The Latest from Big Think

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Members
This class features insights from Salman Rushdie, Annie Duke, and Matt Dixon on authenticity, confidence, and effective communication, emphasizing lifelong growth, the importance of embracing uncertainty, building trust in client relationships, and navigating crises with clarity to enhance leadership skills.
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Members
This class, led by experts like Lisa Lampanelli and Amy Cuddy, teaches essential communication skills for authentic audience connection, focusing on storytelling, self-awareness, and adapting to diverse perspectives in today's multicultural workplace.
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Members
This class teaches participants to actively engineer professional networks for career development, offering strategies from experts like Christakis, Hidary, and Grant to build meaningful connections, leverage social dynamics, and foster mutually beneficial relationships.
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Members
This course on strategic empathy, led by instructors like Amaryllis Fox and Liv Boeree, teaches participants to understand opposing viewpoints through "Red Teaming," while addressing cognitive biases and emphasizing the importance of historical context, cultural awareness, and ethical decision-making in complex global issues.
A blue and green dot drawing of a woman looking through a microscope.
Members
This class explores human cognition and decision-making through insights from experts like Michio Kaku on magical thinking, Madhavan on systems-level thinking, Mlodinow on elastic thinking, Konnikova on deductive reasoning, and Summers on structured decision-making, promoting a scientific mindset for effective problem-solving.
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Members
This class explores the link between neurobiology and productivity, teaching participants to optimize willpower and focus through strategies like meta-awareness, the Pomodoro Technique, and the importance of rest, while experts share insights on achieving peak performance amidst modern distractions.
A man in a suit walks on grass beside a long-haired dog, with faded images of a magic wand, a hat, and white doves in the blue-toned background.
A childhood spent under the spell of sleight-of-hand taught me skepticism, curiosity, and the habit of looking beneath appearances.
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Big Think spoke with astronomer David Kipping about technosignatures, "extragalactic SETI," and being a popular science communicator in the YouTube age.
Book cover of "Seven Rivers" by Vanessa Taylor, featuring a painting of numerous boats crossing the Nile River toward a distant city skyline under a clear sky.
In this excerpt from "Seven Rivers," historian Vanessa Taylor explores how Ancient Egyptian pharaohs harnessed the Nile River to build empires and secure their power.
A collage features a man in academic regalia at a podium, a black-and-white rural village, ants, and the words “THE NIGHTCRAWLER” in bold text at the top, evoking the art of reason amid contrasting scenes.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
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8mins
"If you're interested in human performance, what you want is something that's reliable and repeatable, and thus you want neurobiology because neurobiology gives you mechanism."
black hole
All of the matter that we measure today originated in the hot Big Bang. But even before that, and far into the future, it'll never be empty.
Book cover of "Disrupt Everything and Win" by James Patterson and Patrick Leddin, PhD, featuring a striking yellow background with bold black and white text, stylized burst lines, and the unmistakable style of James Patterson.
Trailblazing isn’t limited to the executive suite: Cultures of disruption happen when people at every level step up to lead change.
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7mins
How can the brain — a piece of matter — love? Physics and chemistry explain the material world, but they can’t explain why it feels like something to be alive. This is the mystery of consciousness, according to these experts.
Unlikely Collaborators
planck temperature polarization
The hot Big Bang is often touted as the beginning of the Universe. But there's one piece of evidence we can't ignore that shows otherwise.
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A conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider on the AI risks we’re not talking about and why the fixation on AGI is misplaced.
A young girl with light brown hair sits with her knees drawn up, looking down, illustrated blue teardrops on her face—capturing a quiet moment that reflects why humans cry.
In this excerpt from "When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...," Steven Pinker examines how crying may have evolved as part of a suite of emotional expressions aimed at strengthening social bonds.
Book cover with the title "The Storyteller’s Advantage: How Powerful Narratives Make Businesses Thrive" by Christina Farr, featuring yellow lines on a blue background—perfect for fans of Alexis Ohanian’s approach to impactful storytelling.
Alexis Ohanian didn’t treat his relationships with the media as purely transactional — and his star rose in spectacular fashion.
As we gain new knowledge, our scientific picture of how the Universe works must evolve. This is a feature of the Big Bang, not a bug.