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Monthly Issue
April 2026
The Energy Transition
In this monthly issue, we examine how our understanding of energy — and how we source and use it — is evolving.
1 episode 11 articles
The China factor in the great progression of the next 25 years
A firsthand look at China’s material progress and clean-tech revolution -- and what could happen if we let an authoritarian state steer AI's future.
by
Peter Leyden
Why rest alone doesn’t restore energy
Your energy doesn’t work like a battery — and treating it that way may be why you still feel tired even after a break.
A physicist explains what the Kardashev scale gets wrong
The famous framework ranks civilizations by energy use — but ignores a critical factor that can halt their progress.
by
Adam Frank
The China factor in the great progression of the next 25 years
A firsthand look at China’s material progress and clean-tech revolution -- and what could happen if we let an authoritarian state steer AI's future.
by
Peter Leyden
The power grid is breaking. Can it fix itself?
A new generation of self-healing tools could make the U.S.'s aging power grid far more resilient against modern threats.
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What if the real driver of your health isn’t genes or diet — but energy flow?
A Columbia researcher argues that everything from stress to aging comes down to how energy moves through your body.
Why AI data centers might lower electricity prices — not raise them
Data centers consume enormous amounts of power, but their steady demand could make the grid more efficient — and lower costs for everyone.
Lead with love and follow 5 principles of “energetic success”
When leaders embrace positive personal energy, everyone feels the benefits — in trust, innovation and creativity.
What would you like to learn more about? We have thousands of videos from the world’s biggest thinkers to help you dive deeper into any subject.
Pause the busyness of life to reflect on ourselves, our relationships, and the Universe.
with
Jonny Thomson
5 ways ancient Persia shaped our modern world
From landscaped gardens to road systems, the Persians were among the first to create many things we still enjoy today.
Philip Pullman: The thing every writer needs to overcome
"I will not reason and compare: my business is to create."
The “rawdogging” trend: A new term for an ancient practice
TikTok gave an old practice a terrible name. Neuroscience explains why it actually works.
The daffodil’s guide to outliving the winter
What a fragile flower can teach us about resilience, death, and becoming someone new.
Intimate interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.
10mins
The solar revolution turning sunlight into synthetic fuel
“10 years ago, my colleagues and I looked at the prognosis for climate change, and it looked pretty hopeless. There really was no way out. But something happened – something good.”
20mins
Rome’s triumph was the ancient world’s most effective piece of propaganda
Mary Beard uncovers the spectacle of the Ancient Roman parade, the Roman Triumph.
25mins
Reboot your mind for flow, unanxiousness, and resilience
“We can use neuroscience and tools from psychology to learn how to take advantage of anxiety.” From Zen Buddhism to flow state, these 3 experts explain how to hack your brain.
7mins
The hidden reason smart people stop growing
Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec breaks down why the traditional idea of mentorship is not only outdated, but actively getting in the way of your growth.
Ask Ethan: What’s the biggest misconception in astronomy?
Many facts are well-known to professionals, but are unappreciated or even rejected outright by the public. "How stars work" takes the cake.
The idea of “theories of everything” may be fundamentally wrong
For decades, theorists have been cooking up "theories of everything" to explain our Universe. Are all of them completely off-track?
Only antimatter provides the energy we need for interstellar travel
Our dream of journeying to other star systems has a big obstacle to overcome: the vast interstellar distances. Can antimatter get us there?
Dark matter passes a new cosmic test, while MOND fails
On cosmic scales, only dark matter (or something equivalent) gives us the Universe we observe. Now, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect agrees.
Big ideas. Thoughtful conversations. One book at a time.
Elon Musk, SpaceX, and the rise of “sovereignty as a service”
As SpaceX slashes launch costs, governments are gaining new capabilities, while potentially outsourcing their sovereignty to Musk's private empire.
The surprising reason why Americans sound, well, American
Long before today's debates, immigration was already transforming the American accent into something distinctively its own.
Jan Morris, and the struggle between coherence and uncovering another’s inner life
Jan Morris's biographer confronts the limits of storytelling while trying to capture a life defined by contradiction and reinvention.
There is no you in your brain — your identity is a “society of the mind”
Your sense of self isn’t located in a single part of the brain — it emerges from a complex interplay of cognitive processes that change over time.
Learn business from the world’s biggest thinkers.
The false urgency myth, and why we confuse busyness with importance
Our obsession with speed and productivity creates unnecessary pressure that quietly fuels burnout and anxiety.
The best leaders don’t share traits. They do this instead.
Leadership isn’t about mastering a fixed set of skills, but creating the meaningful, human-centered experiences that inspire others.
What 1,000-year-old companies know about resilience
Long-lived companies show that resilience comes not from individual toughness, but from the strength of the systems around us.
The 5-step algorithm that’s transforming legacy companies
Inside GM’s race to build the electric Hummer lies a powerful lesson in speed, simplicity, and the operating system required for exponential growth.
The Strait of Hormuz is today’s energy chokepoint. China is tomorrow’s.
As the global economy moves beyond oil, the strategic importance of the world’s most critical hydrocarbon chokepoint is likely to decline rapidly.
How the modern world turned gray (and why color may be coming back)
The ideology, economics, and psychology behind the modern world's draining of color from homes, cars, and everyday objects.
Ghost map: Europe’s first glimpse of Tenochtitlan shows a city already destroyed
This 1524 map of the Aztec capital was a window into an exotic otherworld — and largely a fiction.
We saved the world once — we can do it again
The ozone hole was going to destroy life as we know it, but an unprecedented global effort fixed the problem.
Where science meets the human story.
Why organisms are more than machines
Sixty years ago, a little-known philosopher challenged how science understands life. His perspective is finding new relevance in the age of artificial intelligence.
Aerial aliens: Why cloudy worlds might make detecting life easier
Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger spoke with Big Think about how "the colors of life" could leave detectable traces on distant planets.
The next great leap in evolution may lie beyond Earth
NASA’s Caleb Scharf talks with Big Think about life’s long experiment in expansion.
David Kipping on how the search for alien life is gaining credibility
Big Think spoke with astronomer David Kipping about technosignatures, "extragalactic SETI," and being a popular science communicator in the YouTube age.