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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
50mins
Professor Steven Pinker illustrates how the study of linguistics can give us a rare window into the conscious mind.
44mins
Professor Tamar Gendler uses the work of three titans of the discipline — Thomas Hobbes, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick — as a lens to guide us through the taut debate over the role of government in society.
42mins
What if we could find one single equation that explains every force in the universe? Professor Michio Kaku explores how physics could potentially shrink the science of the big bang into an equation as small as E=mc².
43mins
In his lecture, Professor Joel Cohen teaches you how demography can provide answers to the life or death questions caused by the world's swelling population and dwindling resources.
He hasn’t shot an episode of Let’s Make a Deal for decades, but Monty Hall’s name still graces a statistical brouhaha from the early 1990s, and the drama he cultivated on […]
Biomechanical scientists have created a simple device that can increase walking efficiency, or "human gas mileage," by an average of 7 percent when worn around the ankle.
2mins
Best-selling author Kabir Sehgal explores the future of money during the age of space tourism and explains why it's better to pay attention to predictions of science-fiction than those of economists.
Global Population Boom: Are People the Problem, the Solution, or Both? Professor Joel Cohen first asks and answers the question, "How did humans grow from small populations on the African […]
Of the many concepts of Judaism artist Mark Rothko took to heart, the idea of tikkun olam, Hebrew for “repairing the world,” penetrated the deepest. In Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel, academic and a cultural historian Annie Cohen-Solal cuts to the heart of Rothko’s life and art and sheds new light on how both seemingly had to end at The Rothko Chapel (shown above), the Houston home of Rothko’s final works that he tragically didn’t live long enough to see himself. In this tightly focused new biography, Cohen-Solal shows us both how The Rothko Chapel culminates Rothko’s life-long mission to repair his world and how it continues to serve as a light of hope in our darkening world.
2mins
Khan Academy founder Salman Khan explains how always dreaming big and setting audacious goals got him to where he is today.
Study finds that Rhode Island kids who were allowed to sip an alcoholic beverage were four times more likely to have been drunk by the time they reached high school.
6mins
Actress and comedian Maysoon Zayid, who lives with cerebral palsy, says that the disabled are the largest minority group in the world, and the only one you can join at any time.
Changing up your routine by walking backwards may be enough to boost creativity, although it may also lead to a decrease in productivity.
Some people have trouble making left-right distinctions. It's not a big deal, so long as you don't work in a medical profession.
The Roman philosopher had the following to say about ability and education: "Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."
A new study examines over a hundred rumors spread through over a thousand news articles in 2014 and investigates the role major news publications play in the spread of misinformation.
Playing video games provides some bonus points for the real world. In a recent study, researchers found gamers were better able to adapt and learn visual tasks.