China's rising wages are propelling global prices higher, heralding the possible end of an era of cheap goods just as the U.S. prepares to meet Chinese officials and push for faster yuan appreciation.

"In the long term the best way to beat radical ideas is to make them redundant," says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a politician and ardent critic of fundamentalist Islam. 

Francis Fukuyama argues that China's repressive state apparatus is far more sophisticated than the regimes in the Middle East that have fallen during the so-called Arab Spring. 

On September 21st, 2001, then President George W. Bush gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in which he spoke about justice, and addressed frankly what the American […]

I had high hopes for Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live send up of natural childbirth. Fey is very talented and natural childbirth subculture is ripe for parody, in part because […]

In  the  days  of the Wild West, the posters used to read ‘Wanted! Dead or Alive’.  Now  in  the White House we must presume they read, ‘Wanted! Dead,Not Alive!’ This  […]

Pitzer College, a small liberal arts school in Southern California, will launch a Department of Securlar Studies this fall: “It’s not about arguing ‘Is there a God or not?’ ” Mr. […]

A growing body of research challenges whether most humans see "positive" emotions as better than ordinary ones—whether feeling happy actually leads, in the end, to a good life.

Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues that evil should be understood as a lack of empathy—a condition he argues can be measured and is susceptible to education and treatment.  

The real reason why we succeed in our relationships and careers is the strength of our unconscious, according to David Brooks, who wants to unravel the power of our inner voice. 

I briefly wrote about digital dementia in my post about demand driven education. The term deals with the fact that people tend to outsource information to digital devices we had […]

In a constantly changing world, it sometimes seems that our only anchor is personal character but put it to the test and this supposedly durable good begins to look quite flimsy.

Celebrating Osama bin Laden's death, while allegedly cathartic, will likely bring unhealthy feelings of vengeance to the surface, opening old wounds and creating new ones, say psychologists. 

It’s a common and tired trope of storytelling that the geek shall inherit the Earth. Revenge of the Nerds might actually be the pinnacle of this geeky genre. What makes […]

Francis Fukuyama tells Big Think about the pressures that one must overcome in rethinking positions--in his case, his views on the Iraq War--and how he overcame those pressures. 

I was in Catholic community center today for a sporting event when a brightly colored poster on a bulletin board caught my eye. The picture was of a parachutist falling […]

Last night was Iowa State University’s largest-ever commencement for graduate students: 150+ Ph.D. students and another 280+ Master’s students. I had the pleasure of graduating three of my doctoral advisees. Pam […]

Jeffrey Potteiger, an exercise scientist at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, says that calisthenics is again becoming popular, though it's health benefits have long been known. 

Praying and believing in a god might secure a healthier existence for your soul in the hereafter, but it doesn't necessarily do much for the body in this life, a new study shows.