bigthinkeditor

As assistant in charge of the Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress, Alan Lomax proved that the poorest places held some of the richest cultural treasures.

Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas. The stories it tells are all subtlety and subtext.

How badly could things have gone during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington? How much room was there for actual negotiation?

The fact that many sun sign horoscopes are based on badly outdated information is troubling to many people, but what may be even more disturbing is astrology’s close similarity to racism.

Lately, mainstream scientists have been inching toward similar conclusions about the positive therapeutic potential of hallucinogenic drugs, says Annie Murphy.

Your friends might seem based on shared interests and emotional compatibility. But there might be something genetic going on—and it’s related to how much you drink.

Truly nuanced, self-aware social discussion may still be in the future but among educated Chinese the government’s baldest self-contradictions no longer pass unremarked.

A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms.

What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This question, posed by psychologist Steven Pinker, has garnered over 150 responses at Edge.org.

They may be getting more graphic, says Harriet Walker, but sex scenes in the movies are no more true to life than they ever were—and no less uncomfortable to watch.

If the F.D.A. deems saccharin safe enough for coffee, then the E.P.A. should not treat it as hazardous waste, writes President Barack Obama at The Wall Street Journal.

Perhaps happiness is a bit like self-esteem: You have to work for both. You can’t get an infusion of either one from a therapist, says Dr. Richard Friedman.

MP3s aren’t free and Piracy is, as of this moment and for want of a better word, theft. Is there any other crime people are so completely and disarmingly blasé about committing?

There is not a single gene that triggers autism, but more likely dozens of genes that enhance the risk of autism. On the other hand, researchers have found that certain environmental variables, like air pollution, may also play a small role. 

Since you’re reading it on the Internet—in a blog, no less—it just might be. This week Big Think sits down with journalist Nicholas Carr, author of the infamous 2008 Atlantic […]

Sex educator Jessi Fischer on why and how we vilify male sexuality: “The falsehood that men are brutes who can’t control their sex drive is harmful to everyone.”

Sales of Glock semi-automatic guns are skyrocketing in the wake of Tucson. The growing piles of bodies is real evidence of growing extremist activity. What could be plainer or starker?

A study has found an unexpected sex difference in the effects of caffeine consumption on performance under stress. Men fared worse and women better.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator tells Spiegel about the dangers of waging cyber warfare against Iran’s nuclear facilities and the West’s false expectations for upcoming talks.

Multiculturalism critic Kenan Malik: The very thing that diversity is good for is the very thing that multiculturalism as a political process undermines.

Steve Jobs isn’t saying why he’s taking a medical leave. Slate asks: Is that fair to Apple investors?

Would we celebrate this tableau of human good nature so enthusiastically if we did not also fear, somewhere in our hearts, that we might have reacted differently?

George Monbiot asks: “Who threatens us most — peaceful campaigners or a private militia run by police chiefs?”

A border collie in South Carolina has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that may help explain how children acquire language.

Could online galleries prove a successful sales innovation for a struggling art industry? The first virtual contemporary art fair is about to be launched.

MIT ethnographer Sherry Turkle warns of the dangers of social technology after herself experiencing what was like a schoolgirl crush on a human-looking machine.

Scientists have come a step closer to gaining complete control over a mind, even if that mind belongs to a creature the size of a grain of sand.

As soon as we start saying our lives or our planet from a cosmic perspective is meaningless, we are no longer engaged in science but science-fiction.

In the aftermath of the (Tucson shootings), something has changed. No one can say how long the calm will endure. When it fades, perhaps the memory will leave us all in a better place.

Europe is in deep crisis — because its proudest achievement, the single currency adopted by most European nations, is now in danger.