"Ten years ago people talked confidently of stopping Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks. Now, they realise they have no idea how to do that," says The Economist.

Microsoft's new Xbox frill, Kinect, uses detailed sensing technology that could enable a host of practical applications from improved home security systems to hands-free medical files.

"The United States is hopelessly dependent on credit. And like stopping other serious addictions, only one solution will work—go cold turkey. We should abolish credit," says The Atlantic.

That certain dolphin and whale species possess "self-awareness, suffering and a social culture" is a strong moral reason to finally halt the ongoing hunting of large marine life, says Al Jazeera.

"When does a passion for gadgets turn into an addiction with symptoms that include headaches and back pain?" asks the Independent. Scientists now study this very modern affliction.

"By prompting President Obama to suspend deep-water drilling in US offshore waters, the Gulf oil spill is pushing up the date at which the world's conventional oil production peaks," says the CSM.

"The Supreme Court's ruling that advising terrorist groups to pursue their goals peacefully is 'material support' of their violent activities is wrongheaded," says an L.A. Times editorial.

A ten year study of Ugandan chimps has documented violent territory struggles between rival camps, but what impresses researchers is the cooperation needed to carry out the attacks.

The New York Times cover story on John Updike’s archives reveals a writer who took care to develop and preserve his literary legacy. While an instinct for careful self-preservation is […]

Justin Frankel, the software developer behind Winamp and Gnutella, stopped by Big Think today for an interview. In advance of the interview, we solicited questions on Reddit, and one of […]

Nobel-Prize winning physicist William Phillips admits that "laser cooling" is a somewhat confusing concept. How can light energy, generally thought of as a source of heat, be used to cool […]

As quality information becomes more easily accessible to young people, the curious are going to become "hyper-educated" says Jesse Schell, professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center and CEO […]

Everyone loves labels. Italian Renaissance, French Baroque, Classical Greek—such little conveniences help us understand and comprehend the often tangled and messy reality of artists and art movements, which, like any […]

Technological solutions may help increase some of the limits of memory, but we should also simply be aware that our intuitions might be wrong.

The psychologist demonstrates the "lowest technology" form of memory test.

We are more likely to believe the veracity of intense "flash-bulb memories"—yet these are just as likely as normal memories to be distorted over time.

We are seduced by the forecasters who seem the most confident. When we follow their advice, we often believe we're making better decisions than we are.

There’s a whole category of intuitions that are systematically wrong in very dangerous ways—those we have about how our own minds work.

The psychologist's "invisible gorilla" experiment demonstrates how we often miss major details when we're concentrating on something else.

A conversation with the Assistant Professor of Psychology at Union College.