bigthink.com
Every bigthink.com story we have translated and published, newest first. · 120 stories
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You’re a Christian and a Buddhist (whether you like it or not)
I’m going to call you a Christian. I don’t care if you don’t believe in God, or read the Bible, or accept that Jesus died for your sins. I’m
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7 mind-bending comparisons between the Universe and the human body
Our observable Universe is enormous compared to a human: over 10²⁶ times as large. This horizontally-oriented logarithmic map of the Univers
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The Onion co-founder recommends 5 satires that roasted the world (for the better)
In 1599, John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard Bancroft, the Bishop of London, issued an edict that became the “most swee
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The hidden mass extinction happening inside your body
There’s a mass extinction happening inside your body. Dr. Martin Blaser is a physician and microbiologist who has spent over 30 years studyi
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Ask Ethan: Can a Kevlar tether create artificial gravity in space?
If you want to go to space for any significant duration of time, you should be prepared to suffer from a number of maladies. The zero-gravit
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Beyond religion and atheism: The secret third answer to big questions
For decades, atheists have used one move to dismantle the case for God: swap in an evil one and show that the arguments work just as well. P
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We’re wired to ask why — here’s what we’re really searching for
With frustration and fascination, I’ve come to begrudgingly accept that the questions I’m most interested in surface when I’m least equipped
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AI won’t replace biologists – it’ll just join the staff
Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Prize winner, biochemist, and CRISPR co-inventor, breaks down how AI is already reshaping experimental biology: speed
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Mercury lost its crown, and isn’t our Solar System’s hottest planet
In terms of power, the only body of note in the Solar System is the Sun. Planets, in general, reflect, absorb, and re-radiate energy emitted
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If AI becomes conscious, how would we treat it? Animals may hold a clue.
Consciousness remains the deepest puzzle in human science. Even as we begin to understand how the brain processes information, we remain as
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The enduring mystery of how a brain becomes a mind
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, best known for his discovery of calculus and ensuing mathematical feud with Isaac Newton, supported Descartes’s v
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IceCube, high-energy neutrinos, and Francis Halzen win 2026’s Physics Nobel
There’s a whole entire Universe out there, and the more we learn about it as it actually is, the greater our potential becomes to achieve gr
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Reading habits for the new literary ‘dark ages’
The 18th-century writer and polymath Samuel Johnson was seldom seen without a book. People say he read in bed and while walking. He even rea
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Pure sulfur discovered on Mars, making Martian concrete possible
If we ever hope to build a base, a city, or a full-fledged colony on another world, the first steps are to build structures that can support
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The leading theory of how life began just hit a snag
How and where life first emerged on Earth is one of the great unsolved puzzles for scientists exploring the possibility of life on other wor
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Is Olympus Mons really the Solar System’s highest mountain?
Planet Earth possesses many impressively large mountains. This map shows the number of bodies located near the summit of Mt. Everest, the hi
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Everyone in the room thinks they’re the only one struggling
The connective ritual behind my closest friendships and the best teams asks the same question: What are you working on that you need help wi
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3 social skills you should never outsource to AI
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Ask Ethan: Do evaporating black holes ever lose their event horizons?
Here in our Universe, there are few objects more awe-inspiring or mysterious than black holes. First theorized to exist back in the late 18t
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Google CTO: A unifying theory of life, intelligence, and technology
From von Neumann’s blueprint, which predated the discovery of DNA, to viral genes that now help form our memories and placentas, Blaise Agüe
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No one cares about your framework – they care about leadership problems
This article was the topic of a recent live event, hosted by the author. Watch and listen, here. A few years ago for Christmas, my dad gave
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You know history’s famous quotes — but do you understand them?
Marie Antoinette was done dirty. No, that’s not a reference to her beheading at the zealous whims of French revolutionaries. Decapitation by
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The Second Amendment has a hidden origin story
Malcolm Gladwell argues that almost everything most people believe about the Second Amendment is wrong. Guns weren’t widely owned in 18th-ce
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Quantum fields carry energy. Does that prove that they’re real?
One of the biggest questions that appears right at the intersection of physics and philosophy is as simple as it is puzzling: what is real?
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