bigthinkeditor

The three most important questions for a nationwide broadband network are: What should the speed be? What will it cost? And how will we pay for it? Craig Settles gives some answers.

Investors’ giddiness over the tech upstarts—and the dozens of other Chinese companies that have gone public in the U.S.—has some wondering whether this boom is really a bubble.

How can we trust a literary guide who, ignorant of the terrain ahead, promises us it will be light and easy? Hillary Kelly objects to Oprah’s positivity charged book club.

Our cosmos was “bruised” in collisions with other universes. Now astronomers have found the first evidence of these impacts in the cosmic microwave background.

The amiable idea that language shapes thought has become disconnected, in our popular culture, from any consideration of mere fact, says Mark Liberman of the U of Pennsylvania.

Can modern science help us to create heroes? That’s the lofty question behind the Heroic Imagination Project, a new nonprofit started by Stanford psychologist Phil Zimbardo.

Innovation is built into the American way of life, says former President Jimmy Carter. “Quite often, the people who do leave their own nation and come to an unknown destination, […]

What did the American Revolution look like? Nathaniel Hawthorne imagined it as an angry face, painted so as to appear divided in two, perhaps caught between principle and pragmatism.

Ices stripped off a long-lost moon may have provided the raw materials for Saturn’s rings and inner satellites before the Titan-twin slammed into its mother planet, new research shows.

The U.S. is anxious to broaden its influence in Central Asia—and limit that of Russia. The result, however, are questionable alliances with some of the strangest despots in the world.

If we continue on our current path of unbridled consumerism and environmental destruction, the most likely future scenario is one in which the quality of human lives is relatively low.

Gone are the days when classical artists could offer performances of Mozart and simply expect people to show up. Orchestras and presenters must be more entrepreneurial, more risk-ready.

There are plenty of places on Earth that seem alien to us. The deep sea is a perfect example: it’s been said that we know more about Mars than we do about the bottom of the ocean.

Exploring open relationships can change our assumptions about intimacy and empowerment, and give excitement to a world otherwise determined by the limits of the present culture.

For thousands of years aspirin has been humanity’s wonder drug. Taking it for five to ten years easily beats initiatives to screen for breast and prostate cancers, says The Economist.

Are iPhones and Blackberries becoming extensions of our thinking selves? Andy Clark says they are a kind of cognitive prosthetic that fits the niche of our biological brains.

Whatever one’s views on the initial case for making drugs illegal, the cost has been tremendous, and in many aspects unanticipated, says Nobel Laureate Gary Becker.

The 21st century belongs to China. As the societies of Europe and the United States plateau, developing countries in Asia and South America are racing forward at an unprecedented pace—with […]

Many will agree that the supposed diplomatic triumph at the Cancun climate talks offered little tangible progress to further reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The famously reclusive Apollo 11 commander breaks his silence to answer the burning question why his team didn’t cover more ground during its moon landing.

Most Americans don’t have a rainy day fund and haven’t saved enough for retirement. How can we prevent future generations from making the same mistakes? Teach kids about money.

Much of the history of the city can be written as a tension between the visible and the invisible. What and who gets seen? By whom? Who interprets the city’s meaning?

Twombly, now 82, is the great survivor of the heroic age of American painting, the generation of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Jackson Pollock, who upended contemporary art.

After the Big Bang theory was challenged by British cosmologist Robert Penrose, three new papers are pushing back, saying there is no evidence of time before the Big Bang.

Where does sad music get its sadness from? A widely accepted notion is that the interval of a minor third—two pitches separated by one full tone and one semi-tone—conveys sadness.

New York’s art world is the subject of Steve Martin’s third novel, filtered through the eyes of an ambitious young woman. For Martin, the new book comes with greater confidence.

Some economists have suggested adjusting the supply-and-demand problem through market incentives. Instead of asking people to donate their organs, why not just pay for them?

The different reactions from Internet firms to the WikiLeaks publications reveal a dilemma. Many citizens regard the Internet as a public space, but in fact it is a private sphere.

Liberals and conservatives have different ways of looking at other people—literally. Scientists say that conservatives tend to ignore what other people look at.

Some historians have regarded Eisenhower’s Farewell Address as an afterthought. Others have regarded it as the soulful expression of a prescient if aging President.