bigthinkeditor

Submit your questions now in advance of Big Think’s interview with this controversial thinker and visionary. 

An art group that stages orgies, throws cats at cashiers and has Banksy as a fan has enraged the Russian authorities to the point of violent repression and censorship of their work.

If the opponents of deep federal cuts, starting with President Obama, are trying to decide how hard to fight, they may want to err on the side of toughness. Both logic and history make this case.

Futurist and singularitarian Ray Kurzweil has applied his “law of accelerating returns” to the field of solar power in saying that he in not concerned about a future energy crisis.

Before Watson’s Jeopardy! contest was even over, I.B.M. and Nuance, a leading maker of voice-recognition software, announced plans to put the computer to work in the health-care industry.

Many of us think of ourselves as moral persons, but in the clinch, when the opportunity arises to do good or bad, how well do our predictions match up with the actions we actually take?

Why are experts so bad at making predictions? The world is a messy place with countless intervening variables and confounding factors, which our brains are not equipped to evaluate.

A new study finds that electromagnetic radiation emitted by cellphone antenna boosts brain activity. The findings may spark new concerns about the health effects of cellphone use.

A new Harvard study recommends that educators place a stronger focus on vocational education and apprenticeships, rather than aim to send every high school student to college.

Over the years, researchers have tried to explain monogamy, but in efforts to find out how people maintain relationships, some researchers look at more subtle clues—literally.

The crowds mobbing the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison are right: Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill is indeed an attack on organized government workers. And it’s about time.

Public unions have been a 50-year mistake. The argument for public unionization wasn’t moral, economic or intellectual. It was rankly political.

Can you teach writing? Americans think you can, broadly speaking. They are happy to attempt a definition of good writing. In the UK, we are a bit more skeptical.

For members of the world community, many of whom long condoned authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, Libya presents a critical test.

Those in charge of the artificial intelligence hype delight in exciting us and frightening us with the fiction of a machine that can think. It’s great theater, but that’s all it is.

Could your blood group determine your risk of major cancers, infertility and stomach ulcers, as well as diseases such as cholera and malaria? Increasingly, research says yes.

There is something more powerful than economic self-interest, hatred of Wall Street kingpins, Republican trickery, or even liberal self-congratulation. And that something is condescension.

Facebook is increasingly being used in courts to decide who is — and who isn’t — suitable to serve on a jury, the latest way in which social-networking is altering the court system.rn

Businesses will learn harsh but valuable truths if they subject new ideas to controlled experiments, says Microsoft’s Ronny Kohavi.

The seeds of criminal and anti-social behaviour can be found in children as young as three, scientists say. But can we help keep them on the straight and narrow?

While a deeply flawed insurgent force in many ways, the Taliban is a uniquely 21st-century threat. And just like their allies in al Qaeda, this new Taliban is more network than army.

One in three Americans are diagnosed at some point in their lifetime with cancer, a derangement of normal cell growth in which cells grow in antisocial ways, crossing natural tissue boundaries. 

We’re fascinated by machines that can imitate humans, but also feel an existential discomfort around them. Today, the primal distinction between man and technology is blurrier than ever.

Ink-jet printing technology has inspired scientists to look for ways to build sheets of skin that could one day be used for grafts in burn victims, experts said Sunday.

It may be boring for parents—but reading the same book over and over again to children is the best way to develop their vocabulary, say researchers at Sussex University.

How much more crowded is our planet going to get? Will we keep on expanding indefinitely, or are we approaching the upper limit? Can the planet sustain ten billion people?

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron wants private companies, voluntary groups and charities to be given the right to run schools, hospitals and vast swathes of public services.

Loss-making Twitter has been valued at $10 billion. Facebook is said to be worth more than Ford. Now, for some investors, the alarm bells are starting to ring.

Unfortunately, there is no feasible way, certainly not in the United States, to go from the present world to a world without guns, says Nobel Laureate Gary Becker.

Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance: It doesn’t bring out the best in men.