How the TikTok case pits national security against freedom of speech

The same day that President Joe Biden signed a new federal law designed to ban the popular social media platform TikTok from use in the United States, TikToK CEO Shou Zi Chew took to the platform with words of defiance. “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” he declared. “The … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

The race to be the tallest building in the world

As 1930 approached, New York City seemed flush with money, construction sites, and excitement—despite the recent stock market crash. The Woolworth Building, a Gothic Revival skyscraper designed to celebrate the success of Woolworth “Five-and-Dime” stores, had stood as the tallest … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Boosted Breeding and beyond: 3 tech trends that could end world hunger

This article is an installment of Future Explored, Freethink’s weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Saturday morning by subscribing here. It’s 2050. The global population has increased to nearly 10 billion, and … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Everyday Philosophy: Thanos and an economist debate overpopulation

I’ve always wondering if we controlled by an unknown force, not discovered or recognized, that prevents overpopulation of the earth and performs this feat by causing us to war with each other? – Alexander Kelly, California, USA One of the most common motifs in mythology is the ep … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How ancient Greek speaking skills can supercharge your presentations

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that modern ways of doing things are always better. But some of the tools we take for granted these days have made us lazy. Take presentations, for instance. The ancient Greeks didn’t have slides, clickers, and bullet points to help the … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

She studied extreme psychopaths. Here’s what it taught her about human nature

Abigail Marsh, a psychology and neuroscience professor at Georgetown University, explains how the world is impacted by those with psychopathy, and, additionally, those who practice extreme altruism. Psychopathy, she says, is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting a small percent … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Ask Ethan: Could gravitational waves collapse into a black hole?

Back when Einstein’s general relativity first came out, there was a fascinating consequence that was recognized almost immediately: that masses didn’t just move through curved space, but as they did so, they would be compelled to emit gravitational radiation. Orbits between gravi … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

CERN experiment helps narrow the hunt for dark matter

Over the past half-century, astronomers have faced an embarrassing problem: Galaxies rotate too fast. When astronomers measure the speed of stars on the outskirts of galaxies, they are much higher than expected. It’s as if a cloud of invisible matter surrounds nearly every galaxy … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How sleep deprivation helps some animals outperform the competition

Antechinus, a mouse-like marsupial found in Australia, is a rarity among mammals. At the end of each mating season, the males all die at once. This fate means they only get to breed once in their lifetimes, while the females may survive a couple of additional mating seasons. Natu … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

3 key takeaways from ATD 2024

This year, the Association for Talent Development’s International Conference & EXPO (ATD24) encouraged its 9,000-plus participants to “Recharge Your Soul.” From May 19–22, learning and talent development professionals from across the globe gathered in New Orleans to connect, refr … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

5 ways to prime your team for collaborative excellence

Tennis fans will remember the epic rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. On grass, clay, and hardcourt, the two battled 40 times, with Nadal winning 24 of those face-offs. They were fierce competitors, and they pushed each other to improve. As Federer said in an intervi … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How traveling back in time is permitted by Einstein’s physics

When you think about the idea of time travel, you likely think about the fantastic possibility of going backward in time to an event in the past, rather than our constant, inevitable march forward in time. After all, traveling back in time remains one of the greatest tropes in mo … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

When are parents responsible for their kids’ behavior?

When the parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley were convicted of involuntary manslaughter, it was a watershed moment in US school shooting cases. It was also a key moment in parental culpability law, governing cases in which parents can be held legally responsible for … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

From fan to showrunner: How “House of the Dragon” creator Ryan Condal landed TV’s biggest job

The second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon picks up right where the first left off. Rhaenyra Targaryen, played by Emma D’Arcy, is (spoilers ahead) flying across the Narrow Sea in search of the charred remains of her son, Lucerys, and his dragon. Across from the island of Drag … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Astronomy’s secret weapon in the resolution wars: interferometry

When human eyes gaze up at the night sky, what we can see is profoundly limited. The pupils of our eyes which allow light through can only reach a maximum diameter of around 7 millimeters (0.28 inches) each, which limits the amount of light our eyes can collect and, therefore, th … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

 “Awareness” overload: How TikTok’s mental health content goes off the rails

In one TikTok, a beautiful young woman sits in a bathroom, crying. Text accompanying the video reads, “The part of anxiety no one sees.” 7.5 million views, 1.2 million likes, 5,339 comments. In another, a different woman is shown in various clips meditating, or looking sad and di … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Unpack the “10 AI Archetypes” to transform your mindset

The success of AI projects depends on the team you assemble. As with all new innovations, it brings change and for organizations and individuals, change is difficult — especially in the fast-evolving world of AI. Some will adopt it, some won’t understand it, and others will rejec … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

The one reason that physicists won’t give up on supersymmetry

One of the greatest ideas in all of physics, regardless of whether it turns out to be a true idea that reflects reality or not, is that of supersymmetry, or SUSY for short. The Standard Model of elementary particles was cobbled together over the course of the 20th century, growin … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

What counts as consciousness?

