1. Dark lightning Thunderstorms need to vent electrical energy, and they can do so in two ways. There is the Ben Franklin way and there is the extreme way: dark […]

1. The Topless Revolution Targets Putin  “Putin leered like Benny Hill at a topless protester,” was the headline on The Reliable Source. Gawker has the video of Putin giving the thumb’s up. […]

“Although we often stereotype givers as chumps and doormats, they turn out to be surprisingly successful.” So writes Adam Grant in his celebrated new book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary […]

1. Don’t Let Math Get in the Way of Big Ideas “Many of the most successful scientists in the world today are mathematically no more than semiliterate.” E.O. Wilson shares […]

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 […]

The Universe is in a runaway mode, but here is the catch: we don't know how long that runaway mode is going to last.

1. Living on the Edge: 2,000 Black Holes At the center of the Milky Way galaxy there is a supermassive black hole that everything else has formed around. But it’s […]

It is hard to imagine a topic in science that Mary Roach won’t touch. After all, as Carl Zimmer put it, the acclaimed science writer “put her head in a […]

1. The Anti-drone Hoodie Some clothing is designed to make you stand out from the crowd. Then there are the clothes that are to designed to make you invisible to drones. […]

1. The Bill Gates Condom The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will award a $100,000 grant to the person who invents a next-generation condom that “significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in […]

3-D printers are currently capable of producing usable car parts, cat-scanned reproductions of ancient Sumerian clay envelopes with letters inside, and cool-looking geometric desktop toys. That’s very exciting indeed. But […]

1. Is the Purpose of Life to Make Babies? Why are we here? To fullfil some grand purpose or merely to perpetuate our genes? Is the act of helping to ensure […]

1. Extreme Weather is the New Normal Happy Spring! That means it’s time to expect winter storms. That’s the new normal, according to National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini. “We have observed […]

Higgs is Confirmed After a Higgs-like particle was detected last summer by CERN scientists, that particle has now been confirmed to be the real deal. Read more here.  Sex in […]

How can the United States collectively face rising health care costs, a broken healthcare system, and public health epidemics such as obesity and diabetes? Three top medical innovators offer solutions. 

1. Every Big Idea Was First A Crazy Idea Fred Guterl, executive editor of Scientific American, does a nice job of highlighting some of the crazy ideas presented at this year’s TED […]

1. Are Intelligent Machines a Threat to ‘Human Exceptionalism’? “Is it time to take seriously the prospect of artificial intelligence emulating human abilities?” Yes, says Ray Kurzweil in his book How to Create a […]

1. “First the pope and now Andrew Mason!?!”  Andrew Mason continued the popular Silicon Valley “I’ve just been fired” meme with a blunt note to employees at Groupon: “After four and a […]

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover. Big Data Predicts the Oscars. These are among the brainiest memes included in today's Mind Memes.   

Big Think and TEDMED, the TED licensee for health and medicine, are collaborating on an upcoming series on how you can apply emerging ideas in health and science to your own life.