David Wessel, economics editor of the Wall Street Journal, sat down with Big Think for our series on the economic crisis, What Went Wrong? When talking about the cleanup that […]
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Nearsightedness has become ever more common in rich nations, most dramatically in Asia–80 percent of young adults in Taiwan and Singapore are myopic, where a couple of generations ago only […]
Ed Koch, the former three-term mayor of New York City, visited Big Think yesterday afternoon and lived up to his reputation as the quintessential New Yorker. He spoke of his […]
The city that never sleeps is also the city that forever changes, making its future notoriously impossible to predict. Recently a number of our experts tried anyway, gazing into their […]
Last night officials began “chemotherapy treatment for the Great Lakes” when it began poisoning sections to do away with the invasive Asian carp.
One of Wall Street’s best-paid bankers, Hugh McGee, is trying to get his son’s teacher fired after she allegedly branded investment bankers as “sleazeballs”.
In a move that infuriated gay rights activists, New York State gave the thumbs down yesterday to a law that would have legalized gay marriage.
The British police have been accused of misusing powers granted under anti-terrorism laws to stop tourists from taking photographs of landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral.
Archaeologists in Cyprus have discovered a 10,500-years-old water well that contains the skeleton of a young woman.
More than 2,700 unmarked graves containing 3,000 bodies have been found in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley, according to a human rights group.
Honeybee researchers have discovered that the insects release a deadly odor that shortens the lifespan of their family members – usually their sisters.
European scientists have successfully connected a touch-sensitive prosthetic hand to an amputee which he is able to control using thought.
Engineers have developed a new substance by embedding liquid metal in a flexible substrate – and so created flexible, self-healing liquid metal.
A whistleblower who exposed the torture of protestors in Iranian jails has died after being poisoned by a delivery salad laced with blood pressure medication, fuelling fears that he was murdered.
“Very refreshing! DOW Chemical Pesticide Water! Free samples! Very refreshing!” Volunteers with non-profit Students for Bhopal gathered yesterday at the entrance to New York’s Union Square Whole Foods Market to […]
While others struggle to combat the aging process, Dr. Leonard Guarente, director of MIT’s Institute on Aging, seeks to understand it. A forty-year veteran of the university, he is best-known […]
Google has announced that it will work to help companies, such as news producers like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, to limit the access that general readers and data aggregators such […]
Shortly after President Obama finished his speech outlining his plan to bring the war in Afghanistan to a successful conclusion, bloggers have rushed to remind us that Afghanistan is “the […]
I’ve always been fascinated by the Pedestrian Do-Si-Do, that dance where you dodge to your left on the sidewalk to avoid colliding with a person walking toward you, and she […]
A silent home movie showing Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe smoking marijuana has been unearthed and sold to a collector after languishing for 50 years in a granny’s attic.
Plans to develop advanced prosthetic limbs would offer the same level of flexibility, dexterity and feedback that a hand could offer according to the project’s developers.
Scientists have discovered that women live longer than men because they are made of different stuff – the study suggests that sperm may have a detrimental effect on lifespan.
Mayor of Baltimore Sheila Dixon has been convicted by a court of the single charge of taking gift cards intended for the city’s poor worth $630.
There’s a herd of tame elephants in Indonesia that is used to patrol the 200,000 acre park-like jungle Guardian Angels to stop intruding pachyderms from killing humans.
The president of the Maldives is urging “a collective spirit of co-operation” at Copenhagen lest the summit becomes nothing more than a “suicide pact”.
A California-based web designer is campaigning to ban divorce in the State as a satirical statement after Californian voters outlawed gay marriage last year.
The human condition of “loneliness” is contagious and can spread among groups of people in the same manner as the common cold, according to new research.
Wealthy tourists are lining up to buy seats on a Virgin Galactic rocket propelled aircraft that will go so high it’s passengers will experience total weightlessness.
Microsoft has denied speculation that recent security updates to the Windows 7, Vista and XP applications are responsible for the recent surge in “black screens of death.”
It used to be one of the fundamental perks of the job, not unlike the palatial White House for any incoming president. But the governor’s mansion, long a gilded symbol […]