The U.S. does have one thing in its favor: Inertia. The fact that we have been #1 for so long means that we will continue to live off of past success for several years to come. But, we can’t live on fumes forever.
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From 30,000 feet above sea level, why aren’t the stars visible from an airplane? “Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free […]
From how they’re born to how they live to the end of their life cycle, this story is common to them all. “Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies […]
How the Universe tells us its age, size, and properties, and leads us inescapably to the conclusion that it’s billions, not merely thousands, of years old. Today, we’re lucky enough to […]
How was Earth’s most well-known precious metal made? “Don’t gain the world and lose your soul;wisdom is better than silver or gold.” –Bob Marley Throughout all of recorded human history, there’s […]
Yes, say Michigan Tech researchers, who compared the costs of purchasing certain common inexpensive household items against the costs of printing them at home. The savings was significant.
The math and logic of teams sometimes (perhaps often) opposes maximizing self-benefit.
Dear Strange Maps, This really is the strangest, or perhaps most curious, map I’ve ever seen: Spam is almost as smart as chimpanzees these days. It gets harder and harder […]
Oxford researchers say we are only a few decades away from a chance at digital immortality.
Within some non-Western cultures, voice hearing is valued and it would not be seen as indicative of any illness at all.
It’s one of nature’s most amazing sights, but how does it work? “I love the sounds and the power of pounding water, whether it is the waves or a waterfall.” –Mike […]
Where the first atoms in the Universe — the progenitors of all the normal matter that makes up everything we know — came from. “I see a lot of new faces. But, you know the […]
We’re somehow hard-wired for stories that have a beginning, a middle and end, stories that really teach us about the past.
Joan Rivers called a baby ugly; Frankie Boyle once commented on Twitter that an Olympic swimmer looked like an aquatic mammal, due to the size of her nose. Most of […]
On the 60th anniversary of its publication, Lord of the Flies continues to be a valuable literary and cultural reference point and, more surprisingly, an instructive manual about contemporary political life—and its liabilities.
Have we already reached peak car? This is the term that urban planners are using to describe the decline in vehicle miles traveled per person.
Political and economic changes have a way of getting into people’s heads. Once-new tools come to feel as natural as the hands that pick them up; once-new rules, ingrained in […]
“Eclipse watchers” have been dying to catch a glimpse of this image, captured in clear skies in central Africa, which depicts the Sun’s total eclipse on November 3.
Non-interference was probably the most important thing that happened in my professional life.
On the shortest night of the year, a galactic giant — the faintest Messier object of all — towers overhead. “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. […]
There’s something deeply and profoundly philosophical about the gradually decline of the Europeans: It’s going on for over a century now. MOST observers will have heard about the latest US […]
“Competition creates efficiency,” is preached as if it were a law of nature. But nature itself teaches a different lesson.
We normally think of the Big Bang as the very beginning of our Universe, but we now know the story goes back even before it. Here’s how. “The aim of science […]
A team of Washington high school students has developed an easy-to-install lock that teachers could quickly place on a door in case of an intruder emergency. They have received a grant to help them develop the product further.
Impostor syndrome is common among highly successful people–particularly women, minority groups, and people from cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds that are different from their peers.
When the President gives a speech today, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells Big Think, “you might hear the pundits tearing it down before he even finishes the speech.”
Now that the Higgs has been discovered, the Standard Model is complete. But are there any other new particles? “The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws […]
Am I the only one fascinated by the issue of currency conversion in literature? When a posh fictional nobleman is rumored to have an income of such-and-such, or when a […]
As study after study shows, women receive an enormous amount of abuse for any online activity: whether as journalists, sex writers, performers. Just being a woman (online) is sufficient to […]
Critics contend that multiple-choice tests only encourage two things: rote memorization and hand-eye coordination.