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History and Society
The truth may be out there — but it’s not in these close encounters of the third kind.
8mins
James Suzman lived with a tribe of hunter-gatherers to witness how an ancient culture survives one of the most brutal climates on Earth. His learnings may surprise you.
The least exciting of all eclipses, a penumbral lunar eclipse, foreshadows the spectacular show that April 8th's total eclipse will bring.
NuqneH! Saluton! A linguistic anthropologist (and creator of the Kryptonian language, among others) studies the people who invent new tongues.
Or are cults the religions we find distasteful?
How would you feel about working like a Lutheran or a Cistercian?
Happiness is not a five-star holiday. It's often the result of struggle — and asking for help, as author Stephanie Harrison recently told Big Think.
No matter how you define the end, including the demise of humanity, all life, or even the planet itself, our ultimate destruction awaits.
New radiocarbon dating reveals astonishing insights.
To be successful, leaders would be wise to remember that AI isn’t a replacement for people; it exists to enhance their capabilities.
Philosophy isn't stuck in the past. Here are five texts to connect you with its ongoing dialogue.
The former Nintendo president has become synonymous with the backlash against layoffs — because, like a great leader, he focused on lifting people.
Given enough time, all galaxies will expel their star-forming material and wind up dead. Is this the earliest one, or is it just asleep?
These scrolls are the only remaining intact library of ancient Rome — and they will crumble at a touch.
Symmetries aren't just about folding or rotating a piece of paper, but have a profound array of applications when it comes to physics.
The National Defense Education Act of 1958 meshed with white anxiety about the desegregation of schools.
Ground-based facilities enable the greatest scientific production in all of astronomy. The NSF needs to be ambitious, and it's now or never.
Is it genes or their special bond that drives identical twins to offend at similar rates?
Alli Webb, co-founder of Drybar, has a message for up-and-coming leaders: Embrace the mess!
To Fred Hoyle, the Big Bang was nothing more than a creationist myth. 75 years later, it's cemented as the beginning of our Universe.
In a recent paper, biologists outlined a three-part hypothesis for how all life as we know it began.
JWST has puzzled astronomers by revealing large, bright, massive early galaxies. But the littlest ones pack the greatest cosmic punch.
The Trojan War was fought in Finland and Ulysses sailed home to Denmark, says one controversial theory.
Here's how belief in a higher power can act like a psychological safety net.
13.8 columnist Marcelo Gleiser reflects on his recent voyage to Earth's last wild continent.
Big Think spoke with historian Marc-William Palen about the egalitarian aims of the free-trade movement in past centuries.
Leap day only comes once every four years, including in 2024. But the reason we have it, including when we do and don't, may surprise you.
Esperanto was intended to be an easy-to-learn second language that enabled you to speak with anyone on the planet.
About three out of every four people arrested in the U.S. are men. That rate is similar across the world.
In 1924, sociologist and social reformer Caroline Bartlett Crane designed an award-winning tiny home in Kalamazoo, Michigan.