The Latest from Big Think

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He didn’t look back. David Remnick’s recent thoughts on the Khodorjovsky trial, its parallels—and non-parallels—to an earlier Soviet prosecution (of poet Josef Brodsky) made us think about poets, diplomats, and […]
The anti-slavery researcher and advocate says that slavery and human trafficking are already becoming huge problems in China.
A whole generation of only children is coming of age in China, notes the NYU professor. What will their mentality mean for business, government, and foreign policy?
Epidemiological studies and public health awareness have drastically reduced the number of people who are struck down in their prime by deadly diseases.
So, as usual, the annual AGU meeting has been incredibly busy. When I first started attending the meeting, I was able to go to lots of talks and posters and […]
Even if science is able to teleport humans across large distances, would the teleported human really be the same person or just an exact replica? What would happen to the soul?
If you manage to find a match through an online dating site, that match is more likely to commit to meet if they have paid a fee for the service.
So I was a guest on the local Tea Party radio program yesterday.  I disagreed with the tea partisans about everything--mainly to provoke discussion but also because I'm not exactly their […]
At the New Yorker last week, science journalist Jonah Lehrer penned a conversation-starting feature on the so-called "decline effect," the tendency across scientific fields for a new and exciting finding […]
'Young Mandel' is a portrait that is likely to rankle some but Mandela is in no need of more hagiography and Smith’s account makes the hero more fully human.
When Customers Go Ballistic." Barlow and Moller outline five principles to handle "difficult customers." Among them are aikido and euphemism.
Why are effective obesity drugs so hard to develop? The brain circuits responsible for appetite overlap with those that control other important functions, raising the risk of side effects.
What did Einstein mean by “God” playing dice, or “us believing physicists”? Was he speaking literally or metaphorically?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke for many when she said on Monday that she had never so admired, so depended on and so cared for someone who drove her so crazy so often.
It’s not just MasterCard and Visa cutting off WikiLeaks’ access to donations, it’s the government and corporate intervention, unsupervised, into the rights of people.
Defenders of copyright law often talk about how copyright is a 'right' for artists but ignore that at the same time it often takes away the rights of users.
Do you know what Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo stands for? The Chinese dissident has praised the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and said China should be fully westernized.
The world system is being challenged by two new forces: a rising superpower, called China, and a rising collection of superempowered individuals, as represented by the WikiLeakers.
The father of microfinance, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and folk hero Muhammad Yunus, has been accused of misusing development aid — a claim he says is "a total fabrication."
Sorry about the lack of updates - I've had some computer-related issues here at the AGU 2010 meeting, but hopefully tomorrow I can highlight some cool stuff I've learned about […]