Five times in U.S. history, American presidential candidates have ascended to leadership despite lacking the popular vote. Here’s how.
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Scientists are working to map out the risks of the permafrost thaw, which could expose millions of people to the invisible cancer-causing gas.
Recent measurements of CERN data seem to disagree with standard-model predictions about how the Higgs boson decays, though further analysis is needed to confirm the observations.
How will we actually feel when the things we do with care are suddenly dealt with in seconds by AI? Here’s a preliminary plan.
The Universe didn’t begin with a bang, but with an inflationary “whoosh” that came before. Here are the biggest questions that still remain.
Economics and religion help to explain the gap.
In “Dear Oliver,” neuroscientist Susan Barry describes how her 10-year correspondence with Oliver Sacks unleashed her inner author.
NASA’s Juno mission, in orbit around Jupiter, occasionally flies past its innermost large moon: Io. The volcanic activity is unbelievable.
The brain-computer interface will be tested in a six-year trial in patients with quadriplegia.
As planets with too many volatiles and too little mass orbit their parent stars, their atmospheres photoevaporate, spelling doom for some.
“She understood me and I understood her. I loved that pigeon.”
The futuristic weapon could be ready for the battlefield in 5 years.
The DUNE project will beam tiny neutrinos across vast distances. But the first step involved moving a heavier material: 1 million tons of rock.
Big Think columnist Adam Frank makes the case for why the 2023 video game Alan Wake 2 is a boundary-pushing piece of art.
How to juggle while walking a tightrope — at work.
Without wormholes, warp drive, or some type of new matter, energy, or physics, everyone is limited by the speed of light. Or are they?
Cognitive psychologist and poet Keith Holyoak explores whether artificial intelligence could ever achieve poetic authenticity.
Big Think recently spoke with sleep psychologist Dr. Jade Wu about the surprising consequences of forgoing sleep.
It took 9.2 billion years of cosmic evolution before our Sun and Solar System even began to form. Such a small event has led to so much.
Many still consider hypnosis more of a cheap magician’s trick than legitimate clinical medicine.
The world’s highest mountain is also the world’s highest cemetery, with some bodies serving as creepy landmarks for today’s climbers.
A more diverse workforce will produce better solutions in fast-changing markets.
Early on, only matter and radiation were important for the expanding Universe. After a few billion years, dark energy changed everything.
Britain is profiling the genes, health and lifestyles of its citizens and handing the results to scientists across the world.
If you eat a diet full of refined grains, high-sugar drinks, and sweets, there’s a good chance you have too much insulin.
To solve “addition bias” don’t punish people who subtract — call in the “friction fixers” instead.
Stars are born, live, and die within the spiral arms of galaxies like the Milky Way. These 19 JWST spirals deliver unprecedented riches.
Adrie Kusserow, an anthropologist and scholar of Buddhism, shares how her study of the religion and its history has reshaped her view of the world — and herself.
New DNA analyses raise questions over the theory that Christopher Columbus and his men brought syphilis to Europe.
The world’s workplaces are growing lonelier — but the solution requires less than you might expect.