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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
Researchers are attempting to "define a second genetic code: one that predicts how segments of messenger RNA transcribed from a given gene can be mixed and matched."
Brendan Kiley looks at the history, meaning, and practice of suicide. "For most people, the subject is so taboo it's hard to deal with—even among people who deal with suicide for a living."
Walt Mossberg provides a basic explanation of what cloud computing is, and what it might mean for us in the near future.
"By 2050, almost 70 percent of the world's estimated 10 billion inhabitants—or more than the number of people living today—will be part of massive urban networks."
If a desperate, last-ditch attempt to cap the Deepwater Horizon wellhead fails, environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico may profoundly and permanently alter the area.
Emily Bazelon writes that a citizen charged with a crime needs to be read their Miranda rights—even if they are charged with an act of terrorism.
Some winemakers and enthusiasts believe that wine tastes better on so-called "fruit" days—those days in the lunar calendar when water and saps rise.
"A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life," writes Paul Bloom. "Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone."
Greece has plunged the euro into its worst crisis ever, and if economists are unable to bring discipline to the country there will be much more at stake than the fate of the currency.
The Web and cloud computing have made the work of archivists and record keepers faster than ever before, but is information lost in the internet’s labyrinth any more accessible than […]
Arizona is facing a backlash after Governor Jan Brewer signed a law making it a crime not to carry immigration papers and authorizing the police to detain anyone suspected of […]
We’ve always had a strange fascination with watching ourselves. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray famously agonized over the reflection of a hedonist life on his portrait, which aged and suffered at […]
The idea that our planet’s climate is changing is nothing new, says environmentalist and writer Bill McKibbon—in fact, the first person to theorize that our planet was warming was a […]
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Exxon Mobil made more money each of the last three years than any company in history. In our political system, that buys them power to prevent change.
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Unfortunately, no one source of renewable energy will be able to hold a candle to fossil fuel.
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These days, the average bite of food you eat has traveled 2,000 miles to reach your lips.
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As a first step, the government needs to put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Fossil fuel needs to pay the price for the damage it causes in the atmosphere.
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Our civilization is going to be forced to change dramatically as a result of global warming.
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The first person to come up with the idea of global warming was a 19th-Century Swedish chemist.
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A conversation with the writer and environmental activist.