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Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss Enlightenment philosopher who praised a simple life and inspired the worst of the French Revolution.

Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki discusses the dangers of cynicism and how skepticism can invigorate our relationships and communities.

“No matter how long you’ve been doing a job or how good people say you are, you need to care as if you’ve never done it before.”

Carnivores, herbivores, omnivores — and now virivores.

After 10,000 years of civilization, have we figured out what virtue is?

Protein fibrils accumulate in the brain during neurodegeneration. Cryo-electron microscopy has now uncovered fibrils of an unexpected protein.

For many years, cosmologists have claimed the Universe is 13.8 billion years old. A new paper says no, it’s 26.7 billion. How do we decide?

Due to a crust of carbon, the absence of oxygen, and constant bombardment from meteorites, the planet Mercury may be littered with diamonds.

The base rate fallacy may help to explain low reproducibility in various fields of science.

Why do you feel, think, and behave in the ways you do? Here are five frameworks psychologists use to answer those questions.

When someone attempts to make you afraid of something that hasn’t happened instead of a true, present danger, suspect this nefarious ploy.

The boiling new world, which zips around its star at ultraclose range, is among the lightest exoplanets found to date.

Chess could perhaps be the ultimate window through which we might see how our mental powers shift during our lives.

For many years, some cosmologists embraced the idea of an eternal, steady state universe. But science triumphed over philosophical prejudice.

A common weed uses uncommon types of photosynthesis.

Most of us only ever see a fraction of a full rainbow: an arc. But optically, a full rainbow makes a complete circle. Physics explains why.

People with shingles have an approximately 80% higher risk of stroke than those without the disease.

We can’t edit tweets, but we can edit our own DNA.

Pain makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. What’s puzzling is why so many of us choose to seek out painful experiences.

Empty, intergalactic space is just 2.725 K: not even three degrees above absolute zero. But the Boomerang Nebula is even colder.

Eternal twilight.

Only have sex with a person you love — a novel concept!

Big Think spoke with animator and animation historian Tom Sito about the cyclical evolution of animation.

We only need two numbers to understand why.

Millennials — who were raised to expect unlimited success but found only disappointment — can be drawn to manifestation.

The space‑specific neurons in the owl’s specialized auditory brain can do advanced math.

Recent geopolitical turning points, like Brexit and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, were chapters in a story that extends decades back in world history.

Northwell Health has built an elaborate data system to track and fight COVID-19. If this system goes global, it could prevent a future pandemic.

Much of the discussion began during the pandemic, which really brought mental health issues to the forefront.

Probably not. Even though we’re still investigating the origin of life, the evidence suggests that cells came much later.