The Latest from Big Think

Those who hope and/or argue that economic interdependence between the U.S. and China will help to prevent a war between them are often told to recall Norman Angell’s 1910 book, […]

I'm always fascinated by pop culture products that become cultural catalysts. More specifically, I'm particularly interested in foreign exports that are so interesting, exciting, addictive or just plain weird that […]

The words we pay the least attention to in conversations--connectors like 'the', 'this', 'that', 'and', etc.--are highly reflective of our sexual desire and our relative place in society. 

By logging hyper-specific personal information, about what booths you have visited at a trade show, for example, businesses will increasingly trade you their data for your data. 

Despite America's classless and meritocratic self-image, the divide between elite and supposedly plebeian culture is growing. What is driving the nation's deepening divide? 

Have you ever had a mystical experience?

On Wednesday, President Obama became the first sitting president to support marriage equality for gays and lesbians. The president’s support does nothing to alter the moral case for marriage equality. […]

Every status update, every tweet, every pin is a micro-jolt delivered squarely to the pleasure centers of our brains. 

I've just finished reading Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, an extraordinary book that I think deserves wider attention. I want to write a full review, but this […]

Fashion guru Simon Doonan says Mark Zuckerberg’s personal style, "or rather lack of personal style, is very defining," but also "very anti-fashion." Doonan's advice? "Go out and buy yourself a […]

By consciously practicing optimism, Jason Silva believes, we create circumstances that make external challenges weaker and easier to overcome. It’s mind over matter – thinking your ideal world into being by choosing to believe it already exists. 

The filmmaker and futurist explains his belief in the self-reinforcing power of optimism and the exploration of ways to co-author our emotional experience.

Brian David Johnson is Intel's first official futurist, helping the chip maker to imagine tomorrow and then build it. Johnson reads the sci-fi works of Vernor Vinge, Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross.

Coming up with a brand name can be tough, so a team of researchers has developed an artificial intelligence system which creates a name for you by using ideas essential to the product.   

One year ago I wrote an article for Big Think with the title walking across campus whilst sitting on your couch in which I introduced my readers to the AnyBot, […]

Is what I experience when I feel love qualitatively different from what a man experiences? Or what a lesbian may experience? If I consider Semir Zeki’s hypothesis that literature and art across the ages show a common substrate for love in the mind, I might suggest that descriptions of sex by male and female authors and artists are sometimes different.

What do you get for being a governor who cuts $860 million from his state’s education budget and forces schools to slash their arts education?  A Lifetime Achievement Award for […]

Clothes make the man. And in the case of Mark Zuckerberg, it is the hoodie, which is part of a look that has endeared him to some as the founder […]

Despite all the leaks that have come out over the latest underwear bomb plot there is still a great deal we don't know. For instance, did information from the undercover […]

“Who is it?” is often as big a question for art historians as “Who done it?” The mysterious model of many a famous painting—perhaps none so mysterious as the Girl […]