bigthinkeditor

People with busy lives might feel as if they live longer. Our brains use the world around us to keep track of time, and the more there is going on, the slower time feels.

The state senator from Brooklyn, N.Y., wants to outlaw using an electronic device while crossing a big-city street on foot. The good intentioned law is overreaching, says Steve Chapman.

Egyptian protesters have called for a massive demonstration of more than a million people on Tuesday in a bid to force out president Hosni Mubarak from power.

The main issues related to judging inequality and its changes over time come down to deciding whether the inequality is of the good or bad kind, says Nobel Laureate Gary Becker.

In 2007, Obama called climate change the “epochal, man-made threat to the planet.” But in his State of the Union address last week, the word “climate” was nowhere to be found.

Statistics from the U.S. government suggest that our energy choices and level of consumption will not change much over the next few decades.

Success may be more a matter of strategy than the traditional notion of strength. We can and do offload the burden of willpower to the environment to scaffold our success.

Lack of sleep needs to be treated as a major health issue, according to a report published by the U.K. Mental Health Foundation.

Pundits aren’t solely to blame for the vitriol. They’re just giving us what we want. To change our discourse we have to be masters, not slaves, to the cycle.rnrn

The economic downturn in the U.S. means it’s a good time to stitch together comprehensive and politically palatable policies on immigration reform.

Protests rocked Egypt, calling into question whether President Hosni Mubarak’s regime can survive. FP asked five top experts how Barack Obama should respond.

They starve themselves and risk their necks for $150 a race. And depression is prevalent in the jockeys’ ranks. Who would be one?

New research suggests that whales use their sophisticated communication techniques to develop distinct and separate cultures.

In an often-quoted description, Richard Dawkins once wrote: “Ramachandran is a latterday Marco Polo, journeying the Silk Road of science to strange and exotic Cathays of the mind.”

Are cities the best place to live? Are suburbs OK? A fight grows in urban planning, with Harvard at the center.

Is Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, a puppet master of the news media? He would like you to think so. But The Times’s dealings with him reveal a different story.

Bird droppings, snail slime, excreted coffee beans—there’s no substance so vile that it can’t be a must-have product. The Independent explores a world of very gross profits.

Eating food containing trans fats and saturated fats could contribute to depression, scientists reported Wednesday. Spanish researches followed 12,059 people over six years.

Times are still tough, but American independent cinema turns out to be a movement defined by stubborn true belief and survival. This year’s Sundance featured strong noncorporate films.

In a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, the organizers pitted Larry Summers against Prof. Chua, perhaps better known as The Tiger Mom.

Pundits aren’t solely to blame for the vitriol. They’re just giving us what we want. To change our discourse we have to be masters, not slaves, to the cycle.

According to Hurricane Electric, an internet backbone and services provider based in Fremont, California, the internet will run out of bulk I.P. addresses sometime next week.

Robots started out conceptually as automaton-servants but instead of creating a modern-day butler, much robotics research today focuses on creating emotional machines.

A new book examines the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence in so many of today’s bestselling books that claim to expose neurologically-based sex differences.

While the U.S. favours Egyptian political reform in theory, in practice it props up an authoritarian system for pragmatic reasons of national self-interest.

Critics question whether microfinance is truly helping the poor or driving them further into poverty with aggressive client recruiting and high-interest lending.

A cache of stone tools found on the Arabian Peninsula has reopened the critical question of when and how modern humans escaped from their ancestral homeland in eastern Africa.

China and India will always train more scientists and engineers. But at least America’s still got the best environment for ideas to grow.

Childhood phases we now take for granted—toddler, tween—were established by marketers, not doctors or child specialists. What should we know about girls’ princess phases?

Confident pronouncements of certainty have no place in psychiatry. Humility is the only honest attitude to take to this work. …Neither can we wait for definitive knowledge.