As the railroads shaped the American West in the 19th century, a new electrical generating and transmission system for the 21st century will leave its lasting mark on the desert.

Barack Obama called for cutting U.S. oil imports by a third before 2025, in a speech aimed at defending his energy agenda from Republicans seeking to limit fuel efficiency standards.

Google is offering to add a social twist to Web searches, in a bold offensive to prevent Facebook and other social-networking companies from gaining an upper hand in Web innovation.

Eight business and social media experts explain how businesses can—and indeed must—use social media to expand their sphere of influence, attracting customers and shaping opinion.

We're faced with puzzles every day in life. That's why it's so important to keep your mind flexible, says NY Times Crossword Editor Will Shortz, recounting a time he had to use his puzzle solving skill in an airport parking garage. 

On each day of Shakespeare’s birth month, Big Think will examine a different way that studying Shakespeare enriches the various disciplines—from neuroscience to business to psychology and beyond.

Design Thinking is one of the most fashionable concepts in the innovation world these days. But could it really save industries that are on the fast road to extinction?

Over the years, dozens of portraits have claimed to be the true visage of the bard–including a new contender, the Cobbe portrait. But can we ever know which one is real? 

Computer software helps prove that Shakespeare was no different than the writers of today's crime scene dramas. He collaborated with other writers. 

Crosswords and Sudoku aren't just a nice way to pass the time; they could train you to think more flexibly about the problems that come up in your everyday life.

Film became the literature of the 20th century. Likewise, video games will take over in this coming century, especially once they learn to listen to us.

Lewis' book "Moneyball" is about how people get misvalued and how, in turn, warped value systems encourage warped behavior in people. "Often when people get paid, makes no sense at […]

You are looking at the first color image of Mercury from orbit. It was taken by NASA's Mercury Messenger spacecraft, which is on a mission to "unravel the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet."

The promise of biotechnology is essentially limitless, says Silver, describing biotech "bad boy" Craig Venter's plan to engineer trees that create liquid fuel instead of sap.

President Obama announced a plan to cut dependence on foreign oil by one-third by 2021. Retired four-star general Wesley Clark explains just how detrimental our addiction to oil is and […]

With koanic brilliance, Robin Sloan recently summarized the difference between last century's old command-and-control journalism and today's. It was, of course, a tweet: "The way to cover big news in […]

I paid more taxes on my blogging income than General Electric paid last year. That’s not because I make so much money blogging, but because GE literally paid no taxes […]

How does the oil industry transform America's landscape? This was partly the topic of Edward Burtynsky's book "Oil." Here, he discusses his stunning photograph of the Kern Oil Field in […]