Surprising Science — May 4, 2009

Big Think Presents Sex and the Brain Week

The flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, and the layers are coming off. This could mean only one thing at Big Think: it’s time to consider sex and the brain.

This week, we’ll take you on a high-minded tour of sex for smart people. Our angles on getting it on will be unexpected and out-of-the box.

We’ll reconsider prostitution; the changing nature of commitment, monogamy and addiction; the facebookification of flirting; Craigslist as the new Sodom and Gomorrah; and how we can all have a wild sex life well into our 80s.

Impossible for the intelligent class, you say? Well, you haven’t heard from sex therapist Michael Perelman, founder of Mondoweiss Philip Weiss and authors Elizabeth Gilbert, Rachel Resnick, and Mary Roach—all sexperts in their own right.

Hold on to your bedposts and get ready for your neurons to fire.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

How Google Earth Ignited a Firestorm Over Japan’s Ancient Feudal Villages

As if checking out satellite photos of your home’s rooftop weren’t enough fun, Google Earth expanded to the bottom of the the ocean, the surface of Mars, and, of course, […]