Some years ago, when he was still living in southern California, neuroscientist Christof Koch drank a bottle of Barolo wine while watching The Highlander, and then, at midnight, ran up to the summit of Mount Wilson, the 5,710-foot peak that looms over Los Angeles. After an hour o … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How China’s Moon mission could reveal the origins of life on Earth

On June 1, China’s Chang’e-6 lander touched down in the South Pole-Atkin Basin — the largest, deepest, and oldest impact crater on the Moon. The probe almost immediately set to work drilling into the ground to collect about 2 kilograms of lunar material, which is already headed b … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

7 essential leadership skills for a crisis CEO

When a company faces a crisis, all eyes turn to the CEO for guidance, reassurance, and decisive action. As the person of last resort, the CEO bears the weight of steering the organization through turbulent waters, minimizing damage, and emerging stronger on the other side. Crisis … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How experiencing a stroke helped a neuroanatomist understand reality and connectedness

Most people would not see having a stroke as exciting. But most people aren’t Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, New York Times bestselling author and viral TED Talk speaker. As a medical professional, brains are her obsession – and there’s nothing dry or cl … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

7 bizarre facts about the Solar System to stump any scientist

Can you successfully answer all seven? In 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft began their pioneering journey across the Solar System to visit the giant outer planets. Now, the Voyagers are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our Solar System. Along … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

The Supreme Court will soon decide the future of social media

Do Facebook and YouTube have the legal right to block or remove users or posts from their websites because of what the users or posts are saying? Or, should the law compel Facebook and YouTube to feature users or posts that the platforms do not want to be associated with? Those q … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

US hits 180 GW of solar power. Here’s how we get to 1,000 by 2035.

This article is an installment of Future Explored, Freethink’s weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Saturday morning by subscribing here. It’s 2035. The sun rises, and you wake up refreshed after eight hours of … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Music as medicine: The therapeutic potential of sound

Imagine that you just had a terrible day at work. On the commute home, you turn on some music. It’s an old song, one you haven’t heard in years but once bookmarked a meaningful chapter in your life. You turn up the volume and the hassles of the day fade away. The song crescendos. … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Period myths that “just need to die”

Humans don’t have pheromones, women’s periods do not sync up with one another, and there’s no scientific evidence that a menstrual cycle lasts 28 days. OB-GYN and health communicator Dr. Jen Gunter explains. There have been many misconceptions about women’s health in recent decad … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Everyday Philosophy: The religious belief underlying our disgust with cannibalism

“Why, in some countries, is eating someone’s corpse a way to honor the dead while in others it is unthinkable?” – Christopher, IT One of my favorite pieces of peculiar trivia is about eating bacon. I prefer to use it with people I’ve only just met, but anytime will do. Just as I’ … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How the 3 stages of the “redemption arc” can enrich our daily work-lives

Picture your best friend — the one who’s in the pictures in your house. This is the friend who was there at your wedding, your 18th birthday, or when your dad died. Most people have a good friend like this. Imagine that this friend cheats on their spouse. Or, perhaps worse, let’s … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Ask Ethan: Is the Universe finite or infinite?

Whenever we look out at the Universe, no matter how powerful our tools or how clever our techniques, there’s always a limit to what we’re capable of observing. No photons, or quanta of light, can be seen beyond the cosmic microwave background: a curtain of light that marks the fi … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Did warm-bloodedness pave the path to sentience?

We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Weaving together intellectual … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Complexity science could transform 21st-century research. Here’s how.

