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n This remarkable painting was made by the Norwegian artist Rolf Groven as a poster proposal for Norway’s pavilion at the World Exhibition in Seville (Spain) in 1992. The title […]

In an article in the Sunday edition, WPost reporters Steve Mufson and Juliet Eilperin detail how Obama during his presidential campaign took the lead in urging his staffers to re-frame […]

Spain’s surprisingly advanced renewable energy sector is facing obstacles like government cutbacks, ever-changing regulations and a retracting European economy.

Psychologists and economists have long wondered whether increased wealth does indeed translate into happiness, and now new research indicates that to the (small) extent we are made happier by our […]

There was brief speculation in the media about using nuclear weapons to seal up the raging oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I think this is a bad idea, […]

“By prompting President Obama to suspend deep-water drilling in US offshore waters, the Gulf oil spill is pushing up the date at which the world’s conventional oil production peaks,” says the CSM.

“The nature and depth of the financial crisis is forcing us to reconsider some of the basic tenets of financial theory,” says Paul Volcker who maps his ideas for reform in The NY Review of Books.

Eilert Sundt must have had a busy, happy week. As the president of the Norwegian Cartozoological Society, Mr Sundt probably is the world’s most prominent ambassador of the obscure discipline […]

Not unexpectedly, the Slatearticle last week generated a range of reactions at blogs, on twitter, and in personal emails that I received. This topic is not going away and as […]

The transcript of the interview I did last week at NPR’s On the Media is now available. In the interview, I restate exactly what we argued first at Science and […]

“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 […]

Michael Grunwald wrote in Time yesterday that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill might not be as disastrous as we thought. It’s not that it hasn’t had some serious consequences, obviously. […]

“When something is free, you tend to use more of it. It’s true for buffets and open bars, and it’s the same with carbon,” says The Atlantic while advocating for a carbon tax to slow global warming.

Bernhard Zand explains why a “frustrated Ankara is turning away from the West and looking east toward Hamas and Iran.”

As a first step, the government needs to put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Fossil fuel needs to pay the price for the damage it causes in the atmosphere.

American politicians and lawmakers are deeply conflicted about human enhancement technologies (medical interventions that extend the capabilities of the human body). Stem cell research doesn’t qualify as enhancement; rather it is […]

A conversation with the director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

With brain scans, scientists have learned much about what happens in our heads during sleep, but they still can’t answer the simple question: why do we sleep?

Imagine that the Journal ofHypochondriacal Cardiology reported that the incidence of fatal strokes aboard cruise ships was five times the national average.  Should we conclude that the boat trips were […]

Newspapers–and their localized science and environmental coverage–might be in decline across the U.S., but new ethnic media outlets, many of them in languages other than English, are thriving. These outlets […]

A Gallup survey report released yesterday finds that a record 41% of Americans–and 66% of Republicans–now say that news reports of climate change are exaggerated. I first spotted this troubling […]

Kudos to the Obama administration for approaching one of America’s top science communicators for the position of Surgeon General. Not only could CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta be a visible and […]

Why is this couple smiling? Because Oprah might be the friend they need in order to win ultra tight elections.More than 8 million people watch Oprah’s show and more than […]

Will futuristic energy solutions such as fusion and biofuels ever live up to the hype surrounding them?

Energy producers who met with skyrocketing food prices and international protests while using food crops to create large quantities of biofuels are now eyeing inedible waste.

After the Copenhagen Climate Council was considered a failure, how should we prepare for COP-16 in Mexico? Big Think’s live roundtable on March 26, 2010 in Houston was moderated by […]

Wind is becoming a more viable (if still controversial) energy source, but effective solar power may have to wait until the nanotechnology boom.

Mark Levine of UC Irvine laments Obama’s pragmatic path where his empty promises to change America’s foreign and energy policies mark the way.

We all think we know what it means to be conscious, but it is hard to pin this down in a precise, scientific way—as USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explains in our video. Every weekday in September, Big Think will offer a new insight into the human brain in our new “Going Mental” blog.

By all officials estimates, the Earth’s population is scheduled to grow rapidly during the coming decades, but this long-term problem ill-suits short term political careers, says The Independent.