Guest Thinkers

New research indicates that rising inequality between the rich and poor—and the need to keep up with one’s neighbors—is driving up the divorce rate. 

We’ve previously featured innovative ways in which designers are addressing the blind with Braille-inspired design. This direction of creativity was validated at the National Design Awards gala last week, when […]

Busy as I get back from Fall Break – and only a week and change until the Geological Society of America Meeting in Denver. If you haven’t check already, commenting […]

One powerful woman picks up the phone. Thomas v. Hill, 2010. We now know that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has called Anita Hill, after twenty years, […]

I’m still hot about this Joe Miller handcuff incident. Maybe it’s because the hair stands up on the back of my neck whenever I hear about people who decide to […]

The dispute created by the Obama administration’s challenge to China over subsidies given to its renewable energy industries can be avoided with clear rules.

Princeton professor of bioethics Peter Singer says emotional and rational evaluations of ethical dilemmas are distinct and that they produce different outcomes.

“Genetically engineering crops and trees could enhance the process of carbon sequestration, trapping gigatons of the greenhouse gas as well as increasing bioenergy production.”

Art is good for the soul, but sometimes it can be bad for your health. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds installation at the Tate Modern in London aroused curiosity […]

So, the folks here at Bigthink have been working on improving commenting for Eruptions (and all the BT blogs). I am happy to say that we’ve had a number of […]

I’ve just run into brief reports about a new “eruption” in Colombia – but not the normal kind of eruption. Now, the one of the articles in English that I […]

With all its inefficiencies, waste and contradictions, democracy may not be equal to our social problems. But it sure is a great model of the human psyche, as writers keep […]

On Thursday, the National Academies will be holding the second in a series of roundtable events on climate change education.  Registration is open to the public. In a white paper […]

Tracy Clark-Flory interviews porn performer and producer Madison Young about condoms in porn. Young argues that individual performers should be allowed to decide whether to use condoms on set: CLARK-FLORY: […]

“Developing nations need much stronger incentives to regard their biodiversity as wealth to be preserved, rather than a resource to be processed in the pursuit of growth.”

We have long wanted to create a neuron-by-neuron map of the brain’s circuitry to give us a 3-D glimpse into its connections are, how they work and how the different […]

Sady Doyle has a piece in the Atlantic about how the latest case of HIV in the porn industry has revived public concern about the lack of condoms in straight […]

Until she was 10 years old, performance artist Marina Abramović believed her parents when they told her that her birthday was November 29th, “Republic Day” in her native Yugoslavia. They […]

Malcolm Hartley is an Australian astronomer who is best known for his discovery of 5 comets during the 1980s. He has been invited to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California […]

A bike-sharing programs and cycling infrastructure continue to slowly gain traction in cities, it often becomes a matter of making physical room for the two-wheel lifestyle and reclaiming urban space […]

In this guest post on Colorado’s Amendment 62, a ballot initiative that, if passed, would grant full legal rights to fertilized human eggs by classifying embryos as ‘persons’ under the […]

There is no communist or socialist ideology that is as poisonous as the one held by radical Republicans these days. No fascism as insidious as the warped political creed that […]

Eruptions Word of the Day: Harmonic Tremor and Tornillos. There are few methods that get as much attention in the world of volcanic monitoring than measuring the release of seismic […]

“Organized religion’s increasing identification with conservative politics is a turnoff to more and more young adults. Evangelical Protestantism has been hit hard by this development.”

“All anybody is asking is that the rich pay more in taxes—in effect, that they reinvest in society by a little more than they do now.” Jonathan Cohn urges a fair tax code.

“Closing the loophole that encourages foreigners to come to the United States to make their future children U.S. citizens would not address the larger question of birthright citizenship.”

“High on hope, supporters heralded Obama as the new FDR. Two years later, many feel disillusioned. But FDR’s actual record puts today’s gripes about Obama into perspective.”

To encourage more ecological decision-making at the check-out, recent behavioral studies say governments and businesses should apply peer pressure to consumers.

For all the obstacles President Obama has faced—the terrible economy and the bitter, partisan bickering—he managed to accomplish much of what he set out to accomplish.  He implemented a recovery […]

He is charismatic. He is attractive. And perhaps his best weapon is an apparent agnosticism when it comes to the Money/Power manna of classic media moguls. Denton is a mogul, […]