bigthinkeditor

Children’s author Roald Dahl was a socialite, fighter pilot, and spy for the British government after World War II. A new biography details the unassuming author’s foreign conquests.

A new meta-analysis shows a large majority of subjects for psychology experiments have been U.S. undergraduates, a population from which one should be wary of making generalized conclusions.

“Telekinesis. Harnessing the mind to control your surroundings. It is the stuff of fantasy. Now, that fantasy is crystallizing into reality.” The L.A. Times on consumer products that read your mind.

“That the Great Recession could bring hope for a major recalibration—a resetting of all the clocks—is not surprising. Unfortunately, though, it’s not happening in any meaningful way.”

“Society has clearly benefited from the invention of caffeine, so why shouldn’t we also put a touch of amphetamine in the water?” The Frontal Cortex ponders human enhancement.

As Moscow is afflicted by heat waves and smoke from neighboring forest fires, Russians are sometimes at a loss. The countries cultural wisdom turns on surviving the cold (with vodka), not the heat.

Crops with genetic modifications are cross-pollinating in unintended ways across North Dakota. The pesticide, herbicide and drought resistant strains are proving difficult to control.

“Utah may offer a better model than Arizona for dealing with illegal immigrants.” In the wake of a federal challenge to Arizona’s newest immigration law, Utah is looking for middle ground.

“The loudest and most important lesson of the Soviet experience should always be: don’t ever do this again. Children, don’t try this at home.” A new book chronicles the failed experiment.

“Government is certainly growing in the U.S., but that hardly makes us a social democracy.” William Galston of the Brookings Institution distinguishes between social insurance and social democracy.

“Odd as it may seem, the first generation that cannot imagine life without the Internet doesn’t actually consider the medium particularly important, and indeed shuns some of the latest web technologies.”

“One of the main developments in recent American literature has got to be a newly self-conscious traditionalism.” A report on this decade’s fiction finds a rebirth of classical values.

“The FCC has halted discussions amid reports spread that Google and Verizon will propose their own, less regulatory framework for Net neutrality.” The L.A. Times says the FCC must act now.

“When life is being led in public, every word and gesture is open to criticism.” A new book explains how social media recall the dating games of Jane Austin’s provincial England.

Harvard psychologist Gene Heyman says what while people may have predispositions to addiction, evidence shows people consciously choose to break their addictive habits (or not).

MIT scientists have found string theory useful in explaining the behavior of superconductors; applying that theory to other phenomena could move physics in a positive direction.

David Mamet’s new book ‘Theatre’ confirms the playwright’s exeunt from ‘brain-dead liberalism’, a move to the right which he originally announced in the Village Voice.

“We assume that more rational analysis leads to better choices but, in many instances, that assumption is exactly backwards.” Being too analytic confuses our value judgments, say new research.

“Offering a cash prize to encourage innovation is all the rage. Sometimes it works rather well.” The Economist says patrons are offering big prizes like the Ansari X to motivate inventors.

“A car that runs on methane gas produced by human waste has been launched and its makers claim drivers cannot tell the difference.” The Telegraph reports on an alternative to electric vehicles.

There is much more to the stock-market than meets the eye: highly complex and sometimes secretive trading methods, known as “dark pools”, manipulate the market in power’s favor.

Google’s engineers, who necessarily see individuals as conduits of electronic information, are ill-equipped to design privacy regulations—the company should hire anthropologists.

Covering U.S. highways with solar panels would provide enough electricity to power the entire nation, says an Idaho engineer charged by the government to develop self-sustaining roads.

Photographic artist Edward Burtynsky, who is particularly known for his sweeping images of desolate industrial landscapes and their implications for the ruin of the natural world, recognizes that there is […]

“My violin is one of my voices,” says concert violinist and humanitarian Midori Goto. In her Big Think interview, Midori talks about her very personal connection with her 1734 Guarnerius del […]

Christopher Hitchens describes his treatment for cancer of the esophagus as travelling to a disorientating new land that is ironically comforting, though he is now bored by his fate.

Researchers at Harvard and MIT are working to create real-life Transformers: robots that can change their shape depending on the electronic commands they receive.

The Senate’s effectiveness is plagued by antiquated rules, fundraising pressures, ideological aides and an omnipresent media. The New Yorker says a once-great body is crumbling.

While defining spirituality is ‘like shoveling fog’, an increasing number of Americans self identify as spiritual but not religious. One political scientist sees it as an outgrowth of the 1960s.

“Is the international scholarly pecking order about to be overturned?” America’s dominance in higher education is being put into question by emerging institutions overseas.