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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
Researchers have come up empty in their quest to link genetic "copy-number variations" to diseases like breast cancer and diabetes.
Scientists have discovered the reason why the earth wasn't covered with a layer of ice four billion years ago, when the Sun's radiation was much less than it is today.
Researchers Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong have found that exposure to organic and environmentally friendly products leads people to act more altruistically.
The taste of many 2008 pinot noirs from California's Anderson Valley was tainted by the severe forest fires during the growing season that year.
Gary Bass looks at how Israel lost its alliance with France in 1967, and what that precedent might indicate for the country's relations with the Obama Administration.
Some journalists believe that Apple's forthcoming iPad could save their industry, but it's likely that publishers are being overly optimistic in their pricing schemes.
I spoke with one of Atlanta’s former mayors last week about the new advocacy organization she had just joined. Shirley Franklin, the first black woman to run the city, seems […]
If you’ve spent time with an environmentalist in the past few years, you’ve probably had a conversation that went something like this: You: I’ve switched to organic peanut butter! After […]
Michael Lewis is probably best known these days for two great sports books, Moneyball and The Blindside. But he originally made his name with Liar’s Poker, a book based on […]
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After the Copenhagen Climate Council was considered a failure, how should we prepare for COP-16 in Mexico? Big Think’s live roundtable on March 26, 2010 in Houston was moderated by […]
Not that you spend too much time wondering what life would be like if you were a light bulb…but, in case you’re curious, your body’s existence is equivalent to a […]
This past month, Honduras has witnessed an unprecedented series of attacks on journalists: five journalists were killed in March alone, making the country, along with Mexico, one of the two […]
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The historian and artist names some contemporary masters whose work deserves wider recognition.
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Yes, Nell Irvin Painter is a painter. But she didn’t start pursuing an art MFA until she’d already become a distinguished Princeton historian. What prompted the shift in gears?
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The author of “The History of White People” believes racial attitudes are starting to relax in the Obama era. Class differences, though, remain as problematic as ever.
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The concept of race may be a kind of cultural superstition, but in America at least, it’s not going away anytime soon.
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How did Italians, Jews, and other peoples become “white”? And will other, currently “nonwhite” ethnic groups follow suit?
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Ralph Waldo Emerson was a vocal abolitionist, yet also romanticized a “Saxon” racial ideal. How should we make sense of his attitudes—and untangle them from our own?
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Race is a 19th-century concept. In the 18th century, the division of human “varieties” was just as arbitrary—but a little more creative.
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When did the concept of race originate? And was there no such thing as racism before it did? The author of “The History of White People” explains.