Guest Thinkers — August 22, 2011

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Lindsay Beyerstein

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[Photo credit: Sam UL, Creative Commons.]

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

A human silhouette filled with birds and insects is overlaid with a circular target, binary code, and abstract shapes against a sky background with clouds.

The Well

Social media supercharged our disagreements. Could AI help us resolve them?

Duke sociologist Dr. Christopher Bail on the tech’s potential to foster empathy in an age of division.

A green skull in the background appears to stare through a glass of champagne centered in the foreground, evoking Agatha Christie poisons, all set against a black backdrop.

Big Think Books

Murder, she measured: The impressive science behind Agatha Christie’s poisons

Kathryn Harkup, chemist and author of V Is for Venom, joins Big Think to discuss why Christie isn’t just a brilliant writer but a unique science communicator.

Business

4 way leaders can supercharge their CQ: “Cultural intelligence”

To be culturally intelligent, you must be curious and open-minded — and the benefits can be transformative.

Musical notes and prime numbers, including 2, 5, 17, 29, and 43, are arranged on a staff with blue horizontal lines on a light background, blending mathematics with music.

Mini Philosophy

From Messiaen to Radiohead: How great music uses prime numbers

The strange, undulating sound of mathematics.

Starts With A Bang

The red color of Mars is mere inches deep

The surface and atmosphere is colored by ferric oxides. Beneath a very thin layer, mere millimeters deep in places, it’s not red anymore.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Teen Destroys $1.8 Million Chandelier with Croc

Just goes to show that neither $1.8 million chandeliers, nor Crocs have any business existing. [Photo credit: ellenm1, Creative Commons. For illustration.]