Despite the important role of the arts in enabling public expression, learning, and participation relative to science, there is an unfortunate tendency to think about the relationship in terms of […]

As presented by Life Magazine to its anxious readership in 1942.

There is not a single gene that triggers autism, but more likely dozens of genes that enhance the risk of autism. On the other hand, researchers have found that certain environmental variables, like air pollution, may also play a small role. 

Since you're reading it on the Internet—in a blog, no less—it just might be. This week Big Think sits down with journalist Nicholas Carr, author of the infamous 2008 Atlantic […]

So, I said that I was going to try to make MVP #31 a little harder than some of the last few Mystery Volcano Photos, and I was right. In […]

Researchers at Kyoto University claim they will be able to clone a baby mammoth from the DNA of a 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth. The time frame: 5 to 6 years.

Spaces between words were only invented around 800 or 900 AD, before which reading was a more cognitively intensive act. The advent of eReaders threatens to revive this complexity, says […]

If you want to change your brain, you have to change your habits—but good luck avoiding the Internet in this day and age!

The Internet might actually be diminishing our capacity to form long-term memories.

The map, the mechanical clock and the printing press are all examples of "intellectual technologies" that have reshaped the way humans think. And the ways of thinking that we learned […]

A conversation with the technology writer.

If sex workers are effectively used to manipulate economic decision-makers then, just like other forms of corruption, this will lead to poor economic outcomes.

Look for the answer to MVP #31 later today, but for now, I have a brief update on Bulusan in the Philippines. We ended 2010 with the restive volcano producing […]

Sex educator Jessi Fischer on why and how we vilify male sexuality: "The falsehood that men are brutes who can't control their sex drive is harmful to everyone."

Sales of Glock semi-automatic guns are skyrocketing in the wake of Tucson. The growing piles of bodies is real evidence of growing extremist activity. What could be plainer or starker?

A study has found an unexpected sex difference in the effects of caffeine consumption on performance under stress. Men fared worse and women better.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator tells Spiegel about the dangers of waging cyber warfare against Iran's nuclear facilities and the West's false expectations for upcoming talks.

Multiculturalism critic Kenan Malik: The very thing that diversity is good for is the very thing that multiculturalism as a political process undermines.

Steve Jobs isn't saying why he's taking a medical leave. Slate asks: Is that fair to Apple investors?

Would we celebrate this tableau of human good nature so enthusiastically if we did not also fear, somewhere in our hearts, that we might have reacted differently?