bigthinkeditor

1. Is the Purpose of Life to Make Babies? Why are we here? To fullfil some grand purpose or merely to perpetuate our genes? Is the act of helping to ensure […]

1. Extreme Weather is the New Normal Happy Spring! That means it’s time to expect winter storms. That’s the new normal, according to National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini. “We have observed […]

Higgs is Confirmed After a Higgs-like particle was detected last summer by CERN scientists, that particle has now been confirmed to be the real deal. Read more here.  Sex in […]

How can the United States collectively face rising health care costs, a broken healthcare system, and public health epidemics such as obesity and diabetes? Three top medical innovators offer solutions. 

1. Every Big Idea Was First A Crazy Idea Fred Guterl, executive editor of Scientific American, does a nice job of highlighting some of the crazy ideas presented at this year’s TED […]

1. Are Intelligent Machines a Threat to ‘Human Exceptionalism’? “Is it time to take seriously the prospect of artificial intelligence emulating human abilities?” Yes, says Ray Kurzweil in his book How to Create a […]

1. “First the pope and now Andrew Mason!?!”  Andrew Mason continued the popular Silicon Valley “I’ve just been fired” meme with a blunt note to employees at Groupon: “After four and a […]

David Gergen, Lisa New and Chris Matthews weigh in on the question of America’s Exceptionalism.

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover. Big Data Predicts the Oscars. These are among the brainiest memes included in today’s Mind Memes.   

Big Think and TEDMED, the TED licensee for health and medicine, are collaborating on an upcoming series on how you can apply emerging ideas in health and science to your own life.

Google Glass. Life Extension. Life Extinction. These are among the brainiest memes included in the inaugural post of our new blog, Mind Memes, which offers quick reads on the Internet […]

What can math be used for? Here’s a wise answer: two basic forms of geometry are used in almost every engineering project and every physics discovery that has ever been made.

Every year since 1967, the world’s technology companies gather at the International Consumer Electronics Show to exhibit the latest flashy products they’ve been working on. For the tech nuts who […]

 

Making a rare appearance on the balcony of Ecuador’s London embassy where he has spent the last six months, Julian Assange lashed out against “war criminals,” a corrupt media and […]

We’re very fortunate at Big Think to have so many great thinkers and writers in our midst, and the woman of the moment right now is Maria Konnikova, author of […]

The killing of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut has shocked a nation that had become numb to violence. Is it even possible to make sense of such a horrendous crime? Michael Stone, […]

How confident are scientists that world won’t end on December 21? Here’s a Neil deGrasse Tyson tweet from several weeks ago: Tyson is not alone. NASA scientists are also so […]

In a recent post, Victor Cha, the former director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, warned of the dangers of viewing North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un in caricature. Kim […]

In our increasingly overloaded lives today we need shortcuts, or rules of thumb, to guide our decision-making. 

Quote of the day: “We have art in order not to die of the truth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche Today’s Big Ideas: The National Intelligence Council’s New Report, by Ali Wyne […]

Dartmouth professor Marcelo Gleiser tackles the headache-inducing question of whether we can arrive at the end of knowledge. 

“My daughter and I just finished reading Life of Pi together,” President Obama wrote to the novelist Yann Marteltwo years ago. “It is a lovely book,” the President continued, “an elegant proof of […]

Psychologist Kevin Dutton presents the classic psychological test known as “the trolley problem” with a variation. Take the test and measure you response on the psychopathic spectrum.

Big Think’s online course, “Great big Ideas,” was produced in partnership with The Jack Parker Corporation.

Just before leaving office in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a farewell message in which he warned of “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the […]

On a finance panel at The Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas held on Nantucket, Massachusetts in October, Larry Summers tackled the question of whether teutonic monetary virtue or monetary […]

At The Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas held on Nantucket, Massachusetts in October, a panel comprised of finance heavyweights debated the big issues facing the economy, most notably the […]

Grover Norquist stands to be a major player in the debate over how to face the upcoming fiscal cliff.