Personal Growth

Whether its finding mates, raising children or making meals, we have given many areas of our once-communal lives over to the marketplace, says UC Berkeley sociology professor Arlie Russell Hochschild.

What is the Big Idea? Religion and science have long been been at odds with each other, that is, until Buddhism came along. In fact, some might even say that […]

The neuroscience behind decision-making.

Without question, it’s the desire to “know” that drives scientific inquiry. But as scientists at the forefront of physics or biology will tell you, the more we learn, the more simplistic earlier frameworks seem and the more complex the puzzles become. 

Thankfully, there is a kind of socially-beneficial narcissism. After all, following the rules is a good thing, and you follow the rules better than anyone else, don’t you, you special person!

This year’s Pritzker Prize–the Nobel of the architecture world–has gone to a Chinese architect who delights in re-using material from failed government housing projects. 

To be successful in the 21st century, it’s more important to know what to say to whom, when, and under what circumstances, and for what purpose. 

Realizing technology’s promise of accelerating our collective learning – of making us smarter, faster – is a matter of building the right tools, then using each to teach the form of knowledge it conveys most efficiently. 

Google’s chairman recently warned a British audience that the Web will remain vulnerable to cyber attacks for the next ten years. Education is essential to maintaining a free and open Internet. 

Big Think’s own founder and president Peter Hopkins gave Rahim Kanani at Forbes some face time in preparation for the 2012 Social Innovation Summit taking place next week at the United Nations Headquarters in […]

Given the ubiquity of the achievement lobby, underachievement is actually no easy thing to grasp. But has it ever occurred to you to try for something less than your best in order to be happy?

A pioneer of neurotheology, Dr. Andrew Newberg uses fMRI and other neuroscientific tools to study religious experiences in the brain. He has the rare distinction of having studied Franciscan nuns and Tibetan monks […]

It is gratifying when people see you just as you want to be seen. But don’t count on it. If you like to think of yourself as a gentle person […]

What is the Big Idea? While Congress dukes it out over the federal interest rates on student loans, venture capitalist Peter Thiel has a solution for college students who don’t […]

What’s the big idea?There is no shortage of online tools to help us research restaurants, track up-to-the-minute news and even plan out our zombie escape routes, yet there are very […]

The cover headline caught my eye, and I surprised both the elderly leafletter and myself when I took a copy of the “Watchtower” magazine on my way out of the […]

While we know superstitious laws are silly, we may be better off obeying them. Doing so will save us the guilt of having gone against conventional wisdom if misfortune should come our way. 

We all have something about the world we want to see changed in our lifetimes. Here’s how you can go about doing it, starting today.

Emer O’Toole has some advice for preparing women for the summer months. The short story writer sprung into (in)action when she saw how ingrained many gender roles had become. 

Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, founder of the Webby Awards, and one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century” according toNewsweek. Last week, Shlain was honored with a Disruptive Innovation Award at the Tribeca Film […]

In June of this year, you can see Venus pass across the surface of the sun. The event, which will not occur again until 2117, will help planet hunters to find foreign worlds similar to Earth. 

Several years ago, Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister conducted a study that measured the productivity of computer programmers. Their data set included more than 600 programmers from 92 companies. According […]

New psychological research shows that humility is strongly associated with a host of positive virtues, including maintaining friendships, having good work habits and being generous. 

Here are some ways to make your idea into a full blown movement. Get the public involved early and often, and make advertising campaigns directed at civic organizations. 

While scientists jump to answer this notoriously difficult question, scientific observation is not well suited to finding the cosmic will that the question implies. This stumper is better left alone.

The private space company Sierra Nevada has designed a spacecraft to take the place of NASA’s recently retired shuttles, carrying astronauts to the ISS with greater efficiency. 

Archimedes in the bathtub, Newton and the apple, Einstein’s theory of special relativity — Eureka! moments are what happens when hours of work come together in a single creative flash. […]

As we approach Earth Day, I’ve had some interesting thoughts about the science vs. religion, materialism vs. spirituality debate. Being a spiritual teacher myself, I generally tend to feel more […]

A study conducted between 1959 and 1964 involving 350 children found that around 4th grade our tendency to daydream and wonder declines sharply. In other words, Picasso was right: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

The Space Studies Institute has drawn up a working list of the obstacles we must overcome if we are ever to live permanently in space. The effects of partial gravity are high on the list.