The Latest from Big Think

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My good friend and college professor Dr. M. Ritchey wrote a manifesto for a new project of mine. She has turned my insistence on bothering everyone about what objective qualities […]
Research has uncovered that creative answers are best found in 30-50 minutes of concentration. Conversely, 30-50 minutes of relaxation can provide that unexpected piece of insight.
The app is the TurboTax of the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program, asking users application questions in a more familiar language than the legalese of official documents.
You’ve got to see what happens when this man realizes he’s talking to the living legend herself. Image credit: GayCalgary Magazine, via http://www.gaycalgary.com/Magazine.aspx?id=109&article=3182. “I’m just thankful that I’m still here. […]
What would it take for Americans to work a lot less? Our seemingly relentless drive to work may have been justified when society had far less capital and more rudimentary technology. 
NASA expects a manned mission to Mars to take place in the 2030s but before that happens, researchers are hard at work to find a better meal plan for astronauts.
Perhaps our energies are better spent on trying to live better rather than trying to live longer.
When Dr. Kim Williams, the president-elect of the American College of Cardiology, recently wrote an essay encouraging doctors to recommend plant-based diets to their patients, shouts of praise and condemnation erupted form opposing camps.
We don’t know the nature of either dark matter or dark energy: 95% of our Universe. Does that mean the Big Bang is in doubt? Image credit: wiseGEEK, © 2003 — 2014 […]
Some kinds of information can be easily deduced from metrics recorded by your home thermostat including what times of day your home is empty and during which hours you are typically asleep. 
IBM has created a computer chip that mimics the functioning of the human brain, opening wider the possibility for a vast Internet of Things.
Researchers at the University of Washington have devised a way for battery-free devices to skim a connective link from errant WiFi signals, potentially increasing the reach of the Internet of Things to include just about any thing.
When it comes to country size, Russia wins. But when it comes to people-per-square mile, Bangladesh has Russia beat. From History Pics: Bangladesh has 155 million people and Russia has […]
History Pics shared this image with the description "30 years of cell phones." Recognize most of these? How many have you used? Image via History Pics
"Lovers in Mantua" are two 6,000 year old skeletons--a young man and a woman from the Neolithic era--who must have cared for each other very deeply. In 2007, their skeletons […]
"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." - Alexander Graham Bell
Reading is a fairly recent phenomenon. It's generally accepted that language developed in the human species between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. The written word, however, came much later, and […]
Two of America’s core values—democracy and meritocracy—seem increasingly conflicted and the way we talk about them isn’t helping: 1. “-ocracy” means “rule of.” Democracy is rule of the demos, the […]
"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers." - Khalil Gibran
“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”rn rn― Abigail Van Buren