The Latest from Big Think

The Independent says Aung San Suu Kyi's release is cause for celebration – but we have to be realistically doubtful about the prospects of change in Burma.

Less-visible insecurities linger from its recent chaotic past and drive this country's politics. China's strengths, and its weaknesses, should be measured with care.

What I do know is that playing football has taught me many things. Perhaps the most important: knowing how to react when chaos is going on around me.

Inside the mind of Albert Gonzalez, America’s most notorious computer hacker. “Whatever morality I should have been feeling was trumped by the thrill."

Historic successes and colossal failure are often fueled by the same impulses: ambition, audacity, passion, and a burning desire to comment meaningfully on the world around us.

Tim K. killed 15 people before turning his gun on himself. His father, the owner of the weapon, is now in the dock. How culpable can parents be if their child kills?

Four movements that gained huge followings and have stood the test of time: est, primal therapy, Transcendental Meditation and lucid dreaming. Where are they now?

Last week’s visit by the pope was largely ignored by Spaniards. Grassrootsrnreligious groups say the time has come for a full separation of state and Church.

Less obsolete but more annoying than a handwritten letter, the phone call is fading as a mode of communication even if the nostalgic will be singing its praises for a while.

On November 7th, Pope Benedict XVIconsecratedAntoni Gaudí’s weirdly wonderful masterpiece of religious architecture, the Sagrada Família (shown above). The Catholic Church tends to distrust anything modern these days, so seeing it […]

I am not going to lie to you—the first time I pushed the button at paper.li to create a newspaper out of the links the people I follow on Twitter […]

Congress is unlikely to pass any serious climate change legislation now that the Republicans have retaken the House. If you doubt that, consider the leading candidates to replace Rep. Henry […]

Since voters long ago stopped believing in ‘promises’ made by parties at election time, politicians now make ‘pledges’. Pledges, as opposed to promises, are made to be kept. Pledges are […]

Psi is psychology's equivalent of the perpetual motion machine in physics. Claims in favor of telepathy, clairvoyance, premonitions or other extra-sensory perceptions were always considered the realm of looney-tunes who […]

Today is November 13, 2010, meaning it has been 25 years since the tragic lahar that killed over 23,000 people (video, graphic at times) in Armero, Colombia. This lahar was generated […]

In guest post today, David Ropeik, author of "How Risky Is It," takes a critical look at President Obama’s assertion in the days leading up to the election that many […]

Novelist Margaret Atwood recently shared her vision of the future where more and more people flock to cities despite the substandard quality of life they offer.

New evidence from a Texas capital punishment case demonstrates the death penalty was unjustly applied. It is the first such case ever against the death penalty.

"Do the billions of non-neuronal cells in the brain send messages of their own?" Nature's Kerri Smith reports on a change in our understanding of the brain decades in the making.

"China holds all those dollars while the US holds the key to what they will be worth. It is a Mexican stand-off in which we could all be hurt." The Guardian reports.