bigthinkeditor
The word “slavery” has a very specific resonance for Americans. But slavery is a practice that has existed since the very first records of human history, and it continues to […]
“Western robots are engineered to more explicitly express emotion, while those from Japan are generally as expressive as the masks worn by actors in traditional Japanese Noh plays.”
“Today’s artists — their students and heirs — have been curiously unable to rise to the challenge of their legacy. They seem crushed and confused by its iconoclasm and grandeur.”
“Steven Rattner talks to Foreign Policy about how he pulled Detroit back from the brink — and what lessons that success could have for Obama going forward. “
“Does our inner voice really aid self-control and help us resist temptation? New research suggests the answer is ‘yes.'”
“A new report reveals just how fast we are consuming the Earth’s resources – and the dire consequences.” By 2030 we will need the capacity of two Earths to absorb greenhouse gas.
“If book publishers want to see the next decade in any reasonable health, it’s absolutely imperative that they rethink their pricing strategies and business models right now.”
“True breakthroughs in understanding come not from following the rulebook, but from tracking down its contradictions.” The Guardian praises the paradoxical mind.
Research on almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from cancer when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.
“Judges and investigators need to be unflinching in their inquiries into the paperwork debacle and must hold the banks fully accountable.”
“Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors…still drawing upon misinformation?”
Nostalgia is dangerous, says novelist Jonathan Lethem: “There is a hugely bogus script that things fall into in American cultural life—that just before we arrived it was all perfect; things […]
“The greatest of all freedoms, the one that more people want more than any other, is the freedom from responsibility and consequences,” says Theodore Dalrymple.
An Economist blogger defends the right of corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions only if foreign corporations are granted the same right.
“Climate change activists no longer dwell on impending climate doom, but on the economic windfall that will result from embracing the ‘green’ economy.”
“Chinese manufacturers have helped send the price of conventional solar panels plunging and grabbed market share far more quickly than anyone anticipated.”
“Playwrights, directors and performers all seem to think that we want to be part of their act.” The Washington Post’s theater critic wishes to be left alone.
Why is there something in the universe instead of nothing? Big Questions Online gives ten answers to perhaps the biggest question to ever vex us.
Personalized cancer treatment once available mainly in Boston is moving across the pond; Britain’s National Health Service is set to expand novel gene testing research.
Facebook and other social media present challenges like brand management and opportunities like cost-cutting for business willing to embrace modern technologies.
“With nearly one fifth of workers unemployed or under-employed, the best way to save jobs and boost productivity in the short term is for workers to accept lower wages.”
A photo of one’s beloved activates the brain’s reward centers like a drug might; learning how to harness love could help relieve pain without drug-induced side effects.
Dr. James Watson can’t help but speak his mind. And this has gotten the co-discoverer of DNA’s double-helix in trouble in the past. He has been called, among other things, […]
Hearing Sutherland at the Met: “It was…a reminder of how an exceptional gift, carefully developed and generously used, changed the operatic landscape.”
“This research is an important reminder that the unconscious is smarter than we can comprehend, as it processes vast amounts of information in parallel.”
“In the last few weeks, four young gay men have committed suicide, all in some way connected to fear, shame or isolation around the issue of their homosexuality.”
Gawker began as a media-gossip site devoted to ‘radical Manhattanism,’ and has since morphed into a world view for the blogging generation.
Much of the accepted wisdom on bullying is not only ineffective, it makes things worse. Advice to “just be nice”, “don’t be a tattletale” and “‘just ignore them'” needs revisiting.
“It will never be a substitute for proper carbon-taxing, but eco-labelling is a development to be welcomed.”
The recession has not torn young couples apart; it has pushed them closer together. Marriage and divorce rates have remained remarkably immune to the business cycle.