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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
4mins
Ideology doesn’t bend to reason, says Professor Barbara Oakley. Here's why we can't really change what other people believe, and why that brand of "helping" others can backfire.
The most elusive naked-eye planet is downright impossible to view for billions of us on Earth. “I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without […]
5mins
Ever heard a story that made you sick to your stomach? There is neurological wizardry at work that makes our sense of morality so visceral—and flawed.
“We're opening up a whole new territory of astronomy,” One NASA official said.
Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Neuroscientist Dean Buonomano on how the brain tells time and whether time exists at all.
Forwards? Absolutely. Backwards? Perhaps. Becoming your own grandpa? Only if you’re Philip J. Fry… “One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel — you smell […]
7mins
What information can we trust? Truth isn't black and white, so here are three requirements every fact should meet.
Five hundred years after the Reformation, a new book on Martin Luther reminds us how long the notion of a soul has influenced our lives.
A new study suggests that more anorexia and bulimia victims recover than was previously thought.
A case in which a judge used an undisclosed software algorithm to determine a defendant’s sentence has caught the interest of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Haseef Rafiei, a young Malaysian architect, had a thought one day: what if we could convert the real estate industry into an automated vending system?
With off-the-shelf materials and a little dry ice, you can discover particles that wouldn’t exist unless relativity were real. “The experiments that we will do with the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] […]
Do border walls keep countries safer, or merely project the illusion of safety?
5mins
Humans worship at the altar of excellence, but is our complete obsession with this "quality controlled" mode of intellect holding us back?
No, you are most definitely not entitled to your own facts. In fact, you’re required to disclose what evidence would change your mind! “You must remember, my dear lady, the most […]
5mins
Many people will try to give you hope or sell it to you, says Richard M. Cohen, who was diagnosed with MS at 25, and has battled two bouts of cancer, but hope is an internal discovery.
Unlike social media, email is especially seductive as its content is specific to you. Author Cal Newport offers tips for breaking free from this constant distraction.
If a maternal grandmother smokes, it increases her grandchildren’s risk of autism by 53%.
A new study says there are two main categories of politically correct people – PC egalitarian and PC authoritarian.
From inhospitable volcanoes to life so unique we discovered evolution there, the Galapagos is an incredible scientific story. “I was always amused when overtaking one of these great monsters [a […]