The Latest from Big Think

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A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change with a new force of 'green helmets'.
The theory of the multiverse may seem crazy, but cosmologits Alexander Vilenkin and Max Tegmark explain why they think the theory is good science and how it can be tested.
The vast majority of Earth's water is too salty for humans to drink and desalination has, until now, proven too inefficient to be practical. A German engineering company has a new solution. 
His name was Dandon and he was a strange man even for 1812 Berlin. By day, he was a Professor of Languages at the University. He was competent and respected […]
The future of global innovation is the Brazilian favela, the Mumbai slum and the Nairobi shanty-town. At a time when countries across the world, from Latin America to Africa to […]
The vandalizing of Nicolas Poussin’s paintings The Adoration of the Golden Calf and Adoration of the Shepherds at the National Gallery of Art in London just this past weekend sent […]
Nanotechnology isn't going away. In fact, it promises to impact so many industries that the word will become ubiquitous in our daily lives.
Who's living the American Dream? A recent survey offers some interesting clues. 
So Borders is gone for good, its last four hundred stores scheduled to vanish within weeks. As mourners rush to the liquidation sales, it’s worth pausing to ask: what the […]
At PRI's Marketplace yesterday, Mitchell Hartman took a look at Facebook's opening of a new server center in rural Oregon.  The story raised the question: How many jobs do social […]
Step One: Buy a truckload of 55 gallon drums of red, white and blue paint from a “job creator/big-time political donor” who has several manufacturing plants located in China. Step […]
With a well-established customer base, plus up and coming innovations in education and video, Amazon's new tablet may be best poised the challenge the dominant iPad. 
Responding to both its Buzz disaster and Facebook's ongoing privacy concerns, Google+ decided to make privacy its top priority: Google has chosen to opt users out of being public. 
Supporters of the hacker-activist group Anonymous have announced plans to create their own social network, to be called AnonPlus, after their Google+ accounts were shut down. 
After Egypt's military appointed a new executive cabinet, protesters once again took to Tahrir Square, so what role is social media playing in these renewed attempts at social change?
Anywhere from 1.8 to 3 million Facebook users will die in 2011, likely transforming those posthumous profiles into digital epitaphs. Dealing with death online is now standard. 
When I lived in Portland, Oregon, I spent many pleasant years renovating old houses. It’s a fine way for a semi-employed writer to remain semi-employed. One of the simple joys […]
This rudimentary map, showing an Iran crudely cut in two, is currently making the rounds of social media in that country. Its message, as clear as it is simple, is […]
1. So my post on Brooks and death got (for me) big ratings and a lot of fine criticisms--both here on BIG THINK and elsewhere. 2. I pretty much agree […]
One of the best parts of my job at the Sidney Hillman Foundation is working on the monthly Sidney Awards for excellence in journalism. I was very excited to learn […]