Your needs can’t all be as easily fenced off as land. But that map-like model lurks behind unbalanced ideas about private and public interests. The “public good” is both bedrock […]

From base to summit, Yosemite’s El Capitan is around 3,000 feet, and hiding the north celestial pole in this photograph. But follow the star trails, and you’ll of course get […]

“I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.” – Johannes Kepler 

After wars end and soldiers come home, it usually takes a while for the war to “come home” to the consciousness of the American people at large. When did the […]

The radiating “donut shape” around Earth has a surprising structure discovered this week. The scientists who made the discovery have dubbed it “zebra stripes.” Wired has the story: The Van […]

One of our favorite blogs, Brain Pickings, has a great piece featuring best-selling author Neil Gaiman: Neil Gaiman — prolific author, champion of the creative life, disciplined writer, sage of […]

It used to be commonly believed that the human nose can pick up 10,000 odors. We were wrong “by a factor of a hundred million,” according to The Washington Post. […]

Popular television shows have actually shaped scientific experiments? Mental Floss provides 9 examples of when researchers used TV shows to study test subjects’ behavior.  The shows include classics like Cheers, […]

One day we may need to use the Moon as a “refilling station” or for upscale retirement communities. Before Space commercial developers get any ideas, they better count on engineering […]

Alchemy was once all the rage in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Yes, people actually practiced this witchcraft-like form of chemistry. It centered around uncovering an elixir of life, […]

The speed of light in a vacuum is the limit for massless particles, but massive ones are limited even further! “All our sweetest hours fly the fastest.” -Virgil If you’ve been […]

Introducing Big Think @ GESF. Today, we're releasing the first set of interviews consisting of answers to questions that you, our audience, sent us over Twitter and Facebook. 

About a year and a half ago, I was working at a boutique documentary production company. We were housed in a lofty Soho space, owned by a bigger company, and […]

Happy equinox! The Sun will cross the celestial equator at 4:57 UT, heralding the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. To honor the day, NASA released this cool […]

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle 

A mysterious gully has been spotted on Mars that wasn’t there in 2010, according to NASA images. What caused the gully?  Wired has more:  A new gully has appeared on […]

The latest trend today is sitting down to a meeting and noticing that the person across from you, and the person next to you, are wearing sleek plastic bracelets. You […]

“The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.” – Vladimir Putin, September 11, 2013, The New York Times President Putin should […]

What everyone should know about where our matter-and-radiation-filled Universe came from. “I don’t think at this point we have any way of knowing where the laws of physics came from. We […]

Tonight, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson will host a debate about the benefits and pitfalls of the private sector monetizing the many needs of exploring space and beyond.  The Isaac Asimov […]