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“I like to say, the universe doesn’t care about our common sense.  We have to force our ideas to conform to the evidence of reality rather than the other way around.  And if reality seems strange, that’s okay.” -Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss, from his Big Think interview  

Female social entrepreneurs pay themselves an average of 29 percent less than their male colleagues, according to new research conducted at the London Business School.

Ever since he came out to the public in February 2007, former NBA player John Amaechi says he has been “that big gay guy.” But there is much more to the 6’10” former center than that. He is one of the very few NBA players with a Ph.D.—after eight years in the big leagues, he returned to academics to pursue a degree in psychology. In this lesson from Big Think+, he shares with you the plan he created as a child to help him accomplish his dreams. The most important step, he says, is knowing yourself and getting clear about your end goal.

Author Steven Kotler explains the basic tenets of exponential technology growth cycles. Understanding these will allow savvy entrepreneurs to gain an advantage over their competition by way of exponential entrepreneurship. 

It’s common to dismiss the sorts of processes undertaken by the characters in CSI or House as the stuff of fantasy. MetaMed Research co-founder Michael Vassar argues that we’ve got that all wrong.

How self-aware we are during the day can affect how we experience dreams, possibly helping us achieve states of lucid dreaming.

In this 4-part Big Think Mentor workshop Stewart D. Friedman teaches us the skills we need to harmoniously integrate work and life. In this lesson Friedman introduces us to the […]

Ambition, goal-setting, and I are awkwardly dating. 

“When people are less focused on self and the problems of the self, there is a kind of alleviation of stress. There’s nothing like reaching out and contributing to the lives of others to give a person a sense of significance and purpose.” -Professor Stephen Post, from his Big Think interview.

Taking notes by hand helps students learn more and it’s up to teachers to impose anti-screen policies in the classroom as a pedagogical tool. 

Last year was the hottest on record for every place in the world, except two: a small part of Antarctica and the Northeast United States. 

Despite the booming use of Internet porn and conversations skeptical of sexual norms pervading popular culture, physical sexuality remains restricted to private life.

Sleepless nights filled with anxiety about the day’s events buzzing through our minds could be helped through a little mindful meditation every day.

After previously discussing surveillance and autonomous cars, Singularity University’s Brad Templeton returns to Big Think to examine some lighter fare: quantum mechanics and computing.

If Flannery O’Connor somehow birthed the love child of Sid Vicious, she might end up sounding like novelist Nell Zink. Equal parts Southern Gothic’s grotesquely twisted charm and punk and alternative music’s insiderish anti-establishmentism, Zink’s second novel Mislaid will disorient you until you let it delight you. Zink’s mix — which I’ll call Southern Gothic Punk — might be an acquired taste, but a taste well worth experiencing if only to break out of the contemporary rut of MFA-programed, sound-alike fiction that’s become the bubblegum pop of today’s literature.

Having a conscientious spouse benefits the professional life of the other partner, according to new research out of Washington University. 

Have you been watching The Roosevelts on PBS? Big Think Expert Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses Theodore Roosevelt’s “bully pulpit.”

In 1995, I published They Don’t Get It, Do They? Closing the Communication Gap Between Women and Men after writing “The Memo Every Woman Keeps in Her Desk” — a […]

Knowing how to schedule and run an efficient meeting can mean the difference between your employees feeling positively about their day or believing they are slowing wasting their lives.

Avoiding self-reflection can be a helpful strategy for delivering a composed and powerful speech, say researchers who examined how confident people prepare themselves to speak before an audience. 

Jon Iwata is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM. As a member of the communications team for over 25 years, Iwata has taken an active interest in watching the workforce change. Every year he meets with IBM’s summer interns for an informal focus group on the state of emerging talent. In this lesson from Big Think+, Iwata explores key millennial values and what every company can do to embrace them.

Far from dodging the issue of the environment, the mayor of Beijing, Wang Anshun, recently called his own city “unlivable” due to air pollution caused by industry, driving, and a population boom.

If all the random motions of the molecules inside aligned, how far and fast would it go? “Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.”-Bernard […]

Peter Thiel, whose funding helped pioneer Paypal and Facebook, is now investing in the budding marijuana industry with his venture capital firm Founders Fund.

When parents speak to their infants in the first year of life, it helps stimulate baby cognition in ways that increase the likelihood of future success.

America’s most meritocratic institutions—schools, universities, and the workplace—are becoming places where inheritance thrives rather than individuals with talent.

The former Secretary General of NATO explains how the alliance approaches terrorist threats and how the future fight against the so-called Islamic State will look.

A team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania has successfully modeled how group decisions form from seeming chaos.

Edward Norton is an Oscar-nominated actor, director, screenwriter and founder of the non-profit crowdsourcing venture Crowdrise. Experience has taught him that self-confidence is not the key to success. On the contrary, every bold new venture naturally summons up the feeling that “You’re a fraud. This is not going to work.” By the end of this lesson from Big Think+, you’ll have a sense of the negative self-talk that might be holding you back and a mental strategy for pushing past your anxieties and fears.

Resulting from President Barack Obama’s efforts to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba, Netflix has made its monthly video-streaming service available on the island for $7.99 per month.