Unless engineers understand why a Russian rocket meant to carry supplies to the International Space Station crashed last week, the station will be empty come November.
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Will we solve the problem of runaway heath costs? Thanks to incentives and disincentives, the next five years will see an unprecedented acceleration of electronic medicine in the U.S.
Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner weigh in on the international threat of cyber attacks. They say new international laws are necessary.
As nanodevices get smaller, they demand new fabrication methods. By turning a problem in into an advantage, M.I.T. researchers have made structures a mere 30 atoms wide.
We have argued for decades that we are running out of space for our garbage in the thousands of landfills currently peppering the globe… Now we are faced with another […]
The Indian government promised the world a $35 laptop a year ago. In a few weeks it will deliver, said Kapil Sibal, minister for human resource development.
Just like mechanical innovation in the 19th century, the still-evolving computing and communication innovations of the 21st century will profoundly impact the world’s economy.
In a previous post, we asked you who you want to see featured on video at Big Think. The response was overwhelming to say the least. From UAW President Bob […]
Stewart Brand’s famous maxim, “Information Wants to be Free,” has been, for more than 25 years, one of the most popular rallying cries of the Digital Age. These words have […]
A new approach to overcoming state-level Internet censorship relies, ironically enough, on a technique that security experts have frequently associated with government surveillance.
–Guest post by Declan Fahy, American University. The interactive horror-themed websites Hotel626.com and Asylum626.com are the cornerstones of a complaint filed last week by a coalition of four consumer and […]
Steve Jobs and Apple’s ascendancy to the throne of world technology companies was not without its pitfalls. So what did the world’s foremost tech guru learn along the way?
The march of technology and globalization has played out hugely in favor of high-skilled labor, but that march is now turning against skilled workers, promising to narrow the equality gap.
For the past several weeks I’ve had severely limited internet access thanks to Itisalat and TE Data (two of Cairo’s least helpful internet providers), which has been responsible for the […]
Author Carmine Gallo has studied Steves Jobs’ success and wants us to ask how can we learn to unleash our inner Steve Jobs to advance our business, our careers, and the world.
Internet users are being tracked all the time and shaking off a virtual tail can be tough. The desire to track users continues to outstrip privacy features in browsers.
BY JASON SILVA Physicist Freeman Dyson has spoken of a new “Age of Wonder” centered on computers and biology. He has artfully articulated that in the near future “a new […]
One in six children fail to read books as they spend increasing amounts of time texting friends, sending emails and visiting social networking sites, a new study has found.
The “democratization” of space, including more involvement of amateur astronomers, is underway thanks to a ballooning and publicly accessible global astronomical database.
Even though it’s beneficial for the US to cooperate with the Chinese wherever and whenever possible, we must have the confidence and will to compete with them in markets where we can press our advantage and fortify our own economy.
From beating hearts to breathing lungs, livers to fallopian tubes, the list of organs replicated in miniature form using microchip technology is growing, revolutionizing how drugs are tested.
Infringement is different than ‘stealing’ in some very important ways. And yet, industry folks, politicians and law enforcement continue to claim that one is ‘no different’ from the other.
Cyber espionage and nation-state-backed hacking incidents appear to be increasing in frequency and severity. What once seemed the province of Hollywood has become real.
This past Saturday, October 15th, marked a momentous occasion in the history of cleanliness: the fourth annual Global Handwashing Day. Yes, it exists. Established by the Global Public Private Partnership […]
What constraints govern the physical process of computing? Is a minimum amount of energy required per logic step? There seems to be no minimum, but some other questions are open.
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist interested in language as a window into the human mind. In this excerpt from his linguistics lecture for the Floating University, he illuminates some of the mysteries surrounding children’s hardwired ability to learn language.
–Guest post by Jamie Schleser, American university doctoral student. Technological advances in how we communicate, from the advent of the printing press to the launch of the World Wide Web, […]
As I washed the dishes and pans after our own Labor Day weekend gathering last night, I thought about some of the labor I’ve done over the years. I picked […]
If astronomers spot a big one headed our way, our risk perception will switch to “It COULD happen to me, and SOON” and we’ll take the threat more seriously.
How can governments better assess the risks of new technologies? And why was Japan so stringent on earthquake regulations and not on nuclear energy?