bigthink.com
Every bigthink.com story we have translated and published, newest first. · 120 stories
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Francis Fukuyama on why we’re better than our ancestors
In 1675, Madame de Sévigné wrote a letter to her daughter about a musician “broken on the wheel.” This meant being strapped to an X-shaped c
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Optimism isn’t all about perspective — it requires daily practice
The email arrived after midnight. Mark stared at the single sentence on his screen while the house slept: If you don’t show progress in the
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Psychedelics have brought mysticism into modern medicine. Researchers are listening.
Millions of Americans now use psychedelics, as mounting evidence suggests that substances like psilocybin, ketamine and ayahuasca may help a
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The director of Donnie Darko on why the film is so misunderstood
Donnie Darko turns 25 this year — and heads back to theaters on October 2nd. To mark it, director Richard Kelly sits down with Big Think’s E
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AI makes its first meaningful breakthrough in theoretical physics
One of the greatest challenges — and perhaps the most important challenge of all — for any theoretical physicist is to connect something you
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Writing down ideas forces your brain to discover what you really think
In an environmental ethics class, I had to write a short essay, 800 to maybe 1,000 words, every week. You had to lay out an argument for “wh
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The 12th-century military disaster that forever changed global finance
The birth of the bond market started with a ruthless multinational raid that sent shock waves through the Mediterranean. On the morning of M
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How to restore your online sanity, one random webcam at a time
A special kind of vertigo kicks in when you start clicking the camera icons scattered across the world map at World Watcher Live. Each one d
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The part of CRISPR that keeps scientists up at night
Jennifer Doudna, biochemist and CRISPR co-inventor, walks through the technology’s biggest ethical flashpoints: the 2018 announcement of the
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A revolution has come in the first of the Big Bang’s 4 cornerstones
There’s a huge problem with our attempts to uncover the origins of the Universe: we only see our Universe as it is today, 13.8 billion years
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How to find the Goldilocks zone of curiosity
I was in a coffee shop recently when I noticed a half-finished puzzle on a table by the counter. I was in a rush, but I couldn’t resist: I s
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18 pictures show how profoundly large our cosmos is
Cosmically, humanity is a mere drop in the Universe’s vast ocean. This image, taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Karen
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Scratching the surface: A field guide to 100 essential novels
If you’re not a member, then probably someone you know or love is: that shrinking, but still substantial guild of book-balancers who build t
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The secret to reading more classics? Don’t treat them like homework.
I have never read Crime and Punishment (1867). I’ve been meaning to for years and thought my moment had come last winter, after a weekend sp
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Your Brain on Books
What’s happening in your brain and body while you’re lost in a great book? Is reading print fundamentally different from reading on a screen
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Ask Ethan: If intelligent alien life exists, will we make contact?
For countless generations, humanity has gazed at the stars, planets, and great canopy of the Milky Way in the night sky, wondering who else
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The philosophy of liberalism and how it has transformed our institutions
Jonathan Rauch, author and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, dives into the philosophy of liberalism, how it has created and trans
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America is too big for the Great American Novel
Map fans and book lovers: Now that’s a Venn diagram with a big overlap. Why? “Because, like books, maps contain stories. When you’re reading
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“Donnie Darko” offers a time travel lesson you won’t find elsewhere
In film, there are many ways to tell a story that involves time travel. Some movies, such as the Terminator franchise, simply include the ph
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The “Shmoogle Scenario,” and why denial is a fatal threat to your company
In most organizations, preparing for disruption when everything is working smoothly almost never happens. Enjoying success, complacent CEOs
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25 years later, “Donnie Darko” is finally getting a sequel
By all accounts, Donnie Darko shouldn’t exist. The film, which turns 25 years old this year, ran into numerous obstacles both before and dur
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The Higgs boson’s most important puzzle remains unsolved
In some ways, the deepest question one can ask about our physical reality is simply, “What is the Universe made of?” In the early 1800s, we
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What genome editing tech has done for the world, so far
Fourteen years after co-inventing CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna checks in on what it’s become. The Nobel Prize-winning biochemist walks through th
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This discovery is why Einstein was history’s greatest physicist
Although many people struggle to name even one living scientist, practically everyone around the world knows who Einstein was. Perhaps the m
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