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Over the summer I addressed by video conference a meeting by the National Academies on state science policy advice. They’ve now produced a report based on that meeting and it […]

“We want to make architecture that people like to use,” said Kazuyo Sejima, who with partner Ryue Nishizawa won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize yesterday.  “The jury somehow appreciated our […]

“There’s this core of people who have become very, very powerful who can do enormous damage to the rest of society and honestly, they really don’t care,” says Simon Johnson, […]

When attempting to communicate effectively with the public about a science-related debate, which is more important, framing the message or conveying science-based facts about the topic?  A forthcoming study (Word) […]

n n (click on image to enlarge) n The Zeitgeist of the mid ‘fifties probably wasn’t shrinkwrapped in quite so many layers of irony and political correctness as today’s is, […]

Last week I participated in a two-day workshop at NSF on climate change education. The meeting brought together researchers in science education, communication, and informal learning; representatives from government agencies […]

Etna Week continues with Part 2 of guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke’s look at Mt. Etna, including the unstable flanks, its eruptive behavior over the last 400 years and changes at the summit.

This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature […]

 “Every generation is born to this same anatomical legacy; how they then fashion it with clothing is, in miniature, the story of culture,” argues Susan J. Vincent in her sweeping […]

I was on Tybee Island earlier this week, sitting in my usual spot on the 17th street crosswalk just after dawn, when a young man carrying an ocean going kayak […]

A Chinese oil tanker that has run aground on the Great Barrier Reef is leaking oil and threatening to break up entirely, causing a greater spillage.

There is a phenomenon going on out here in the blogosphere called “good information dissemination”, a trait that often distinguishes us lower paid or usually unpaid bloggers from the members […]

Many an aspiring screenwriter has pored over Robert McKee’s book “Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting,” trying to suss out the creative secrets that will result in […]

The stripping away of forests in Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo has uncovered a 36-46 kilometer wide circular phenomenon thought to be a giant impact crater.

Michael Lewis is probably best known these days for two great sports books, Moneyball and The Blindside. But he originally made his name with Liar’s Poker, a book based on […]

“How could you conceivably cut yourself off from other men and from the life they bring you in such abundance? In the name of what uncaring, ivory-tower kind of attitude?” […]

A new study has revealed that humans’ ability to respond appropriately to intended harms – ie moral outrage and anger – is rooted in the brain region used for regulating emotions.

Right now our most advanced robots are not quite as smart as we would want them to be. One of the most popular—Honda’s humanoid robot, Asimo—is quite sophisticated but you won’t […]

Michael Moore is in a class by himself when it comes to generating news attention, advance publicity, and box office for his documentary films. For example, when I was in […]

Part 2 of the Q&A with Dr. Boris Behncke of Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania.

A German team has turned tales of invisibility cloaks, made famous by Grimm’s fairy tales and Harry Potter, into a potential – albeit a small – reality. About 0.00005 inches in fact.

“In fact, it is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has […]

The famous Great Red Spot which can be seen on planet Jupiter is not what astronomers previously thought it was. Turns out, the red spot is a warm patch in a cold storm!

The director of the census bureau in charge of marine species, called the Global Marine Species Assessment, has issued a warning about the deterioration of earth’s coral reefs. It was […]

The dolphin’s natural language system is so complex that we cannot yet fully decode it, but believe that they communicate in a human-like system of signs and can likely understand […]

We’re delighted to start our blog, Hybrid Reality, on Big Think. The blog is part of a multi-year research project examining human/technology co-evolution. We explore the implications of our complex […]

Growing GM engineered disease resistant crops is comparable to a triple-A-rated mortgage bond, fabricated to prevent credit risk. But can such protections really work?

The snow in DC is preventing the usual Smithsonian/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report from getting posted – but fear not because here it is!

Structural barriers to women’s rights in Iraq are loosening as women increasingly populate the national police force.

The Human Body Shop may be just around the corner: In 50 years, the advancing technologies of medicine and tissue engineering could change everything.