The Latest from Big Think

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Google's DeepMind creates AI that blows away existing speech synthesizers. 
The Kardashev Scale measures the advancement of cosmic societies.
And will it get too cold or too hot for our habitability? “What, I sometimes wonder, would it be like if I lived in a country where winter is a […]
Believe it or not, life for the vast majority of Americans has improved under President Obama. From health and wellbeing to economic stability and quality of life, Americans are living […]
Don't believe every science study you read, because sometimes not even their authors believe them. Here are the issues corrupting good, honest science – and how to fix them. 
Can we work out what ingredients could make "free will" work? Here's a map of some of the steps it would need. 
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the Library of Congress started to gather pictures, photographs, poems and other material for preservation. 
The North Korean government bans sarcastic speech against itself or Kim Jong-un. 
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Is the animal kingdom oblivious to our jokes or just a really tough crowd? Bill Nye explores the link between intelligence and humor.
One Alabama library is demanding jail time for late books. How is this happening in a nation that's reading less and less? 
Spontaneous, deep talk on surprise topics. On this week's episode of Think Again - a Big Think podcast, Nobel Laureate neuroscientist Eric Kandel and host Jason Gots discuss abstract art, memory, identity, and the nature of evil. 
But that doesn’t mean it actually works as advertised. “All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American […]
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As an actor, director, screenwriter, and novelist, Ethan Hawke knows how to get things done. The secret to his success is taking small, progressive steps to a larger goal. It's just that simple.
Apple’s removal of the iPhones 3.4 mm headphone jack is causing an uproar as part of technology’s inexorable march forward.
Being able to rewrite DNA as we wish could give us almost god-like power over all life on earth.  
Natural disasters claim many more victims than terrorism, so why is funding in Europe and North America so out of balance? This negligence makes Neil deGrasse Tyson "embarrassed for our species".    
Mindfulness mediation has many benefits, but to focus on the benefits is to miss the point of mindfulness. 
Genius kids are caught in the Goldilocks oatmeal paradox – if there's too much heat on extracting their ability they suffer, but keep too cool a distance and they'll be wasted.
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Right before he goes to sleep every night, staunch atheist Penn Jillette does something surprising. He says a little prayer – sort of.
The strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational forces probably aren’t all there is. Did we just find evidence for a fifth? “A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics […]