bigthinkeditor

President Obama, who has had his own problems with Vladimir Putin, does not think it would be wise to boycott the 2014 Olympics in Russia over anti-gay laws. But what do you think?

This infographic compares how much our space odysses are costing us – both on and off film.

This graphic shows the orbits of all the known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). Over 1,400 asteroids that we no about are considered hazardous because they follow orbits that pass close to the Earth’s orbit. 

Neuroscientist David Eagleman explains how your brain perceives time (retrospectively).

Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss explains the different types of nothing. Or something.

Shepard Fairey has given his “stamp of approval” to the Stamp Stampede – a campaign to stamp dollar bills with messages like “Not To Be Used For Bribing Politicians.”  

Even the White House is getting involved in YouTube’s “Geek Week,” hosting a special We the Geeks: Robots Hangout today at 2:00 pm EDT for “a conversation about the state of American robotics and the possibilities for robots to improve life on Earth.”

If you’ve been following YouTube Geek Week, you may have noticed that YouTube has been releasing one Easter egg per day this week.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent at CNN, has changed his mind about medical marijuana. 

Americans encounter incivility more than twice a day on average (2.4 times) according to a new study. 

Some researchers are concerned that current methods are not the least painful and least stressful options. 

Renowned psychologist and emotion-guru Paul Ekman describes how introducing conscious awareness to facial expressions can help one override and control their emotions.

The video below gives us a microscopic view of an event that is happening with great frequency this month: a mosquito is eating human for dinner. 

The Sun’s magnetic field will flip in three to four months, an event that will have ripple effects across the Solar System, that’s detectable by even the far-away Voyager probes at the doorstep of interstellar space.

Lee Smolin posits the idea that new universes are born from parent universes through the mechanism of black holes. 

Responding to U.S. strikes and personnel evacuations in Yemen, Big Think Waq al-Waq blogger Gregory Johnsen asks a simple question: why? 

Galileo must have developed “a new theory of optics as revolutionary as the device itself.” This theory he kept secret. 

If the Nobel committee has the guts, it has been argued, it could deliver “a smackdown to the security state.”

The NOAA visualization below depicts a giant plume of dust moving off the coast of Africa. 

Curiosity’s landing on Mars – a marvel of 21st century engineering – was in and of itself probably the rover’s greatest feat to date.

It’s the most natural thing in the world – for an American parent especially – to praise a child for her intelligence or talent, rather than for how hard she […]

As a marine biologist points out, upwards of 70% of Discoveries viewers fell for the ruse and now believe that Megalodon isn’t extinct.

The first lab-made burger has been dubbed by some the Frankenburger. It has also been dubbed the ‘Googleburger,’ since Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, funded the $330,000 experiment as a potentially transformative project for the benefit of humanity. 

As subscribers to Big Think’s YouTube channel know, we are proud participants this week in the first ever YouTube Geek Week, which is showcasing new videos, creative collaborations and all things geek through August 10. 

This time-lapse video, recorded by the Messenger spacecraft en route to Mercury, shows what it looks like to say goodbye to planet Earth. 

One Big Think editor has taken a vacation from idea-hunting (for the moment at least), and nonetheless stumbled upon a big idea, pictured above. Can you name the big idea?

The humanoid robot, named Kirobo, is scheduled to blast into space around sunrise from an island off southern Japan on board a supply ship bound for the International Space Station.

Saturn, Venus, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter will all be visible in the August night skies, as will the annual Perseid meteors. A number of nebulas will also be easy to find among the constellations.

A brain-to-brain interface between a human and a rat enables a human to control the rat’s tail simply by thinking. 

What does this picture mean to you, on the occasion of the president’s 52nd birthday?