bigthinkeditor
The first project Brian Henson worked on with his father, Muppets creator Jim Henson, was a scene in “The Great Muppet Caper” where Kermit and Miss Piggy are riding bicycles […]
“To achieve deep focus nowadays is also to have struck a blow against the dissipation of self; it is to have strengthened one’s essential position,” writes Sven Birkerts.
Plenty of people on Wall Street knew that a crash was coming—and that they responded by grabbing all the profit they could, writes Christopher Hayes. He thinks they should face criminal sanctions.
“Arctic amplification” refers to the fact that the region is warming twice as quickly as the rest of the planet—and as ice warms, exposing more ocean water, the process naturally speeds up.
There is no single part of the human brain that gives it advanced language capabilities. Rather, humans rely on multiple parts of the brain to extract meaning from sentences.
Some believe we should move a system where health insurers pay a fixed, up-front cost for each particular health problem—and let the hospital and caregivers use the money as they see fit.
“The May 1 riots in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district have become an annual ritual. … Now an American anti-capitalist activist has started giving tours of the neighborhood’s hot spots to foreign visitors.”
“The term ‘slow travel’ is tied to a burgeoning movement to return to a time when life’s pleasures were savored, to a time when people appreciated the going as much as the getting there,” writes Nancy Keates.
“What’s the difference between a frog, a chicken, a mouse and a human? Not as much as you’d think, according to an analysis of the first sequenced amphibian genome.”
La Santa Muerte, Holy Death, “is only one among several otherworldly figures Mexicans have been turning to as their country has been overwhelmed by every possible difficulty.”
Paul Krugman writes that the Greek crisis demonstrates the dangers of nations putting themselves in a “policy straitjacket.”
Faulkner would sacrifice his grandmother for his fiction—Anne Lamott, however, would not. For writers who, like most of us, have the goods on their family and friends, “honest can be […]
Big Think’s Peter Hopkins will interview journalist and tech entrepreneur John Battelle in Mountain View, California this afternoon for the HP-sponsored webcast “New Marketing in the New Normal.” Battelle, the […]
After months of struggling with unending debt, the time has come for Germany to step in and help Greece. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, was less than happy about […]
A recent study of multiple sclerosis has found no genetic dissimilarities between identical twins who have and don’t have the disease.
Tim Logan writes that the trouble with talent attraction as an economic development strategy is that talent seeks opportunity—and without jobs, a “creative class” city will wither.
“Even if all computerized route maps eventually learn to mimic the most useful aspects of our homemade creations, we’ll keep drawing maps for one another and for ourselves,” writes Julia Turner.
“Americans must be willing to show a greater appreciation for the things government rightly does on our behalf and have an honest discussion about how to pay for them,” writes Dennis Jett.
James Bridle writes that publishers need to look beyond one-size-fits-all definitions of their product, and take a long look at where and how people are reading.
Two teams of researchers have confirmed that an asteroid circling the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter has water ice and organic compounds.
Elizabeth Chang writes that Barack Obama shouldn’t have checked “African American” on his census form because he is biracial.
Experts believe that New York City is home to as many as 800 languages, many of which are heard more commonly in the five boroughs than anywhere else.
New research indicates that superstition may be able to influence the outcome of event. Study subjects who were told they were playing with a “lucky” golf ball, on average, sank more putts.
Naomi Klein’s 2000 book “No Logo” inadvertently served as the most influential marketing manual of the decade, writes Andrew Potter.
Magazine covers are “a wasteland of creativity” these days. Or so says legendary advertising and design guru George Lois. “Go to a newsstand today, there’s not a memorable—forget about something […]
“My work is just trying to make sense of the disorienting and overloaded world that we inhabit,” says DJ Spooky. “We’re bombarded with sound at every level.” In his Big […]
Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic” investigates the long-term outcomes of patients treated with psychiatric drugs. Could meds be doing more harm than good?
Benjamin Kunkel thinks that, absent a political movement for full employment, the U.S. will continue to have fewer jobs—and those with jobs will be increasingly exploited.
Despite the claims of advertisers, most orange juice is neither fresh nor natural. Alissa Hamilton writes that the history of processed orange juice is a study in deceptive marketing.
Former President Jimmy Carter writes that Sudan’s recent elections, despite the condemnation of many critics, “will permit this war-torn nation to move toward a permanent peace.”