The Latest from Big Think

Text reading "The Latest" in a large, serif font on a light background.
Four maps of Ireland from 1800, 1850, 1900, and 2000 show a steady decline in areas where Irish is spoken natively, marked in green, nearly disappearing by 2000.
Gaeilge is trending culturally. So why is it, according to census data, also dying?
Aerial view of a large, modern data center complex with two main rectangular buildings separated by a central road, surrounded by fields and parking areas.
The AI energy debate focuses on supply — but smarter planning could deliver more computing from the same megawatts.
Cadence
A vibrant cosmic scene reveals a galaxy with bright jets of energy, hottest stars twinkling vividly amidst scattered stars against a dark backdrop.
From within our own galaxy to behemoths billions of light-years away, supermassive black holes create jets like nothing else in the cosmos.
Split image: left side shows a pencil sketch of a person's lower face, while the right reveals a painted portrait's lower face and neck with a red beaded necklace and ruffled collar—capturing hints of why we talk funny.
Long before today's debates, immigration was already transforming the American accent into something distinctively its own.
A close-up of a small snail with a light brown shell crawling on a dark, textured surface in sunlight.
A meditation on how our obsession with speed and productivity undermines our health, relationships, and chances for lasting success.
The cover of "In a Good Place" by Leidy Klotz evokes tranquility, showing a window with a blue sky, two potted plants, and a mug on the sill—perfectly capturing the book’s comforting, “in a good place” theme.
From Swedish playgrounds to American kitchens, how we design our spaces broadcasts our priorities and can help spark broader cultural shifts.
A colored pixelated grid with rectangular outlines; a legend in the top right labels blue as F115W, green as F200W, and red as F277W—capturing data from the JWST to record a distant galaxy.
It takes incredible energies to accelerate masses near the speed of light. So how do the farthest galaxies speed away from us so quickly?
A color-enhanced image shows Pluto planet in the foreground with its moon Charon in the background, both set against a black space backdrop.
In 2006, Pluto was controversially demoted to "dwarf planet" by the IAU. Unless you ignore most of astrophysics, it won't ever be one again.
A person sits at a cluttered desk with a large stack of files, an old printer, and office supplies; their face is covered by an orange circle labeled "WORK WISE.
Behavioral scientist Danny Kenny on the simple power of asking, "What is this actually for?"
Dune features a determined protagonist in Frank Herbert's science fiction masterpiece.
These initially sympathetic characters take readers down a dark path.
Gloved hands arrange Scrabble tiles on a grid, forming the words "ABRACADABRA," "FART," "HEART," "SHIT," "BIRD," and "LAST.
From WEIRD psychology to SHIT telescopes, researchers keep turning complex ideas into catchy shorthand.
A silhouette holds a balance beam with circular images: one shows a person blowing a whistle, the other multiple hands stacked together, both on a light textured background.
Middle managers make or break employee engagement. Here are the four capabilities L&D needs to prioritize.
Bullet Cluster separation mass gravity x-ray lensing
The first colliding galaxy cluster to reveal dark matter, empirically, turns 20 this year. Here's why it cements dark matter's existence.
A person with hair floating upwards looks out of a spacecraft window at Earth, filled with hope as clouds and oceans shimmer below—a view reminiscent of the Artemis II mission’s journey.
NASA has just sent astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 with Artemis II. So why would we cut NASA and NSF science now?
Chart illustrating the Standard Model of Elementary Particles, as found in the early universe, divided into quarks, leptons, gauge bosons, and the Higgs boson, with details on mass, charge, and generation.
Today, we have the Standard Model of particles with four fundamental forces governing them. But things weren't always the way they are now.
A colorful nebula with a bright center and symmetrical, wing-like clouds of gas and dust extends outward in space, as seen in a JWST reveal that uncovers stars and galaxies in the universe beyond.
Many facts are well-known to professionals, but are unappreciated or even rejected outright by the public. "How stars work" takes the cake.
a painting of a group of men standing next to each other.
From landscaped gardens to road systems, the Persians were among the first to create many things we still enjoy today.
Book cover titled "MUSKISM: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff, featuring a plume of smoke rising against a blue sky—a striking visual that hints at the enigmatic essence of muskism.
As SpaceX slashes launch costs, governments are gaining new capabilities, while potentially outsourcing their sovereignty to Musk's private empire.
universe bulk volume brane dimension
For decades, theorists have been cooking up "theories of everything" to explain our Universe. Are all of them completely off-track?