bigthinkeditor

If you wish to achieve Beatle-level success in your field, you must first learn to think like a Beatle, say two authors who have analyzed the band’s business strategies over the years.

“More competition means lower prices. Lower prices mean better access.” The Economist sees a clear horizon for private space missions following the launch of Space X’s Dragon capsule.

As we come to understand more about our subconscious and often irrational decision making processes, one social scientist has isolated cleanliness as a determining factor in how we act.

A Columbia Business School professor says organizations could be more productive if they understood these clever ways employees avoid work. Read more at Forbes.

Geoengineering may sound like a bad action movie plot, but now scientists from the U.K. have published the first comprehensive assessment of this controversial climate change solution.

China is now Africa’s second largest trade partner—with business worth over $100 billion a year, and growing. It is relying on the continent’s natural resources to fuel its growth.

China’s drive to be the world’s biggest economy will come hand in hand with its increased naval presence around the world.

As heartbreaking as the job losses and foreclosures are, there is also a bright side to the downward economy — Americans are beginning to see that “less is more.”

The political fetishisation of sending offenders to prison for longer periods has been a disaster in the U.K., The Independent says. “We have ended up warehousing petty criminals.”

When it comes to changing long-standing habits, such as cigarette smoking, why not make changing old, unproductive behaviors as easy and pain-free as possible?

Seth Godin on why he’s launching a new publishing venture called The Domino Project. “I think it fundamentally changes many of the rules of publishing trade non-fiction.”

Microsoft has revealed a new feature that will ship with Internet Explorer 9 to help users avoid the online tracking that is now widespread on the Web.

Non-human animals are a lot smarter, and less “reflexive” or “instinct-based” than most people think. And maybe we humans are a bit more reflexive than we’d like to believe.

What is it like to suffer face blindness, where you can’t recognize faces, even ones you’ve seen before and know well? Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks explains his experience.

McVictimization teaches Americans to think that obesity is someone else’s fault. The truth: In the vast majority of cases, obesity is a preventable condition.

After two years of Obama’s foreign policy pragmatism toward Latin America, are Republicans in Congress threatening to turn back the clock to Cold War times?

Assange will presumably get Time magazine’s Person of the Year nod. Hitler and Stalin are past winners. It will be left for us to decide whether to file Assange under good or evil.

New research indicates that the disease starts in one area and spreads all over the brain. Could these findings inform efforts to develop a vaccine?

Anyone who wishes to think well and feel well about the world should seek a way of thinking that is more capacious than Aristotle’s principle of non-contradiction, says Patrick Miller.

Increased scrutiny over investment banking deals may be creating more headaches than they are worth ultimately leading to separation between commercial and investment banking.

People born in winter months are at greater risk of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia. We’re now starting to understand the reasons behind this phenomenon.

The rich may seem to have it all, but the upper classes are not as good as the lower classes at reading the emotions of others, perhaps because the poor rely more on others to survive.

Studies show that when a decision’s outcome is uncertain, people act more risk averse than the situation truly merits. This could spell trouble for our uncertain economic times.

Many people want to make it clear that they are deeply, deeply concerned about the world’s problems, so a growing number of goods are designed to convey this message.

Currently a Boeing 747 gets 0.2 miles per gallon; a more aerodynamic plane would reduce drag as it cruises through the air and increase lift, which translates to better fuel economy.

With WikiLeaks’ next release targeting Bank of America, traders fear a subprime lending scandal will be exposed. The Daily Beast talks with someone who has read the leaked files.

Many in China and elsewhere believe the U.S. economy is too sick to be cured. Nobel Laureate Gary Becker disagrees but says recovery requires some unpalatable medicine.

In recent studies, subjects who were first shown comedy film clips were able to solve more puzzles faster than those who had been shown tragic or boring clips.

Having spent over seven years as a member of the cast of the NBC sitcom “The Office,” Rainn Wilson is known almost universally for his role as egomaniac Dwight Schrute. […]