bigthinkeditor

The PR people within the music industry are masters of spin. The music industry isn’t doing so badly as they claim. In fact, year after year more music is being sold.

Understanding the neurobiology of religious belief is a far cry from explaining it away.

The EU should make 2011 the year when it finally takes the lead in helping Bosnia on its journey from a war-ravaged ward to a stable member state.

What can we learn from visualizing the nature and shape of collective decisions about the inclusion of a topic in Wikipedia?

As much as I disagree with the blasphemy law, I do not think that criminalising the act of blasphemy is violative of any fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

The cognitive revolution of the past 30 years provides a different perspective on our lives, one that emphasizes the relative importance of emotion over pure reason.

Artificially separated from a natural cycle of light and dark, the bodies and brains of mice go haywire in ways that may mimic the human effects of circadian disruption.

The idea that language shapes thought was taboo for a long time, said Dan Slobin, a psycholinguist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Now the ice is breaking.”

Statistical analysis must find ways to expose and counterbalance all the many factors that can lead to falsely positive results — among them human nature and the effects of industry money.

Budding public intellectual and critic of foreign aid, Dambisa Moyo says the promises of globalization have not been realized. The Independent interviews the economist.

David Foster Wallace studies is on its way to becoming a robust scholarly enterprise; the late author will likely become America’s next canonized writer, says Jennifer Howard.

Why is it that astrobiologists consider water a prerequisite when seeking out alien life? Steve Nerlich of Universe Today details what alien biochemistry would look like.

Clay Shirky says that social media’s real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere—which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months.

Researchers have made strides in understanding the human mind, filling the hole left by the atrophy of theology and philosophy, says David Brooks at The New Yorker.

Given his devotion to empirical fact, it seems odd to think that Galileo’s most important ideas might have their roots not in the real world, but in a fictional one.

Across the Internet the use of “Dear” is going the way of sealing wax; email has come to be viewed as informal even when used as formal communication.

It seems inevitable that the number of books sold through bookstores will plummet, says Judge Posner. Traditional bookstores are doomed, concurs Nobel Laureate Becker.

Violence in American politics tends to bubble up from a world that’s far stranger than any Glenn Beck monologue, says the conservative columnist Ross Douthat.

The Arizona shooting suspect has been called ‘unstable,’ and no motive has been identified. But did the vitriol in the debates over immigration and health care trigger the attack?

In 15 to 20 years, says futurist Ray Kurzweil, a biotechnology revolution will yield powerful ways for us to reprogram our genes. Our bodies will be altered on the genetic […]

Having a larger waistline may shrink your brain. Obesity is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, which is known to be associated with cognitive impairment.

An analysis by The Economist finds that over the ten years to 2010, no fewer than six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa.

Maybe the danger of digital culture to young people is not that they have hummingbird attention spans but that they are going deaf.

Treasury Secretary Geithner’s letter to Congress on the debt ceiling warns that if Washington doesn’t raise the government’s borrowing limit, the economy will face catastrophe.

Trader Anthony Grisanti claims that market consolidation and electronic trading have driven up the price of oil and taken the power out of the hands of the traditional pit trader.

British military scientists plan to develop an army of “invisible” tanks ready for use on the battlefield within five years. The tanks will use electronic camouflage.

Media and technology companies cozied up to each other at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, touting their collaborations on stage and flaunting their friendships.

Iraq finally has a new government after months of deadlock, but the cynical horsetrading has damaged the image of politics. Residents of Baghdad no longer trust their fellow citizens.

What if more modest agreements—on climate change, loose nukes, and other sweeping problems—would yield better results than a long, noble quest for a grand bargain?

The unreasoned and intemperate Web commentary on the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords is shameful and embarrassing, says the L.A. Times.