The Latest from Big Think

The last thing we want to do is water down the teaching of biology because some people don’t recognize that evolution happened.

The basic inputs of higher education—highly educated instructors, technology, laboratories, for example—are expensive for good economic reasons.

Jonathan Zittrain, speaking at the 2012 Nantucket Project, describers how crowdsourcing is being used to solve all kinds of problems, and how it can be used for good and well […]

The great benefit of education, "the key to increasingly upward mobility," is expanding the vocabulary of students.

A few days ago, 64 influential Catholics appealed to their co-religionists in Congress to support gun-control legislation. They laid down a pretty solid Catholic guilt trip: Members of Congress who […]

For the first time in 15 years, the number of deaths by suicide was below 30,000. While still high, credit is going to coalitions of citizens, activists, and experts working together with the government.

A short essay argues that most institutions should immediately institute moratoriums on hiring new faculty and building new facilities, and that universities need to focus on clarifying their value proposition in a world of 'commodity [higher] education.'

New crowdsourcing techniques can be used in amazingly constructive ways. Alternatively, these same techniques may be used as tools that exploit human labor and utilize it for evil purposes.   

Does the rise of the robots doom us all to unemployment? The answer is most certainly no. Provocative claims that the United States has reached “peak jobs” and will soon […]

On sale today, the updated "Life in the United Kingdom" study guide, traditionally used as the basis for the written citizenship test, has replaced practical questions with cultural ones.

The ambitious goal is part of an €8 billion program designed to put more electric vehicles and hybrids on roads across the continent.

Cash-strapped towns are reevaluating church holdings and their use in hopes of claiming much-needed tax revenue. In response, the church asks why they're being singled out.

Local authorities have banned any property improvements, including balconies and certain bathroom conversions, that may raise rents and force established residents out.

I’m pleased to announce that a book that I’ve spent much of the past two years working on with Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s […]

Ever since our first digital search we’ve all spent increasing amounts of time on the web looking for the information we need. Since most of us are in a hurry, […]

“In my line of work, we often talk about the art of diplomacy as we try to make people’s lives a little better around the world,” Secretary of State Hillary […]

A new meta-study out of NYU, which asks whether parents can directly increase their children's IQ, has found that not all accepted methods of boosting intelligence are effective.

Harvard medical researcher Ted Kaptchuk is finding that how placebos are administered plays a very important role in their ability to cause positive and negative physiological changes.

Futurist and soon-to-be director of engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil has made a habit of making predictions about future technology as accurate as they are bold. Now he wants to live longer. 

The tide is turning against the sophistication associated with having a nightcap before bed. Sleep specialists say any alcohol is likely to disrupt our rest and keep us from dreaming.