The fourth part of Big Think's Farsight 2011 event discussed what future search experiences might be like. People instinctively want to interact with technology in ways that feel natural to […]

Facebook and other social media are becoming permanently woven into our society’s fabric, says NYU telecommunications professor Clay Shirky. Privacy is a 20th century notion.  

Part 5 of Big Think's Farsight 2011 event looked at how artificial intelligence and machine learning would affect the future of digital search — and how we understand and predict the future.

Any actions associated with zero costs tend to become debased over time, says technologist Jaron Lanier. Search is no different.

In part 2 of Big Think's Farsight 2011 event Principal Engineer at Google, Matt Cutts and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Dr. Harry Shum bump heads.

Some other bits of news from around volcano world (that doesn't have to do with Japan). Eruptions readers have sent me a pile of leads/articles over the last week and […]

Vivek Wadhwa introduces the key note speaker of Big Think's Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box, former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.

By 2030 the physicist expects that we will have hot fusion reactors.

Water is nearly free in much of the U.S. But is pricing water at a higher rate necessary to maintain and improve an aging, inefficient water system?

Waste water is stigmatized, but it can actually be purified beyond the quality needed for drinking water. This makes it a viable solution to increasing water demands.

Old municipal water systems can leak away between 30 and 60 percent of water before it even reaches consumers—making the need for an updated, smart system even more pressing.

A conversation with the Chief Sustainability Officer of GE Power & Water.

Do anti-prostitution laws discriminate against women near the bottom of the income distribution while ignoring similar behavior by women near the top?

Accusations that Microsoft's search engine Bing has been copying Google's search algorithm came on the same day that Bing and Google execs are set to meet at a Big Think event in San Francisco on the future of search. Watch the event streaming on our homepage from 1pm-5pm EST. 

GUEST POST BY LINA SRIVASTAVA "I felt if the Cairo museum is robbed, Egypt will never be able to get up again." -- Zahi Hawass. Egypt is in the midst […]

A judge in Florida ruled this week that the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. According to political scientist and Supreme court-watcher Scott Lemieux, that's probably not the end of […]

The calendar has turned to February, campus is closed because we're encased in ice and we're all still watching Kirishima. Yesterday, the volcano produced another impressive explosion (video), one that broke […]

The arts start the conversation. When the world is saved—and it really does require saving—the door will be opened through the arts and then the politicians. Then the policies will follow.

A row has broken out in France over whether teenagers should be allowed to genetically modify bacteria in the classroom.