bigthinkeditor

Close to 90 percent of U.S. households still subscribe to pay TV in one form or another but 2011 may be the year of “cord cutting” and the end of cable television.

Once a company has 500 shareholders, it must register its private shares with the S.E.C. and publicly disclose its financial results. Is Facebook approaching the limit?

Multiculturalist thinkers frequently dismiss liberal moral principles such as freedom and tolerance as illusions, or as not being good enough, says Frank Furedi.

Can the leak phenonomen WikiLeaks sustain the continued assault by the corporate sector to prevail in the first ever cyber-war? Mark LeVine says capital will likely win out.

Google will use satellites to scour Sudan for evidence of state-organised violence before next month’s referendum that could see the country split in two.

The America Competes Act, passed by Congress shortly before Christmas, calls for $46 billion in science and technology research funding over the next three years.

Genetically modified plants could sequester more carbon and make better biofuels, possibly offsetting five billion tons by 2050. So what’s standing in their way?

A British study shows conservatives’ brains tend to have larger amygdalas, which are responsible for more primitive emotions such as fear.

Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, and his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, apparently cannot agree on which of them will be running for the Russian presidency in March 2012.

The now-prevalent pattern of flag-rank military officers going to work for defense contractors as soon as they retire is a form of corruption, says James Fallows at The Atlantic.

The U.S.’s failure under Barack Obama to impose peace between Israel and the Palestinians makes a new war likely, says Le Monde’s Alain Gresh.

Harvard scientist Jeff Lichtman wants to build a full map of the mind by carving off slivers of a mouse brain and passing the portions through a powerful electron microscope.

The Valkyrie, slated to become the world’s first nuclear powered bomber, was a plane decades ahead of its time, pushing aeronautical engineering beyond what had been thought possible.

The Economist has invited four career economists to predict what changes will take place in the global economy during the following year. Deficit reduction is one possibility.

What is wrong with Broadway? A record number of shows are closing, with producers millions in the hole. The answer is: nothing we didn’t already know.

Maybe age really is just a number. How young or old someone feels has a huge influence on their health and how other people view them—if you feel young, you are young.

The quintessentially British tradition of taking a year off between high school and university is becoming popular in the U.S. where teens seek to broaden their horizons.

Recycling doesn’t come for free. It costs millions to pickup, sort and process all those plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard pizza boxes we discard.

As the year draws to a close, it’s time again to take a look back at some videos that really struck a chord with our audience this year.  A glance […]

The World Wide Web turned 20 this month.  To mark the occasion, its creator and protector, Tim Berners-Lee (who invented it so that particle physicists from CERN—the current home of […]

People who watch funny videos on the Internet may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science—putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively.

What would it look like if all the conservatives formed a “utopia” in Texas, say, and broke away from the United States? Social safety nets would be the first thing to go, says Marc Adler.

Despite what optimists within the White House may believe, the odds are not good that Obama will repeat 1996, when Bill Clinton made a startling political comeback.

An Australian-based firm’s $3.9 billion bid for a coal mine in Mozambique says much about its ambitions and the battle that giant mining firms will face in securing Africa’s resources.

In the next five years, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the United States will have to spend more than one trillion dollars simply to sustain what we already have.

A clothing company has begun marketing a pair of cargo pants with solar panels sewn into its pockets. The panels are designed to charge personal electronic devices.

How can the government regulate the neutrality of the Internet? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Stephan Kinsella says government regulation of the Internet will stifle business.

The idea of a ‘space elevator’ has been around since the late 1800s. Until now, there wasn’t a material strong enough to build it. Then carbon nanotubes stepped in.

A new law overhauls the way the federal government supports private-sector R&D, and one of the main ways the government hopes to support R&D is with prizes. Lots of prizes.

Couples who avoid sex before marriage end up having happier, more stable relationships and a better time in bed, according to psychologists. Should sex wait until one’s wedding night?