The Latest from Big Think

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The lives of Americans aren't slowing down, but as the national obesity epidemic has captured the media spotlight, mounting public concern has emerged over what we put into our bodies at mealtime.
When the only grandfather I ever knew came to this country from Germany he went to work in a glass factory.  And I remember him sitting on the front porch […]
“Once you are a conscious being you have no choice but to be a change agent,” South African anti-apartheid heroine and academic Dr. Mamphela Ramphele told Charlie Rose—a rare male […]
Mobile phone technology built into the bracelet can send alerts if the worker is in trouble. Additionally, people can sign up to keep watch over individual workers through social media.
1. Cover Your Ears. Here's What the Big Band Sounded Like: BANG! That audio recreation was made by the University of Washington physicist John Cramer, who notes that the sound frequencies […]
A paper published Thursday describes the use of carbon dating to determine the precise age of plants uncovered beneath a retreating Peruvian ice sheet at different points in time. The results demonstrate the speed at which the sheet is disappearing.
There really is a chance that some of the great scientific innovations that tech evangelists have been talking about will come true. But we can't count on them.
What would people use a 3-D printer at home for? Probably for making things that are consumable that they need on demand.
Today's date is 4/5/2013--all different digits. When was the last time this happened?
I think we would like our friends outside of Afghanistan to ask why Afghanistan is important to the world and why the world should persist with Afghanistan. And my answer to […]
In Poynton, a shared-space concept has resulted in a revitalized village center where all manner of traffic -- gas-powered, human-powered, and anything in between -- is treated with respect. 
France had its own version of Dr. Spock. Her name was and is Françoise Dolto.  Like Dr. Spock, she was a pediatrician and a psychoanalyst.  And she is still kind […]
I first met the Dalai Lama in 2000 at his headquarters in Dharamshala, in the northern part of India.  And I had absolutely no interest in the Dalai Lama. I […]
Survey data from a new report indicates that 48 percent of unmarried women between ages 15-44 live with a significant other, a 13 percent jump from 1995. Such couples are also staying together longer before either marrying or breaking up.
We imagine our view of the world like a painting from the Realism movement – rife with detail and comprehensible – but the contents of our conscious mind are more […]
Throughout my career I’ve been surprised. Perhaps the most amazing surprise to me was actually one that I ultimately proposed but it defied everything I'd thought before. And that is […]
Writer David Meyer hones in on what this crypto-currency experiment -- regardless of whether it succeeds or fails -- could mean for the future. According to him, "The genie is out of the bottle."
You cannot prevent weapons by preventing technologies. We just have to use them carefully, particularly the power of genetics. 
So constitutional journalists such as Linda Greenhouse have attacked the federalism argument that libertarian constitutional scholars such as Randy Barnett want to use to strike down the DOMA. The result, […]
If you’re losing your sense of humor, if you’re not able to laugh at things, then what are you doing? It’s an indicator that maybe information that you’re consuming has […]