bigthinkeditor

With the economy in dire straits and unemployment soaring, could Anna Wintour have some helpful advice?

“A planet census suggests that there are 50bn with the same mass as Earth and that around a fifth of these have liquid water.”

“If Israel refuses to implement a settlement freeze in keeping with international law.. the answer is to hold Israel accountable to what a just and lasting peace demands.”

“(The U. S.) government is ignoring what is likely to become the single greatest threat to the health of Americans: Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that is 100 percent incurable.”

“Why aren’t there more women math professors? Or engineering professors, or physics professors, or professors of computer science or economics?” Is motherhood be to blame?

“Unlike most claims from politicians that intellectual property only provides benefits, (the Vatican) notes that the economic research is ‘contradictory.’

“Is the new crop of hyperrealistic military video games driving home the reality of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or simply exploiting them?”

“The big discovery has been that depressed patients who have proven most resistant to traditional treatments…seem to have particularly high rates of inflammation.”

Unable to handle the pressure to pick more and more cotton, in October 2008, Umida Donisheva, a 17-year-old girl, hung herself from a tree on the edge of a cotton field.

“A physicist needs to decide what features of the problem are relevant and which features can be ignored, how to represent the problem in different ways…”

“Pig manure can pave our streets—and a path to cleaner energy.” The Atlantic reports on a new machine that converts excrement into bio-oil and liquid fertilizer.

“The time taken to ‘fall in love’ clocks in at about one-fifth of a second, not the six months of romantic dinners and sharing secrets some might expect.”

The prolific and award-winning Canadian writer designs superhero costumes for alter-egos of two of her readers—as well as a chilling enemy ‘the Paniac’.

“Leaked photos purporting to show a Sony Ericsson handset combined with a PlayStation Portable games console have appeared online.” The Telegraph reports.

“My team at the U.K. Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge has come up with the ultimate test of intelligence,” says Adrian Owen.

If you are a startup looking for investors, stay as close to home as possible. Forbes’ Maureen Farrell says fundraising rounds will be shorter and less frequent if you do.

“Policy doesn’t swing very wildly when government changes hands.” The Economist’s Iowa correspondent says midterm elections are more about coalitions than zero-sum games.

The prolonged debate over net neutrality threatens to retard development of strong U.S. broadband lines while countries like Japan and South Korea plow ahead.

“Having at least one female sibling makes us happier and less prone to depression, especially if our parents were divorced. This effect seems to persist into adulthood.”

“A new advance in recording and interpreting brain activity will open the door to machines that could record and play back your dreams,” say U.C.L.A. neurology researchers.

The jungle has often been a metaphor for the breakdown of morality. Think “Heart of Darkness” or “Aguirre: Wrath of God.” And now we have a true story to add […]

While coal has long supplied energy to the Navajo tribe in Arizona, new inspiration and political will is calling for renewable energy to build the society’s future.

“Researchers find they can alleviate depression in mice by boosting a protein in one part of the brain.” Technology Review on how gene therapy could be used in humans.

In 1916, Dr. T. Kenard Thomson proposed increasing N.Y.C.’s property value by creating a land bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn and building an island off the Jersey shore.

France’s new Internet piracy police has been scouring the Web for illegal downloaders of films and music, sending warning emails to suspected intellectual property thieves.

Does wine taste better in certain phases of the moon? Catherine Nixey examines a 20th century theory that says earth’s satellite affects the taste of the vintage.

“The Bible exhorts us to love our neighbors. But what about our colleagues? Do we really need to love the people we work with?” Dr. Paul Zak on why love is essential in the workplace.

New research suggests that people are more comfortable with being dishonest on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook than when speaking face-to-face.

“The west still rules—but this will change in the coming decades; indeed, geography may cease to matter.” Ian Morris says the rate of global change is accelerating.

“The differences between Twitter and Facebook mirror a longstanding debate about how the human brain processes other people.” The Frontal Cortex explains.