Guest Thinkers

The Valkyrie, slated to become the world’s first nuclear powered bomber, was a plane decades ahead of its time, pushing aeronautical engineering beyond what had been thought possible.

Recycling doesn’t come for free. It costs millions to pickup, sort and process all those plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard pizza boxes we discard.

Good brand marketing is about getting the right emotional response from your target audience. You can get people to buy a product in many ways, but to get them to […]

2010 was a great year for art publishing, with many presses producing high quality works not only in terms of reproducing great art, but also in publishing important thinkers on […]

“Wow, how did they do that?” We were watching Tron: The Legacyin 3-D, and our friend was marveling at how 61 year-old Jeff Bridges appeared as young as a man […]

What President Obama and my lazy news media don’t seem to remember, or don’t want to address today, is something Jeff Lurie said back when he hired Vick: “I needed […]

Do we pay top executives too little? That, as Tyler Cowen points out, is the question raised by a recent paper by Bang Dang Nguyen and Kaspar Meisner Nielsen. The […]

What would it look like if all the conservatives formed a “utopia” in Texas, say, and broke away from the United States? Social safety nets would be the first thing to go, says Marc Adler.

An Australian-based firm’s $3.9 billion bid for a coal mine in Mozambique says much about its ambitions and the battle that giant mining firms will face in securing Africa’s resources.

The idea of a ‘space elevator’ has been around since the late 1800s. Until now, there wasn’t a material strong enough to build it. Then carbon nanotubes stepped in.

Couples who avoid sex before marriage end up having happier, more stable relationships and a better time in bed, according to psychologists. Should sex wait until one’s wedding night?

Technology goliath IBM just released its top five predictions for the next five years.  We agree with all of their sensible forecasts — with some additional thoughts. 1. Yes, You Too Can Be […]

Let me recommend to you this fine review of this season’s best movie.  Once again, I think the Coen brothers more than flirt with nihilism.  The murderous violence of the film […]

Designer Kaylene Kau has produced a highly functional, sleek prosthetic arm inspired by the tentacle of an octopus.

So he will write a book, even if he does not want to write a book. “I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” Assange said, and […]

Did Albert Einstein believe in God? Comfortable using the term, he famously said, “God does not play dice,” to express his misgivings about the randomness of quantum mechanics.

Suicide bombers have much to teach. The most remarkable fact is that suicide bombing is a relatively recent historic development, unknown in Islamic societies until the 1980s.

How to keep hope alive? Without a constructive answer to toxic anger and immobilizing guilt, we seem doomed to despair about chances for renewal. One answer is forgiveness.

Has post-industrial capitalism completely destroyed the conditions required for healthy childhood development? Dr. Gabor Maté says today’s parents are too stressed out.

I got an email from on Christmas Day from Emily Troutman describing Christmas in Haiti. In a hidden alleyway, a half-dozen children gather around. They live in Village de Dieu, […]

Zinn told Big Think he wanted to be remembered for “introducing a different way of thinking about the world,” and as “somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before.”

Happy holidays! Every year as I range across the web in search of news and ideas I come across a few articles that stand out as exceptionally worth reading. Today […]

1.  So this was the first significantly white Christmas in Georgia during my 31 years here.  If I were a libertarian “conservative,” I would add: some global warming!  But we postmodern conservatives […]

There is increasing concern about pollution levels in the world’s most ubiquitous and essential substance – air – and a new pilot project from Intel is aiming to address it […]

In the collision between the institution of prison and the institution-within-the-institution, the library, something constructive and potentially long-lasting is formed.

If it is repealed, some people will cheer, some will be angry, and most will pay little attention. In the United States, the death penalty may never die, but its best days are past.

If we lose the railways we shall not just have lost a valuable practical asset. We shall have acknowledged that we have forgotten how to live collectively, said the late Tony Judt.

Here are some odd questions: do you spend more time on the calls you make than on the calls you receive? 

Happy holidays! Every year as I range across the web in search of news and ideas I come across a few articles that stand out as exceptionally worth reading. Today […]

Richard Goodman, a retiree from La Habra with a white beard and a red suit, ventures into a culture where most people know little about the jolly old elf and Christmas traditions.