Energy is a fundamental necessity for life, let alone a vigorous society or civilization. This fact has been recognized by humans for a very long time — Sun, Wind, Fire and Water (in the form of rivers and waterfalls and rain), worshipped by most cultures, are manifestations of energy in one...

To those of us who experienced its genesis, the Internet seemed at first to exist apart from an unfortunate status quo; a brave new blueprint for a thriving peer-to-peer society that spurns corporate branding and advertising culture in lieu of actual, genuine human connections. But Isaac...

People are often unaware of their own ‘headline thinking’ and have not yet developed the ability to see past it The language one uses both indicates and influences the way one thinks. Without at least recognizing one’s own tendency to engage in ‘headline thinking’ — and...

The idea of being a parent should be thought through more carefully. When we assess the idea, it is clear that, given the current conditions of the world, there is no reason to create more children   I proposed this argument in 2010 and received vitriolic replies, which brought more heat...

Eastern Europe isn’t known as a mecca for healthy living. Those who haven’t visited Eastern Europe might still imagine that it’s filled with smoking teenagers and obese babushkas. Although that still exists, Eastern Europeans have some healthy practices that we could all learn from. For...

It started when I was a child and has never stopped since then: the desire to know things and to question. I am in no sense a gifted person; this desire exists in every child in the world. But what stops many from following their natural curiosity is forceful indoctrination from their parents...

Scientists have used a laser to create magnetic fields similar to those thought to be involved in the formation of the first galaxies; findings that could help to solve the riddle of how the Universe got its magnetism. Magnetic fields exist throughout galactic and intergalactic space, what is...

Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being...

How do scientists reconstruct the climate of the past? They often turn to ice cores or growth rings from trees or deep-sea corals. But a new study gleans a wealth of weather intel from a largely untapped source: old documents. Researchers from Spain scoured manuscripts from 9th- and...

Ceaseless Reinvention Leads To Overlapping Solutions   David M. Eagleman, a Neuroscientist, Baylor College of Medicine; Author, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the… For centuries, neuroscience attempted to neatly assign labels to the various parts of the brain: this is the area for...

We don’t just respond to things as we see, feel, or hear them. Even our most seemingly simple pleasures are affected by our beliefs about hidden essences and the origins of a person or object   Why are we so concerned with the origins of objects? Why do we respond so much to our...

People usually have no clue about what curation really is or how it could be applied to the real-time world   So, over the past few months I’ve been talking to tons of entrepreneurs about the tools that curators actually need and I’ve identified seven things. First, who does curation?...

Curators: not just for museums anymore? “The promise of the Internet-as-Alexandria is more than the rolling plenitude of information. It’s the ability of individuals to choreograph that information in idiosyncratic ways, the hope that individuals might feel invited by the gravitational...

Researchers probe the neuroscience of creativity, seeing fMRI evidence that our notion of the “divided brain” is indeed mistaken   Painters, designers, architects and other creative individuals are typically thought of as “right-brained.” But a new study from the University of...

Placebo treatments can be effective in treating some conditions by the “self-healing” capabilities of the brain   There’s good evidence showing expectations to get better have significant effects on how patients suffering a variety of ailments feel. This is called the placebo effect...

In his new book, Vijay Vaitheeswaran argues that we’re thinking about worldchanging innovation all wrong: It’s not going to come from where we expect it. Bottom-Up Solutions To Top-Down Problems => Deductive Reasoning to Solve How We Perceive the World   The world is currently...

A familiar scent triggers childhood memories for our brain columnist, prompting him to wonder what is going on in his head   The toy cupboard at my grandmother’s house had a particular smell. I cannot tell you what it was, but sometimes now, as an adult, I will catch a whiff of it....

In one experiment, just telling a man he would be observed by a female was enough to hurt his psychological performance   Movies and television shows are full of scenes where a man tries unsuccessfully to interact with a pretty woman. In many cases, the potential suitor ends up acting...

The human mind has been long concerned about the existence of other parallel worlds. While many people still consider it nothing more than a weird scientific fantasy, a certain number of scientists nowadays not only are ready to take this hypothesis seriously but also find evidence in favour...

Margaret Moore is the founder and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital. Paul Hammerness, MD, is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Together, they hope to get at the physical and psychological roots of chaos. In a recent interview, Moore told Big Think...

“Do you think we should get our brains scanned before getting married?”   It’s not an outrageous question.  It’s the kind of questions that will help us to learn more about how our minds act in the world, while still keeping the world in mind. Technology and science have now...

To be a writer is, in effect, to be an editor as well. This is true whether you are the sort of writer who throws on the page everything that runs through your mind and later carves it into shape, or the sort that fashions and perfects every sentence before moving on to the next. It does not...

What clues to the way we live today will archaeologists unearth in the millennia to come? What will endure, and what will fade away?   When humans in the far future are piecing together a picture of the primitive civilisation of 2012, archaeology will surely be the best way to go about...

Location Tägermoos between Steckborn and Hörhausen. The crop circle in this photo is already 15 days old. For visitors the owner made additional paths which disfigure the image somewhat. The shape is just simple, but more than a few circles. It reminds of the double helix of DNA. Aerial shot...

Jonah Lehrer, in his book Proust Was a Neuroscientist, tells the story of how a handful of iconic creators each discovered an essential truth about the mind long before modern science was able to label and pinpoint it, makes a case for the extraordinary importance of the cross-pollination of...

If climate change continues along the business-as-usual path, the 24th century’s new world will be in some ways more like the world of Ancient Greece – with what’s left of the world’s inhabitants trading around a single sea. For the Ancient Greeks, it was the Mediterranean Sea. For...

New research reveals more clues as to why our ginger brethren seem, well, just a little bit different. Specifically, redheads appear to feel pain differently. While redheads are more sensitive to the cold, they appear to have a higher pain threshold than the rest of us. A recent study showed...

The more optimistic we are about the future of our species the better we can focus on today’s challenges In the 21st century, it can feel as if the future has already arrived. But we’re only getting started. It’s fashionable to be pessimistic about our prospects, yet our...

On the emotional scaffolding of the self, or how the dynamics of temperament fluctuate with social context   What does it mean to be human? Centuries worth of scientific thought, artistic tradition and spiritual practice have attempted to answer this most fundamental question about our...

Stopping the internet isn’t impossible, but it’s unlikely any time soon   In a statement posted online last month, hacker collective Anonymous announced plans to shut down the internet. Yes, you read that right. Operation Global Blackout, planned for March 31, is apparently a protest...

IN A CULTURE that favors sensation, the fact checker is an anomaly, perhaps even anathema. He is the brakes on editors and writers racing toward deadline intent on dazzling readers at the expense of edifying them. He is the schoolmarm tsk tsking. He is the public defender for the...