Just a mere push notification is enough to divide your attention and decrease productivity.

Take a glimpse into the blackness of deep space, and here’s what you’ll find. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal […]

A new social media service designed by a Mumbai teenager promises to allow users to "hear the world speak."

Words of wisdom from the 32nd president of the United States: "More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars." FDR's words are inspiring, but are they feasible?

Why look for rare, precious metals on Earth when you can find them here? “Well, this is a thing unheard of. An Elf would go underground, where a Dwarf dare […]

A prominent performance artist accuses Big Oil of focusing more on cleaning up their image than their business’ collateral damage... and charges cultural institutions that take Big Oil sponsorship money as accomplices to that crime.

The first injury accident involving a Google self-driving car was — surprise, surprise — the fault of an oblivious driver in the other vehicle. Self-driving technology offers a potential future where these sorts of incidents hardly ever occur.

Detroit, Chicago, and Oakland have all suffered from the terms presented by the finance firm.

Infants whose mothers used drugs during pregnancy are often born already addicted to those substances. After birth, an analysis of the detached umbilical cord can determine what severe physiological withdrawal symptoms can be expected.

“What was scattered, gathers.What was gathered, blows away.” -Heraclitus When you think of our Solar System, you think of planets (and other object) orbiting our central star, with moons (or […]

We're six months away from the Iowa Caucus, so there's plenty of time for other Republican candidates to clarify views, but so far only Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have proven themselves articulate and knowledgeable on foreign policy.

We surprise the world's brightest minds with ideas they're totally unprepared to discuss. This week on Big Think's podcast, we're joined by poet and educator Clint Smith. 

For all we make about our disagreements with each other, we are bound to have more in agreement by the nature of conservation.

Google is just a privatized NSA; the powerful are continuously trying to control the weak. Slavoj Žižek may have some misgivings about our brave new world, but that doesn't mean he's going to buckle beneath the weight of unnecessary fears.

Dr. Helen Blair Simpson of Columbia University Medical Center continues our series "Big Thinkers on Mental Health" with an informative crash course on the intricacies of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Optimism, like imagination, is childish in the best sense of the word.

A plant with twice the nutritional value of kale, reported to taste like bacon when cooked, could soon be entering the U.S. health food market, possibly expanding its reach even wider.

Division of labor creates a need for others. And it logically connects your interests with the interests of those needed others (which complicates evolutionary trade-offs). 

Since 1979, middle-income workers have seen their wages rise 6 percent. That’s an average raise of 0.167 percent a year.

At some point, a star’s core runs out of fuel. Then what? “Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.”–Georg C. Lichtenberg You normally think […]