A new science is emerging that promises to become the defining field of the 21st century. More than just a narrow specialization, it’s not just a new field but a new way of doing science — a new way of organizing intellectual domains and effort. Given its broad impact, it goes by … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Emotional intelligence has limits: Hone your “perceptivity” as well

Most people think they are better judges of character than everyone else. (Of course, that statement is statistically impossible — read it again.) For years scholars cast doubt on this notion, regarding perceptivity as more a learned skill than a natural ability. However, recent … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Overthinking? Refocusing on bodily sensations may calm your mind

Why is it that visiting the beach sometimes assuages a bad mood? The Sun warms your cheek, a cool breeze ruffles your hair, and, suddenly, all seems well. There’s something about getting out of your head and into your senses that can make all your troubles melt away, even if only … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

After 13.8 billion years, why hasn’t the Big Bang faded away?

For the past 13.8 billion years, our Universe has been expanding, cooling, and gravitating. The hot Big Bang itself was, at least for our observable Universe, a one-time event that was the proverbial starting gun for everything that’s happened since. As we expanded and cooled, we … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

AI model uses human irrationality to predict our next moves

Human beings behave irrationally — or as an artificially intelligent robot might say, “sub-optimally.” Data, the emotionless yet affable android depicted in Star Trek: The Next Generation, regularly struggled to comprehend humans’ flawed decision-making. If he had been programmed … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

The #1 superpower every leader needs

Everybody wants to rule the world — or at least lead their corner of it — and the reasons are obvious enough. When you’re in charge, you get power and status. People look to you for guidance, and you make the decisions. Did we mention the money? Because the pay is definitely bett … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

The Milky Way’s stars are gradually being ejected

Whenever we look up at the great expanse of the night sky, it’s easy to forget, from a cosmic perspective, just how confined our views are to our own backyard. The brightest objects of all are the Sun, Moon, and planets like Venus and Jupiter: objects right here in the Solar Syst … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Why is the sun so active right now?

In case you thought the momentary absence of the Sun during April’s total eclipse was the biggest solar news of 2024, hold tight. This year is shaping up to be a wild one for our star. The Sun is behaving violently right now, throwing out fiery flares and spewing roiling clouds o … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How is France dodging the global obesity trend?

More than 1 billion people now live with obesity, according to a study published earlier this year in The Lancet. That’s about one in every eight humans on the planet — and twice the number of those suffering from underweight, the other malnutrition. The world’s waistline has bee … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How to handle the toxic stars who can tear teams apart

In 2007, Dr. Robert Sutton, a professor of management science at Stanford University School of Engineering wrote the book, The No Asshole Rule. The premise is that bullying behavior in the workplace worsens morale and productivity. Sutton outlines two tests to recognize the assho … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Why L&D teams are mission critical to AI adoption

Most leaders get it: genAI is this generation’s new general purpose technology, and if they don’t engage with it, their organization is liable to get left behind. So they run experiments. Invest in new talent, and new functional groups, or lines of business. Buy enterprise licens … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

Astronomers near a complete picture for how planets form

For a species that grew up on life-giving planet Earth, it’s a wonder that we still don’t have an end-to-end scientific picture for how planets actually form in this Universe. Even with our most advanced observatories, like NASA’s Hubble and JWST, we’ve only ever obtained “snapsh … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How to be authentically happy in a world full of suffering

When Beauvoir was a student she wondered if, given all the suffering in the world, happiness might be a privileged way of being. Perhaps it is only available to the select few who are deemed deserving of it, or those who pursue the right things in the right ways. Sometimes Beauvo … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

The symmetry that shaped physics: Frank Wilczek on Einstein’s legacy

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek is considered by many to be Albert Einstein’s successor. He studied Einstein’s discoveries, expanded upon Einstein’s ideas, and, for several years, even lived in the same house Einstein used to. Wilczek’s dedication led to even more adv … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

RIP Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who rediscovered Earth

In 1957, the launch of Sputnik began the “space race.” A technician working on Sputnik 1, prior to its launch on October 4, 1957. After a mere 3 months in space, Sputnik 1 fell back to Earth due to atmospheric drag, a problem that plagues all low-Earth-orbiting satellites even to … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

What nihilism is not

Nihilism, not unlike time (according to Augustine) or porn (according to the U.S. Supreme Court), is one of those concepts that we are all pretty sure we know the meaning of unless someone asks us to define it. Nihil means “nothing.” -ism means “ideology.” Yet when we try to comb … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago

How Google’s new AI could revolutionize medicine

This article is an installment of Freethink’s Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here. It’s 2040. You’re at your doctor’s office, and you just tested positive … | Continue reading


@bigthink.com | 6 months ago