 

The program picked up association biases nearly identical to those seen in human subjects.