The Latest from Big Think

The concrete sense of the achievement, combined with the opportunity for social engagement and a never-ending source of challenges make massively multiplayer online games a highly captivating form of entertainment.

In the future, video games may allow everyone to have a personal trainer, not only for exercise, but for their education, hobbies, art, spirituality—anything in their life that they'd like […]

Video game technology is the medium that subsumes all others. Once these games have the ability to listen to humans, they’ll be even more emotionally enticing.

Our educational system should be reinvented to harness the incredible power of educational games.

A conversation with the video game designer.

Paul Di Filippo on, "How a long-dead Frenchman became one of the most important science fiction writers in current American culture." Join the Jules Verne revival at Salon.com.

"If something has been around longer, it must be better. New research suggests we hold onto that bias even in instances where quality has nothing to do with longevity."

"Thanks to period-music evangelists, breathtaking virtuosity, and millions of listeners, the art form remains vibrant." The City Journal on the relevance of classical music today.

The arms industry, much like our domestic pacific economy, is looking for a bump in exports given the recession. Weapons manufacturers want to sell arms in the Middle East and Asia.

Is freedom of religion still a valued principle in America? "The Ground Zero mosque is only one of several mosques that are being strongly opposed. Opposition to mosques is on the rise."

"Experts writing this year's dietary guidelines say strong evidence indicates that moderate alcohol consumption results in a longer life and slower cognitive decline."

Without the ability to daydream and hallucinate, computers will never think as humans do. David Gelernter, Yale professor of computer science, predicts the next stages of AI.

"Amazon reports that sales of e-books have finally surpassed sales of hardcovers. That's a pretty momentous development." Megan McArdle at The Atlantic thinks the Kindle's day has come.

"MIT political scientists demonstrate how much candidate appearances affect election outcomes, globally." Good looks seem to win out across cultures with very different histories.

"So even though a meat-free world sounds good on paper, it is likely that a utopian future will still have some animal products in it. And we are talking meat, not just milk and eggs."

If you listen to the entire video of Shirley Sherrod's infamous NAACP remarks, somewhere around the 14 minute mark, your stomach will start to curdle as you hear her describe […]

“It gives you a whole new way of looking at the day,” Dennis Hopper’s character Billy says in the unforgettable film, Easy Rider, which the then 33-year-old Hopper also directed. […]

Scientists' understanding of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, changed dramatically this past week, thanks to images and data from the satellite Messenger. In September of last year, the […]

I am taking a couple of weeks off. But while I’m away, I thought I’d share with you some of the what I consider to be this year’s essential readings […]

The late, great pianist is Huang’s favorite, but if she tried to mimic his daring interpretations, "it would not be very good," she says.