With Easter coming this Sunday and the minting of a new pope still fresh in people’s minds, considerations and reconsiderations of Christianity seem natural and unavoidable. The Renaissance art of […]
Search Results
You searched for: x x
“The latest fashion… is absolutely necessary for a painting,” artist Édouard Manet announced in 1881. “It’s what matters most.” When most people think of Impressionism, they may think of flowers, […]
The most revealing and important line in Angelina Jolie’s OpEd in the New York Times today is not the one in which she reveals she has had her breasts removed […]
A paper’s authors say that contrary to several decades’ worth of movie images, space travelers would see a steady bright light rather than streaks of stars.
No myth about art and artists abides as pervasively as that of Vincent Van Gogh, the mad genius. To mark the grand reopening of the renovated Van Gogh Museum in […]
Even if NASA’s Mars Curiosity mission doesn’t end up accomplishing another thing other than establishing the fact that there was once flowing water on the planet’s surface, it will have served […]
Like X-rays, terahertz frequencies see through items, but most machines that use them are large and costly. Two engineers have found a way to shrink the technology onto a chip.
What can math be used for? Here’s a wise answer: two basic forms of geometry are used in almost every engineering project and every physics discovery that has ever been made.
3-D printers are currently capable of producing usable car parts, cat-scanned reproductions of ancient Sumerian clay envelopes with letters inside, and cool-looking geometric desktop toys. That’s very exciting indeed. But […]
Among the many things about America that the American Civil War changed was its art. Painting and sculpture simply couldn’t be the same. In these sesquicentennial years, every aspect of […]
While the vast majority of mainstream press attention (and capital) focuses on the 1st through 3rdVerticals, some of the real paradigm shifting technologies and approaches may be in the 4th and 5th Verticals. […]
Where were you when you first learned that there are plastic landfills the size of continents floating in our oceans? What should have been a wake-up call hasn’t slowed the […]
It used to be that any change in an organization would flow from the top down—from the executives to the front line workers. But today, especially when it comes to […]
Google Glass. Life Extension. Life Extinction. These are among the brainiest memes included in the inaugural post of our new blog, Mind Memes, which offers quick reads on the Internet […]
Next week, artist Adam Harvey will exhibit a line of clothing that he says will protect its wearer from invasive surveillance technology.
Consider one last autobiographical note before I answer the question: “How do we avoid the Sartre Fallacy?” I conducted an independent study my senior year that focused on biases and […]
I advocate and defend things many people consider controversial. But it should be noted: Supporting adults’ rights to take their own lives, cut their bodies, solicit sex workers, etc., is […]
Sometime in the early 1930s, Henri Matisse hired a photographer to document his paintings at different stages of development. These photographs became signposts along the road toward what Matisse wanted […]
When seeking intellectual stimulation on the Internet, TED can be regarded as one of those special “signals within the noise”. The site releases one talk a day, helping to create […]
Ramez Naam looks at the power of innovation to overcome natural resource and environmental challenges.
NASA’s new X-ray telescope chanced upon a rare flare-up taking place in the center of the galaxy, home of the Sagittarius A black hole.
The human mind likes simplicity. It’s a complicated world, so we filter it into one cohesive and easy-to-digest worldview. This perspective is a rather unscientific one, however. When we observe […]
The magic “x-factor” that people talk about when they talk about talent is not so magical: it’s simply a matter of hard work. And no other craft reminds one of […]
Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale has created an expertly delivered whistlestop tour of psychology for the Big Think. The talk outlines the differences between […]
You can put the smartest people in the world in the same room together and get a terrible result. Jack Hidary has a different idea of collective intelligence, which is derived from his work with the X Prize Foundation.
We aren’t doing enough. The human race is in more danger than it might seem.
NewSpace is no stranger to challenge, whether above the clouds or in legislation. One particularly ornery obstacle is the US International Traffic and Arms Regulation, commonly known as ITAR. (Please […]
The dual shockwaves of accelerating advances in space accessibility due to miniaturization and private sector competition have put NewSpace in the midst of a transformation.
It all started with a review. When a reviewer of a 1957 painting exhibition by Jasper Johns compared one of his paintings to a readymade by Marcel Duchamp, Johns and […]
A new handheld medical device that non-invasively measures your vital signs could replace visits to the doctor with digital diagnoses. The machine is modeled on Star Trek’s tricorder.