Guest Thinkers — August 16, 2010

Mooney On Climate Change as a Communication Failure

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Over at The Intersection, my friend and colleague Chris Mooney has more thoughts on why the IPCC report failed to impact the wider media and public agenda. Mooney is in Vancouver this week, presenting at the University of British Columbia, sharing thoughts and ideas that together we are likely to take on the road as part of a national speaking tour. Stay tuned for more details.

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Microscopic view of green cyanobacteria chains forming spiral and linear patterns against a dark background, highlighting their role within the microbiome.

Books

Why your microbiome may matter more than DNA for your lifelong health

In “The Microbiome Master Key,” Brett and Jessica Finlay argue that we need to stop waging war on all germs and start working with the microbes that make us who we are.

Krel and Hana Koecher celebrate with StB colleagues after returning to the Eastern Bloc.

Big Think Books

Operation TRIGON: How a rookie spy helped change the world of espionage

In this excerpt from “Agents of Change,” Christina Hillsberg tells the story of Martha “Marti” Peterson, the first female case officer stationed in Soviet Moscow.

Black-and-white portrait of Andrew Mayne centered on a collage background featuring sharks on the left and a hand holding a magician’s hat and wand on the right.

Business

The Andrew Mayne interview: How to succeed as a polymath

The outrageously accomplished magician-inventor-author chats to Big Think about fear, multitasking, and successful work-life reinvention.

An open book reveals the art of smart manipulation: on the left page, a marionette illustration dances gracefully, while on the right, a flock of sheep grazes peacefully in a sunlit field.

Business

Why your smartest colleagues are virtuoso manipulators

We manipulate constantly — but few of us want to be called “manipulative.” Here, ex-Google executive Jenny Wood redefines an unfairly maligned trait.

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Neuropsych

The hallucinatory thoughts of the dying mind

Delirium is one of the most perplexing deathbed phenomena, exposing the gap between our cultural ideals of dying words and the reality of a disoriented mind.

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