culture
The truth may be out there — but it’s not in these close encounters of the third kind.
NuqneH! Saluton! A linguistic anthropologist (and creator of the Kryptonian language, among others) studies the people who invent new tongues.
The secret sauce of humor is incongruity. AI knows this as well as we do.
The Trojan War was fought in Finland and Ulysses sailed home to Denmark, says one controversial theory.
After listening to the same playlist, people from the United Kingdom, the United States, and China reported feeling nearly identical bodily sensations.
Some of the world’s most satisfied societies are poor, small, and remote.
Big Think spoke with animator and animation historian Tom Sito about the cyclical evolution of animation.
Do grim sci-fi scenarios crush our hopes for real-world growth? Author Michael Harris looks elsewhere to unblock the road to a better future.
The Uros of Lake Titicaca live on floating islands made from reeds. How did they get there?
In “Dear Oliver,” neuroscientist Susan Barry describes how her 10-year correspondence with Oliver Sacks unleashed her inner author.
Big Think columnist Adam Frank makes the case for why the 2023 video game Alan Wake 2 is a boundary-pushing piece of art.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a man of many faces. European historian Michael Broers explains which are featured on the silver screen and why.
Fantasy, meet statistics: The census comes to Middle-earth!
A basement renovation project led to the archaeological discovery of a lifetime: the Derinkuyu Underground City, which housed 20,000 people.
Meet the people paid to rouse the workers of industrial Britain.
A sober look at a wild conspiracy theory that argues the Middle Ages never happened.
With great power comes retcon responsibility.
The Parthenon embodies the ideals of perfection Classical Greeks sought from architecture. The neighboring Erechtheion offers something else.
Today, the F-word is enjoying a renaissance the likes of which it hasn’t seen since, well, the Renaissance.
The volcano’s historic eruption preserved an ancient library, but rendered its content illegible. A public competition aims to change that.
Arieh Smith, a New York City-based polyglot who runs the YouTube channel Xiaomanyc, talks language-learning with Big Think.
How much do citizens really value free elections?
The tonal Native American language differentiates words based on pitch and makes Spanish conjugation look like child’s play.
Pugs are funny and cute, but that is because we have bred them intentionally to have debilitating genetic mutations. Is that ethical?
You’ve certainly seen the paintings — but they don’t depict what you think they do. Benjamin Moser discusses with Big Think.
A single knife is sometimes worth more than a thousand armies.
Exile is a kind of death of who you once were.
To see a true cross-section of American society, head to Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, IHOP, Chili’s, and Olive Garden.
After my father died, my journey of rediscovery began with the Czech language.