“What is so distasteful about the Homeric gods,” W. H. Auden complains in his essay “The Frivolous & the Earnest,” is that they are well aware of human suffering but […]

Benetton's controversial new "Unhate" ad campaign, which features pictures of world leaders like Barack Obama and China's Hu Jintao caught in a liplock, actually raises a thought-provoking question: Is it […]

There are so many advances going on right now in biotechnology that really have a wow factor," says Arrison. "Gene therapy to cure cancer and tissue engineering, growing brand new […]

Parker, the creator of Napster and a key player in the rise of Facebook, is, as usual, thinking big. He worries about a warring tech industry and envisions how social media can transform politics.

Is the West presently severely disadvantaged with regard to Asia, if not in relative decline? 

This week Big Think decided to give Twitter a big bear hug. Why? We realized the Twitosphere had (undeservedly) become the neglected stepchild of our various social media profiles. To […]

It’s fashionable and easy to blame vast, mysterious, authoritarian China for our economic problems.  It’s also not quite fair. 

There is going to be more and more debate and controversy as to what constitutes a heavy element given the fact that it only exists for a brief fraction of […]

Every Wednesday, Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below […]

Get your company going in just 54 hours. That's what many businesses have accomplished by condensing their ideas and pitching to local entrepreneurs and investors.

Leadership in Congress is on the wane, say Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Budget negotiations remain weighed down by special interests while the public yearns for big action.

Great thinkers are not much if their ideas never get noticed. And hey, it's a jungle out there. Here is some advice about getting your thoughts into the marketplace—and getting noticed.

In my previous post in this series, I quoted a shockingly anti-atheist letter written by Rev. John Buehrens, former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. This letter repeated all the […]

From making your pitch to knowing when to leave as C.E.O., Richard Branson looks at common mistakes entrepreneurs make and gives advice about how to avoid them.

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be at Skepticon IV this weekend in Springfield, Missouri, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. Given the sheer number of fantastic speakers, we're at […]

Using about 400 transistors, M.I.T. computer scientists have created a silicon chip that mimics one human synapse, removing a barrier to creating a machine that can learn like people.

“We are at the cusp of a revolution in medicine and biotechnology that will radically increase not just our life spans but also, and more importantly, our health spans," says Sonia Arrison, author of 100: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything.

These words describe love, desire, and relationships that have no real English translation but they capture subtle realities that even English speakers have felt once or twice.

If astronomers spot a big one headed our way, our risk perception will switch to “It COULD happen to me, and SOON” and we’ll take the threat more seriously.

Reading the daily news (probably on a PC or tablet device) one might have the notion that ebooks were on a killing spree, destroying every part of the old media […]