Latest Articles

Latest Articles

The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.

We've lived for so long having to live with and accept our email blunders. Who of us will choose to take back control, and enable the undo button? Not me.
Artists aren’t easy people to be around sometimes. Genius and jerk often walk hand in hand. They may suffer for their art, but those who support them often become collateral damage in the quest for immortality. Making a biopic of any artist and balancing the good with the bad seems an almost impossible task. Making a biopic of Pablo Picasso, a classic case study of the genius-as-jerk, that praises the painting while honestly assessing the collateral damage to women has never satisfactorily been filmed.  But where cinema fails, maybe the cinematic graphic novel can succeed.  The graphic novel Pablo, written by Julie Birmant and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie, is the best “film” ever made about one of the founding fathers of modern art — a portrait of intertwined genius and jerk that never loses sight of either side.
Journaling can help you see progress and where progress needs to be made.
The pope laments the state of the environment, but he also decries the naive central environmentalist belief that humans are separate from nature and the villain in a simple myth of US (humans) against True Nature.
2mins
Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, co-founder and CEO of GLAMSQUAD; cofounder of Gilt Group; and an advisor, mentor, and angel investor to startups in the New York Tech community, offers a few key tips to maximize any startup's chances of success.
Researchers suggest marketers should avoid asking consumers to "think of their 'various experiences' with a product." It may lead to negative reviews.
Europeans are aging fast, and moving more — creating pockets of population growth amidst increasingly empty rural areas.
We’ve only ever seen 2nd-generation stars and later. Until, just maybe, now. “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” […]
Us humans are bad at comparing risk. Don't be hoodwinked by scare stories.
3mins
All new technology is frightening, says physicist Lawrence Krauss. But there are many more reasons to welcome machine consciousness than to fear it.
Increased stress from an unstable home environment can stunt cognitive growth, leaving kids at a disadvantage before they even begin kindergarten.
Pope Francis' message on the environment is actually a radical call for humans to accept a more modest material lifestyle, and for a major redistribution of the world's wealth and power. That's great stuff for a sermon, but not so helpful as a practical guide for achievable change.
1mins
Lisa Bodell, founder of the innovation research and training firm futurethink, explains that with the right knowledge and tools, everyone has the power to innovate.
What would you do? Imagine you’re a politically conservative, devoutly religious art dealer fleeing your war-torn country when you suddenly see art radically unlike anything you’ve seen before. Do you stay the course or gamble on this next “big thing”? Now add the sudden death of your pregnant young wife, which leaves you with five children under the age of nine whose futures now depend entirely on your choices. Do you roll the dice with your life and theirs? If you’re Paul Durand-Ruel and that artist is Claude Monet, the original Impressionist, you don't just make that bet; you go “all in” — staking your family’s fortunes to those of a family of revolutionary artists. The exhibition Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting, currently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, goes “all in” with Durand-Ruel’s gamble and pays off big with a stirring tale of personal courage and art history in the making.
When we say prostitution is a scourge on society, we typically mean (without knowing it) that able-bodied people have better alternatives.
5mins
On this week's Tuesdays With Bill, Rachel, a Columbia University student, asks two questions for the price of one: What would happen if a human being went the speed of light, and why don't we just eject our trash into outer space?