bigthinkeditor
Tomorrow President Obama is expected to challenge national banks to lend more to small businesses, cut predatory credit card rates and support financial reform.
Nearly 1,000 people were arrested in the Danish capital last night while protesting the lack of progress at the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
A federal panel of health experts recommends reducing mammogram frequency for both medical and financial reasons.
A mixture of polo and football requiring a decapitated goat is the elite Afghan sport called Buzkashi.
Congress has devolved the power of marijuana legalization to the District of Columbia moving the District toward unofficial statehood.
A large cargo plane carrying 35 tons of weapons en route from North Korea was detained in Thailand when the plane stopped to refuel.
More than perhaps any other genre, poetry has the ability to unite past and present into a unified experience. Whether drawing from scattered memories of random passersby, the Napoleonic Wars, […]
While the NASA space shuttle program ages, Richard Branson’s Virgin group may be set to offer public space flights by 2011.
By next spring, Mercedes will introduce 200 zero-emission cars that are equivalent to 2.0 liter gasoline cars but without internal combustion engines.
Initially employed to provide security in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater expanded its operations to assist the CIA in classified operations.
Before going to Copenhagen, England and France have secured $11bn to help Africa cut emissions and switch to low-carbon industries.
From Artificial Car Noise to Zombie-Attack Science, the New York Times Magazine lists the year’s most interesting innovations and ideas from A to Z.
Despite American climate change deniers, Louisiana’s coastline is one the fastest disappearing in the world due to rising sea levels.
A US-run prison in Iraq became a training ground for extremists where explosive techniques and suicide bombing was taught to inmates.
Google introduced a tool at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that uses its Earth and Map technologies to monitor deforestation with the goal of preserving the earth’s carbon sinks.
A new social media website named Blippy answers the question: “What are your friends buying?” by making their credit card transactions public.
The House of Representative narrowly passed a sweeping financial reform bill that creates new government oversight boards; now the bill goes to the Senate.
Multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz composer Maria Schneider visited Big Think today for a conversation that, like her work, spanned genres and art forms. Topics covered included the influence of dance […]
In recent years, the ancient debate over how male and female brains differ has generated competing parenting theories, academic scandals, and heated media debate. In her Big Think interview, Chicago […]
Was President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech more political than polite? And was it the speech the Nobel committee wanted to hear?
The mystery of a giant light spiral in the Arctic has been solved after the Russians admitted it was a Bulava missile fired from a submarine.
The United Nations wants Western powers to spend more than $2.1bn per year for the next five years and at least $60bn overall during that period, reports Fox News.
Futuristic 3D videogame-esque film “Avatar” is a “triumph of technology storytelling” for a writer/director who had to propel the special effects he wanted into existence.
Hostage negotiations are continuing after at least nine of the 57 detainees being held by gunmen in the Southern Philippines were released.
A joint bid from oil companies Shell and Petronas has today secured a contract for one of Iraq’s “supergiant” oilfields following a two-day-long auction of the resources.
Do-It-Yourself retail stores will soon be stocking solar panels so climate change-conscious customers can pop sustainability into their trolleys and wheel it home.
Google.org has demonstrated a new tool which, if implemented, could help to combat climate change by monitoring the state of the world’s rainforests.
Grave robbers have stolen the body of Tassos Papadopoulos, the former president of the Republic of Cyprus, a year after his death.
A simple genetic “flick switch” can transform female ovary cells into male testicular ones according to scientists who have been experimenting on mice.
Historian Kim Phillips-Fein sat down with us to discuss the roots of the modern conservative movement in the U.S. Along with discussing its conflicted philosophical origins, she also spoke about […]