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As women in rising countries like China, Iran and Turkey lead increasingly independent lives, they are having children later in life and in fewer numbers which could prevent the much-feared population crisis.
Empires, big business and modern communication and transportation technologies account for the rise of sports, which today has reached near-mania, writes Intelligent Life Magazine.
“As U.S. employment patterns evolve, a diploma is no longer a guarantee of a better job and higher pay,” says the L.A. Times. Vocational labor is gaining most as the economy recovers.
Past Big Think interviewee Dr. Harry Ostrer made headlines today for discovering a genetic closeness between the two Jewish communities of Europe, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim. According to the […]
Glenn Roberts, the founder of Anson Mills in Columbia, S.C. wants to save Southern food culture, one grain at a time. He thinks the traditional cuisine of the South is […]
Meghan Daum opines on beauty amid a new book on workplace discrimination against the “unattractive” and a lawsuit by a woman claiming she was fired for being too attractive.
When Bill Frisell was young, he says remembers watching the “Mickey Mouse Club” on his family’s new television. “The leader of the Mouseketeers was this guy named Jimmy and he’d […]
Apple’s strict policy against pornographic apps has resulted in an illustrated adaptation of James Joyce’s landmark novel Ulysses being censored; the novel itself was once banned for its sexual content.
Garrison Keillor eavesdrops on some twenty-somethings at a local cafe and reasons that instant communication would have sapped modern literature of its best tropes, e.g. longing and reflection.
The established poet William Carlos Williams wrote in 1956 of newcomer poet (and friend) Allen Ginsberg that he “sees with the eyes of the angels.” Williams most likely referred to […]
Penn Jillette visited Big Think and talked about his early conversion to atheism, his libertarian views, the unique chemistry between him and Teller, the history (and the future) of magic, […]
The Middle East isn’t just the geographic center of the planet. With so much activism on different sides regarding the region, particularly with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict recently stoked […]
Singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton is so famous that you might never have heard of him. That’s because he’s “internet famous” (i.e. he has a passionate fan base that he’s built up […]
Some see a shallow sitcom or feather-light comedy. Matt Zoller Seitz sees “radical sincerity” in Glee, “one of the most stylistically bold broadcast network shows since Twin Peaks.”
“There was a great fashion in the last century, and it’s still with us, of the unenjoyable novel,” says Martin Amis. “And these are the novels which win prizes.”
Downloading free music may eventually disenfranchise listeners, says Cris Ruen at The Big Money, because musicians will be desperate for whatever corporate patronage comes their way.
When the Arno River overflowed in 1966 and flooded Florence, Italy, an art apocalypse nearly took place in that grand Renaissance city. Countless works, including Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Doors of Paradise,Donatello’s […]
Would days spent reading Proust make us more attentive? The Times cover story today implies, Yes. New research argues against the opposing onslaught: video games, iPods; inevitable, en masse drift […]
Pianist Hilda Huang, 14, visited Big Think today to tell us about her love of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In March she became the youngest person ever to […]
In our world of infinite and instant information, learning one skill deeply could equip us with critical thinking tools necessary to cope with our times, which change faster now than ever.
The New York Times magazine profiles squatters and freegans who have taken advantage of the many housing foreclosures in Buffalo, NY and how they’ve earned their neighbors’, and the law’s, respect.
“Americans like to see themselves as rugged individualists, a nation defined by the idea that people should set their own course through life,” but in reality we embrace group membership.
Ben Lewis at Prospect Magazine says postmodernism will be remembered as the graveyard of the admirable modernist project for its formulas, narcissism, sentiment and cynicism.
New photographs in which Allen Ginsberg captured his fellow Beats—Kerouac, Corso, and himself—have been unearthed by scholars, enriching the American Beat catalog.
The English language is infamous for its difficult spelling, and while no immediate changes appear on the horizon, reformists of the language continue their quest to change English spelling.
Geoff Jones, a Harvard Business School professor, knows everything there is to know about mascara. He’s an expert on the beauty industry, a sector that dates back to ancient civilization. […]
The L.A. Times comes out swinging against baseball’s “halfhearted embrace of technology”. The Galarraga case sparks new calls for technology to double-check humans.
One of the world’s foremost art collectors, Charles Saatchi famously refuses to be interviewed, but here he answers some questions put to him via email by The Daily Beast.
Movie violence against women has long been a staple of mainstream film-making but is becoming ever more forensically detailed, claims a troubled Natasha Walter.