“The most surprising thing about WikiLeaks’ released trove of officially secret documents is how few surprises it contains.” Doyle McManus says the government has been candid with us.
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How do you persuade people to eat less and exercise more? We love to think it’s a matter of getting them to see facts and make good decisions, because that […]
One of the most overlooked aspects of the life of Frida Kahlo is that the artist who exemplified Mexican national identity had a father born in Germany. Thanks to exhibitions […]
Any list of the most photographed people in history certainly has to include Marilyn Monroe. Just when you think we’ve seen every possible image of the iconic starlet, a new […]
“I’m the plainest kind of fellow you can find,” painter Grant Wood told an interviewer in the 1930s, the height of his fame. “There isn’t a single thing I’ve done, […]
This past week, three top experts stopped by the Big Think offices for a video interview: behavioral neurologist Antonio Damasio, C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup, and kidnapping victim Stanley Alpert. USC […]
William James was about the only philosopher who didn’t end up a pettifogging nit-picker or overbearing egomaniac with delusions of genius. So says New Humanist’s Jonathan Rée.
Basketball games, elections and other head-to-head contests seem to affect the testosterone of people who care about them. Some studies have found that testosterone production goes down in fans of […]
“The country’s new wave of directors are rejecting Bollywood’s glitz for grittier, real-life themes.” The Independent looks at the new social-political consciousness in post-Bollywood films.
The bottle of wine you and your partner shared last night didn’t kill a single neuron in your head and, contrary to what you’ve been told, you are always using […]
The modern view of the American soldier at war is invariably shaped by television. Beginning with the Vietnam War, the first war brought literally into the living rooms of private […]
In 1886, shortly after his dismissal as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in a cloud of scandal, Thomas Eakins changed the title of his 1880 painting Crucifixion […]
BP/Transocean’s concern for rig workers is touching. Key alarm systems on the Deepwater Horizon were disabled to “help workers sleep”: Vital warning systems on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig were […]
Fast food chains generally don’t have a good rep when it comes to healthy, eco-conscious dining. There is some re-branding going on, though, like at McDonald’s, which is moving heaven […]
At the Columbia Journalism Review, managing editor Brent Cunningham argues for a new journalistic beat that covers the obscuring uses of language and messaging in politics. The essay is part […]
“My violin is one of my voices,” says concert violinist and humanitarian Midori Goto. In her Big Think interview, Midori talks about her very personal connection with her 1734 Guarnerius del […]
“Fiction has now become a museum-piece genre most of whose practitioners are more like cripplingly self-conscious curators or theoreticians than writers,” says the polemical Lee Siegel.
That’s right. It’s happening. Print is being phased out and new digital platforms, which will require subscriptions to read, are being phased in. Today, a news corporation, a journalist and […]
When Roland Penrose began buying artwork after returning to England in 1935, he focused on purchasing the works of the Parisian Surrealists—the circle of artists that had embraced him as […]
New York University neuroscience professor Joseph LeDoux has a passion for understanding the inner processes of memory. But he’s also really into rock music. And, luckily, he’s found a way […]
There’s no such thing as a verbatim, facsimile memory, says USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. When we reconstruct events in our minds, we are pulling together set sequences of specific details stored in different parts of the brain.
New companies are creating sophisticated digital backups of individuals that can, in some sense, make one immortal, even if copying consciousness remains beyond current technology.
In a series of tweets Sunday, Sarah Palin first “invented” the word “refudiate” (while, perhaps, trying to come up with “repudiate”), and then defended her word choice in another tweet […]
Our memory peaks at the age of 30, and then it declines gradually with time. But if we train our brains to stay more active and focused, they can remain healthier longer.
When we think of Sigmund Freud, we think first of words—the “talking cure” of psychoanalysis, books such as The Interpretation of Dreams, and the infamous Freudian slip. In Mirrors of […]
Everyone is mesmerized by Apple’s ability to revolutionize the way we think about IT products. With the iPhone, for example, Apple has morphed a mere communication device into a platform […]
I went to a wake earlier this week for the grandmother of a very close friend of mine. I had only seen his grandmother a few times in all the […]
Growing up, I always found the few Black faces in superhero comic books fascinating, like rare birds. Luke Cage, aka, Power Man, bristled with attitude like Shaft on steroids. Black […]
Neuroscientists believe they have located the part of the brain that allows some blind people to process visual information to sense the presence of objects without seeing them.
When Huang Rui first set up the 798 Space Gallery in 2002, shortly after returning to China after years of exile for his anti-Communist regime art, he knew he could […]