Latest

Text graphic displaying the words “The Latest” in large, bold, black serif font on a light background.
A person holds a sign reading "GLOBAL WARMING is a cruel hoax" with a dog standing nearby on a leafy ground.
Astronomer Adam Frank reflects on some responses to his recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast.
Blurred image of a thrilling football game in action under the night sky, with enthusiastic spectators on bleachers watching one of America's most exciting and sometimes dangerous sports.
"I think it's about time we stop allowing every male generation bang their frontal lobe through its most developmental stages."
An older man in a suit stands in front of a large bookcase filled with books, pondering life's limit situations.
When Star Trek's Captain Picard and The Office's Dwight Schrute channel philosopher Karl Jaspers, we can all benefit.
Diagram of particle interactions with wavy and straight lines, illustrating how photons mediate attraction and repulsion in various Feynman diagrams in particle physics.
The electromagnetic force can be attractive, repulsive, or "bendy," but is always mediated by the photon. How does one particle do it all?
Book cover of "Money on Your Mind" by Vicky Reynal appears next to text reading "an excerpt from," on a split pastel background—hinting at themes like greed and our complex relationship with wealth.
From King Midas to Gordon Gekko, humanity has struggled to grasp greed's true nature.
Black and white abstract design featuring swirling, concentric patterns resembling a ripple effect with a yin-yang-like motif at the center.
Despite no experimental evidence showing that gravitons exist, they remain a respectable concept in the world of professional physicists.
A superintelligent robot stands against a striking backdrop of red and gray financial graphs and a globe, with the text "The Nightcrawler" boldly emblazoned above.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
A swirling black hole, prepared to suck in surrounding matter, features a glowing, distorted ring of light against a starry backdrop.
Many of us look at black holes as cosmic vacuum cleaners: sucking in everything in their vicinity. But it turns out they don't suck at all.
A person wearing futuristic, translucent smart glasses with green lights and a digital interface display.
"Mainstream computing will start to shift from a race to develop increasingly powerful tools to a race to develop increasingly powerful abilities."
Large hall with rows of hospital beds occupied by patients and attended by medical staff, likely during an early 20th-century medical crisis.
Caitlin Rivers wants to tell the story of epidemiology and the public health heroes who keep the world safe and healthy.
There's no upper limit to how massive galaxies or black holes can be, but the most massive known star is only ~260 solar masses. Here's why.
A person in a suit embodies the Five Ps—poise, precision, performance, presentation, and passion—as they play a trumpet and hold a cloth against a plain background.
Radically improve your work-life speaking and presentation skills with a technique used by musicians and brand-name politicians.
The cover of "Beyond Stoicism" by Pigliucci, Lopez, and Kunz masterfully blends historical philosopher portraits into a circular design, reflecting the depth and timeless relevance of stoicism.
Pleasure, virtue, and doubt are necessary, but each is insufficient on its own.
Three historical documents: Two titled "Reflections on the Weekly Bill of Mortality" surround an illustration of a plague doctor in a bird-like mask holding a staff, with a cityscape in the background. The scene captures the dark brilliance of an era grappling with mortality.
An extraordinary haberdasher obsessed with buttons, lace collars, and death pioneered modern statistical analysis during the Age of Reason.
universe bulk volume brane dimension
In the year 2000, physicists created a list of the ten most important unsolved problems in their field. 25 years later, here's where we are.
A man in a light pink suit and purple bow tie smiles slightly, standing indoors with blurred office background.
Chetan Dube — founder and CEO of Quant — tells Big Think why a pivotal and monumental year for agentic AI has just begun.
A sleek supersonic jet labeled "Overture" by Boom flies above the clouds against a clear blue sky.
"You’ll be able to fly twice as fast as a Boeing or Airbus, and it’ll be like the cost of flying business today."
lookback time galaxies
We see objects whose light only arrives just now. But we see them as they were in the past: when that now-arriving light was first emitted.
A person seated in a wheelchair uses a communication device with a Stephen Hawking-like voice, blurred flowers gently framing the scene in the foreground.
Hawking’s refusal to upgrade his communication system preserved a voice that became iconic, not just for its sound, but for the profound identity it conveyed.