bigthinkeditor

Did you miss the Megalobster, the youth condom, turbine-free wind power, perfect parallel parking, D.I.Y. macroeconomics, the long-life-span Smartphone or the emotional spell-check?

Drop-out rates are frighteningly high. Even those who finish, moreover, often emerge from college with staggering debts, no technical qualifications and few basic skills.

The analysis of hundreds of billions of words in Google Books brings quantitative corpus research into a new phase. Is Culturomics a new field or just a new tool, the author asks.

There can be no greater disgrace than the fact that the entire dissemination of the biggest corruption story of the year was managed by Indian citizens through the Internet.

A U.K. charity for the homeless tells people not to give money to beggars at Christmas. Thames Reach says seasonal generosity is spent on buying crack cocaine and heroin.

Vindictive, politicized, conspiratorial, reckless: one need not agree with WikiLeaks’ modus operandi to acknowledge its service to democracy and a new culture of exposure.

Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets. These phones don’t keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly.

People started getting emails notifying them where their friends were. Yeah, a little creepy. So it’s not surprising to hear that Google has quietly killed the feature.

A quirky legion of idea peddlers has quietly invented what might be a new discipline and is certainly an expanding niche and it’s based on the conclusion that we need help thinking.

We’ve tended to focus on the negative, the idea that people can bring out the worst in each other. There’s also evidence that groups can bring out the best in us.

Is being fat a bar to the highest political office? Skinny liberals beware: many Americans equate being thin with elitism.

Illegal trade in performance-enhancing drugs and anabolic steroids is booming. Investigator Andreas Holzer talks about the hidden dangers and growing use by amateurs.

Science has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010. Back in March, a group of researchers designed what is effectively the first quantam gadget.

A growing number of Europeans enjoy parallel lives, such as living in Prague and working in Paris. Known as “multiple habitats,” the phenomenon has piqued sociologists’ interest.

When dozens of Israeli ultra-Orthodox rabbis signed a formal edict prohibiting Jews from renting or selling real estate to non-Jews, the ensuing uproar was reassuring.

Unwanted gifts represent a nearly $800 million waste of money, time and resources in Australia alone. The culture of obligatory giving most benefits big retailers and banks.

It seems the lesson must be learned all over again as a group of media feminists joins the assault on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, or the “Wikiblokesphere”.

It does seem that a certain amount of corruption is needed to make human society work. The basic truths that hold society together aren’t always pleasant to hear.

Why has the military been striving to replace its cash transactions with electronic fund transfers and debit card payments in the hopes of achieving a “cashless battlefield”?

As a former senior executive in the health industry, Wendell Potter details in a new book its dirty tactics at garnering both public and presidential support.

A survey showing that the U.S. is one of the most religiously ignorant nations on earth has prompted calls for a school religious education curriculum. Should that be a job for schools?

Insiders say Facebook is set to generate $2 billion in revenues in 2010. Here’s how bloggers are explaining the company’s success.

Study of a fearless woman might lead to new therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder, but fear remains an important emotion, experts say.

NPR was possibly indelicate in its handling of the Williams affair but that’s not why GOP members latched onto the story. They saw it as a perfectly timed political opportunity.

Using Google Books, scientists have digitally scanned every page of every book ever published. The findings of the ambitious and controversial project were published in Science.

What are the implications of NASA’s recent announcement of the discovery of an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its metabolism?

Celebrities are increasingly fronting aid campaigns. But what role do they play in the development process? Is it right they gain direct access to the political bargaining table?

What are the implications of the U.S. Federal Court finding this week that Congress cannot force people to engage in a commercial activity, in this case buying an insurance policy?

In an interview that has caused a scandal in Belgium, Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever Told Spiegel why the nation has “no future.”

Most people want to have children. Societies that don’t accommodate this aspiration run the risk of losing faith in their own future and compromising their economic development.