Latest Articles

Latest Articles

The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.

metaverse
Augmented reality (AR) contact lenses will project the digital world into our retinas, perhaps helping us navigate the metaverse.
The Other 1972
One of the scariest films of the 1970s didn't set out to be a horror film at all.
American Airlines in-flight map showing shipwrecks near the North American coast
On long-haul flights, some airlines show shipwrecks on their in-flight maps. The aim is to entertain; the result is often to horrify.
In his new book, "Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy," former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang explores how media narratives can warp public perception of political candidates.
Dracula Movie Poster
The more horror we consume, the harder it becomes to find a good scare. These genuinely unsettling movies should get you in the mood for Halloween.
Spirit photography
Haunting photographs depict the dead as "still with us."
quantum mechanics
Quantum physics isn't quite magic, but it requires an entirely novel set of rules to make sense of the quantum universe.
extinct
The list includes eleven species of birds, eight species of freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat, and a plant from the mint family.
clarke's laws
Technology has advanced at a blinding pace in the past 150 years. That won’t always happen.
childhood trauma
3mins
People usually think about the military when they talk about trauma. But  for every soldier who gets PTSD in a war zone, there’s at least 30 children who get traumatized […]
speech is violence
The most unpleasant aspect of intellectual liberalism is that when speech causes emotional or mental pain, the offended parties are morally entitled to nothing.
durkheim
All religions have totems, rites, and taboos that are considered "sacred." Émile Durkheim believed society is largely underpinned by them.
A smoking pumpkin depicting how Halloween became a dangerous holiday
The poisoned candy legend is just one way that American fears manifested: as an easily understood threat to innocence.
M51-ULS-1b
Named M51-ULS-1b, it's certainly a curious astronomical event. But the evidence is far too weak to conclude "planet."
A woman waiting on an empty foggy street illustrating the concept of uncertainty.
Dedicated circuits evaluate uncertainty in the brain, preventing it from using unreliable information to make decisions.
spooky action at a distance
Einstein hated "spooky action at a distance," but much to his chagrin, quantum mechanics remains as spooky as ever.
Although Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are often praised as innovators, many innovations are created by intrapreneurs within companies.
Intrapreneurs tap into the spirit of entrepreneurialism to innovate and find personal meaning at work, but organizations need to celebrate their efforts more.
Delacroix French Revolution
Will and Ariel Durant were praised for their ability to look at the big picture without losing sight of its little details, even if they did miss some of them.
69 percent of the global diet is "foreign," says a study that pinpoints the origin of 151 food crops.
reciprocal bond
We are more likely to agree with someone who also agrees with us. Young children, though, only trust themselves. We have to learn to trust.