bigthinkeditor

“For decades, TV has depicted teens as angst-ridden and rebellious, and parents as out-of-touch and unhip.” But a new generation of shows feature less-defiant teens, and cool parents.

Jim Titus, the EPA’s resident expert on sea-level rise, calculates that a three-foot rise in sea level will push back East Coast shorelines an average of 300 to 600 feet in the next 90 years.

New research indicates that New World ants, who fastidiously cultivate crops in their underground lairs for food, have updated the crops they grow over time.

“Modern eco-foodies are full of good intentions,” writes Robert Paarlberg. But “the hope that we can help others by changing our shopping and eating habits is being wildly oversold to Western consumers.”

Norman Steel and Benjamin Miller think New York’s garbage should be processed in waste-to-energy plants which produce energy, and are less polluting than landfills.

“For centuries in the past we’ve been in the center of the world.In fact, you know, ‘China’ in Chinese means ‘the middle kingdom,’ that we are in the middle of […]

When literary critics like Lionel Trilling wrote in the 1950s and ’60s, they wrote for “a readership of people who believed that your taste in literature or your taste in […]

“Maybe it’s time to admit that we may never find a way to reconcile consumers who want free entertainment with creators who want to get paid,” writes Megan McArdle.

Neil Simon “does not think against society; he thinks with it, observing and recording the sorrows and deliriums of the middle class, like a sort of swami of tsuris,” writes John Lahr.

Stanley Fish is not surprised that the Supreme Court struck down a statute criminalizing the production and sale of “crush videos” depicting animal cruelty for sexual fetishists.

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini argue that new genetic discoveries reveal a flaw in Darwin’s fundamental argument of evolution by natural selection.

Eliot Spitzer wonders whether investment banks do anything that helps America anymore—and, as such, whether these banks deserved the government bailouts they received.

The Internet hasn’t brought the global peace, love, and liberty that many believed it had promised. “A networked world is not inherently a more just world,” writes Evgeny Morozov.

Researchers have discovered that mammals may have the biochemical machinery to produce their own morphine.

Wine grapes are extraordinarily temperature-sensitive, and as global warming intensifies the “premium-wine-grape production area [in the United States] … could decline by up to 81 percent.”

Genetic scientists are discovering hundreds of genes involved in human disorders by looking at the DNA of distantly-related species.

Two new studies suggest that chimpanzees face death in human-like ways, from holding deathbed vigils to comforting the dying.

People who are motivated by rewards tend to be the ones who win at games—even when the reward has been removed.

“It’s obvious to anybody that the mind does much more than solve problems,” Yale computer scientist David Gelernter says in his Big Think interview. “But in a more fundamental way, […]

This Thursday, April 29, Big Think will be interviewing Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., a.k.a. Perez Hilton, in Los Angeles—and we’re giving you, Big Think readers, the chance to contribute questions […]

“The need for Americans to enter the arena has never been greater,” write Bob and Elizabeth Dole. They write in favor of Theodore Roosevelt’s idea of “robust citizenship.”

Researchers have discovered a deep-ocean current carrying frigid water rapidly northward from Antarctica along the edge of a giant underwater plateau. They call it a climate change “fast lane.”

A new biography of writer Irène Némirovsky, author of “Suite Française,” rejects the idea that the Jewish author, eventually killed by the Nazis, was anti-Semitic.

Hoarders have “a sense of intense responsibility for objects and an unwillingness to waste them,” says Randy Frost. They also have an ability to find beauty in things that other people might not appreciate.

Scientists have gotten a better understanding of the molecular mechanism by which humans sense temperature. The findings could lead to new therapies for acute or chronic pain.

“With all the uncertainty and anxiety these days over landing a job with a steady paycheck, more job seekers are finding it harder to resist fudging on a résumé or job application,” writes Anna Prior.

The Army is seeking proposals for a sophisticated human scent detection system that could “uniquely identify an individual,” at a geographical distance, or after several hours or even days.

Politicians and military brass warn that America’s poor diets and lack of exercise have now become a danger to homeland security. Daniel Engber says this argument is “hogwash.”

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has amassed a $12 million fortune in the past year. She is “a singular national industry,” writes Gabriel Sherman.

“Too much debt is always dangerous,” write Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. It’s dangerous when the government is borrowing from foreign governments, as well as when it does from its own citizens.