bigthinkeditor
Honeybee researchers have discovered that the insects release a deadly odor that shortens the lifespan of their family members – usually their sisters.
European scientists have successfully connected a touch-sensitive prosthetic hand to an amputee which he is able to control using thought.
Engineers have developed a new substance by embedding liquid metal in a flexible substrate – and so created flexible, self-healing liquid metal.
A whistleblower who exposed the torture of protestors in Iranian jails has died after being poisoned by a delivery salad laced with blood pressure medication, fuelling fears that he was murdered.
While others struggle to combat the aging process, Dr. Leonard Guarente, director of MIT’s Institute on Aging, seeks to understand it. A forty-year veteran of the university, he is best-known […]
A silent home movie showing Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe smoking marijuana has been unearthed and sold to a collector after languishing for 50 years in a granny’s attic.
Plans to develop advanced prosthetic limbs would offer the same level of flexibility, dexterity and feedback that a hand could offer according to the project’s developers.
Scientists have discovered that women live longer than men because they are made of different stuff – the study suggests that sperm may have a detrimental effect on lifespan.
Mayor of Baltimore Sheila Dixon has been convicted by a court of the single charge of taking gift cards intended for the city’s poor worth $630.
There’s a herd of tame elephants in Indonesia that is used to patrol the 200,000 acre park-like jungle Guardian Angels to stop intruding pachyderms from killing humans.
The president of the Maldives is urging “a collective spirit of co-operation” at Copenhagen lest the summit becomes nothing more than a “suicide pact”.
A California-based web designer is campaigning to ban divorce in the State as a satirical statement after Californian voters outlawed gay marriage last year.
The human condition of “loneliness” is contagious and can spread among groups of people in the same manner as the common cold, according to new research.
Wealthy tourists are lining up to buy seats on a Virgin Galactic rocket propelled aircraft that will go so high it’s passengers will experience total weightlessness.
Microsoft has denied speculation that recent security updates to the Windows 7, Vista and XP applications are responsible for the recent surge in “black screens of death.”
Over the next few months, Big Think is rolling out a series of interviews with leading economics experts to analyze the financial crisis and answer some pressing questions: Who’s to […]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come under fire for spending nearly $3,000 of tax payer’s money on flowers in four months while Whip James Clayburn has spent hundreds on donuts.
Five British sailors are being held captive by the Iranian Navy after their racing yacht possibly strayed into Iranian territories on its journey from Bahrain to Dubai.
Hundreds of Jupiter-like planets and a handful of Earth-sized plants have been discovered by astronomers fuelling hope of finding alien life forms.
The Seattle Times is utilising new Google technology to help inform the manhunt for the shooter responsible for the deaths of four Seattle police officers.
Western countries have warned Iran not to defy international demands by carrying out its plan to build 10 uranium enrichment sites which could be used to develop nuclear arms.
Somali pirates hijacked a US-bound supertanker carrying $20m in crude oil on Sunday – and the unarmed crew could do little to stop them.
The numbers for setting carbon emissions targets “don’t add up” according to the Washington Post because they’re based on outdated projections.
Saudi Arabians have been using the internet to vent fury at the local government’s ineffective response to last week’s flooding in Jeddah that left more than 100 dead.
Health bills currently going through Congress would fail to block hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from coverage according to The Washington Times.
The Huffington Post has slammed a talk show host for being “forgiving” toward the governor responsible for giving clemency to a suspect in the recent cop killings.
For millennia, men have assumed a certain dominance, both physically and culturally, over the world around them. Yet, as we enter an age of disruption, wherein the norms of history […]
Joe Randazzo, editor of one of the most successful root vegetable-themed newspapers ever to emerge from Madison, Wisconsin, sat down with Big Think this afternoon. In an hourlong conversation, BT […]
A specially designed shrinking space suit could soon help astronauts get suited and booted in record time.
Shares across the globe shuddered and then rebounded today as fears that Dubai’s debt crisis would sweep across the globe began to wane.