The Latest from Big Think

Text reading "The Latest" in a large, serif font on a light background.
A digital illustration showing a glowing blue particle on the left, evoking cosmic inflation, transitioning into a geometric, grid-like structure on a purple background on the right.
A few physical quantities, in all laboratory experiments, are always conserved: including energy. But for the entire Universe? Not so much.
A woman, resembling a paranormal investigator, holds a rectangular glass dish above her eyes, which are illuminated by light shining through the dish in a dark setting.
For his new book, “The Ghost Lab,” Matt Hongoltz-Hetling spent time with paranormal investigators to understand their relationship with science and society.
Two men in suits stand in front of a graphic collage featuring technical drawings and a building with solar panels, overlaid with the text "The Nightcrawler," evoking innovation that stands the test of stellar age.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
Timeline of the universe from the Big Bang, as described in cosmology, showing inflation, formation of atoms, stars, galaxies, and expansion to the present day over 13.8 billion years.
If you want to understand the Universe, cosmologically, you just can't do it without the Friedmann equation. With it, the cosmos is yours.
A large yellow hot air balloon with a smiley face is shown on the left; on the right, a bunch of parfit smiley face balloons float against a cloudy sky.
If happiness is an absolute good, would 1 billion slightly happy people be better than 1 million incredibly happy people?
A blue planet with visible rings and several small, bright Uranus moons is set against a darkened black background.
Viewing Uranus's largest moons with Hubble, astronomers hoped to find darkening on the trailing side. They found the exact opposite instead.
A worker in protective gear operates machinery in an industrial facility, with a partial overlay of solar panels and geometric patterns above—hinting at the innovative spirit found in stellar societies.
The cofounders of think tank RethinkX are convinced that humanity is undergoing civilizational phase change.
A white dinosaur skull silhouette on a black background with red, rough, scribbled lines evokes the intrigue of the dinosaur myth.
In "The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs," Riley Black reveals the bold mammals that thrived in the Age of Reptiles.
Book cover titled "Speak, Memorably: The Art of Captivating an Audience" by Bill McGowan and Juliana Silva, featuring a red background and blue and orange text, inspired by the storytelling flair of Francis Coppola.
The “primacy/recency effect” is used by celebrated movie-makers, Broadway composers, and restaurateurs — it can work for you too.
An illustration shows a cosmic ray entering Earth’s atmosphere, creating a cascade of secondary particles—some of the highest energy particles astronomers study—detected by an array of sensors on the ground.
On Earth, our particle accelerators can reach tera-electron-volt (TeV) energies. Particles from space are thousands of times as energetic.
A silhouette of a person stands facing a wireframe digital figure on a purple patterned background.
"We are racing towards a new era in which we outsource cognitive abilities that are central to our identity as thinking beings," writes computer scientist Louis Rosenberg.
Black-and-white portrait of Steve Hanke, an older man in a suit and glasses, centered on a background with graph lines and dotted patterns.
The veteran economist joins Big Think to unpack the new rules of social media, explain tariffs, and recount his adventures in Albania.
Image of two large elliptical galaxies surrounded by several smaller, colorful galaxies and stars against a dark background in space.
The first galaxies were irregular blobs of gas and stars. But modern features, like spiral arms and bars, appeared earlier than expected.
A grey, icy planet or moon with surface cracks is shown against a backdrop of stars and the Milky Way galaxy.
The hunt for extraterrestrial life begins with planets like Earth. But our inhabited Earth once looked very different than Earth does today.
An artist's impression of a cluster of stars.
If the Universe is 13.8 billion years old today, but different ages the farther we look back, what does it mean for a star to be the first?
A man in glasses and a suit jacket, resembling John Green, stands in front of a light background with a purple rectangle and abstract black lines.
John Green opens up about his struggle to remain hopeful while writing about suffering and injustice.
Collage with clocks, footprints in sand, a hand drawing a world map, binary code, and the text "The Nightcrawler" at the top—an evocative piece rethinking civilization and our journey through time.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
A split image shows a star field on the left and a COSMOS-Web survey area diagram on the right, with labeled NIRCam and MIRI footprints alongside the moon for scale, highlighting galaxies explored by JWST science.
The COSMOS-Web has just finalized their release of their full field: larger and deeper than any other JWST program. Here's what's inside.
Blurred image of people in white robes spinning in a circular motion on a wooden floor, creating a sense of movement and flow.
The child has no control at all and the adult tries to control too much. But there is a third way.