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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
The number one story that has been dominating the headlines for the past two months is the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama is now dealing with […]
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The developer behind Winamp and the gnutella network thinks that we shouldn’t be able to patent something that is essentially just math. Software, like DNA, is so abstract that it […]
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The developer still writes code on a Microsoft Natural keyboard from the mid-’90s, usually with one big monitor. He also reveals what he’s got against llamas.
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In creating the gnutella network without asking the Web giant that employed him, Frankel was trying to “enable people to do things they want to do,” rather than trying to […]
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In the era before iTunes, Frankel created one of the first MP3 players. He says that Apple’s product has “dumbed down” music sharing software.
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The most productive programmers have an ability to cut through to what’s really important, focus on that, and then know when they’ve gotten stuff right.
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A conversation with the software developer and designer.
Psychologists and economists have long wondered whether increased wealth does indeed translate into happiness, and now new research indicates that to the (small) extent we are made happier by our […]
Dana Goldstein reports in the Daily Beast that the HHS may require all insurers to cover birth control as part of health reform’s focus preventive care: “Experts expect the Department […]
Robert Reich warns of “coming trade wars” in a recent blog, also carried by Big Think. It is an important contribution in as far as it recognises that a debate […]
"Innovation is like a bush fire that burns brightly for a short time, then dies down before flaring up somewhere else," says Matt Ridley, whose new book chronicles the history of prosperity.
Gerald Dworkin at 3 Quarks Daily asks if three Navy Seals in Afghanistan, who were killed as a direct consequence of their decision to spare civilian life, should have acted otherwise.
"Stem cell 'pharmacies' that dispense tissue therapies could be as common as chemist shops in 20 years' time, according to a top scientist." The Independent envisions the future of medicine.
"We're in the grip of a cultural panic and we have no idea whether we're coming or going," says The Guardian's Books Blog. The rapidity of current cultural change can be baffling.
British philosopher A.C. Grayling thinks a new book on current neurological studies of wisdom fails to capture the true nature of knowledge because MRIs are too narrowly focused.
A Massachusetts judge has ruled that the federal gay marriage ban, a.k.a. The Defense of Marriage Act, violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Once known for its cool and revolutionary attitude, Apple now appears to have gone soft, using canned emotional appeals to market its iPhone, says The Atlantic's Niraj Chokshi.
Christopher Hitchens heaps rare praise on The New York Times for its story on tax breaks given to pro-Israeli foundations who oppose a two-state solution, contradicting stated U.S. policy.
Eliot Spitzer is branded "disgraced" while David Vitter and Newt Gingrich are not. Glenn Greenwald at Salon asks what moral standards the so-called liberal media are applying.
Though oil companies like BP are the target of popular anger—private companies with selfish profit motives harvesting environmentally suicidal energy—the biggest oil companies are state-owned.