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The 2012 TED Prize has been awarded not to a person, but to an idea: The City 2.0. With half of the planet already living in urban centers, few issues could be important in the future.

We’ve enjoyed exponential increases in computing power that have driven down the price of consumer electronics. All that may be about to end unless an alternative to silicon can be found.

While efforts to harness the sea for electricity generation are still in their infancy, the promise of predictable, reliable and clean energy is encouraging increasing investment around the globe.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is again combing space for radio signals broadcast by other intelligent life. To overcome its budget problems, it will share telescopes with the Air Force.

Confidence is a mark of intuitive thinking regardless of whether intuitive thinking is expert intuitive thinking or heuristic intuitive thinking.

Mishandling personal data could cost multinationals billions of euros in fines and social media users would have a ‘right to be forgotten’ under proposed new E.U. data protection laws.

Important aspects of how we live today will shock the consciences of those who look back on us, says Summers, just as we are shocked by the consciences of those […]

Though it won by a seeming landslide, the results of Sunday’s Duma election in Russia reveal rising discontent among the Russian population. The results are really a disaster for Putin.

Egypt’s euphoria over the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February later gave way to a creeping realization that the regime had not been toppled at all. What lies ahead?

Between the ages of five and eight month, infants develop surprisingly complex moral attitudes, considering the context of an action when determining whether it is right or wrong.

Some studies are finding that male circumcision decreases the odds that a heterosexual man will contract HIV by 57 percent or more. The operation is being performed more frequently.

By extracting stem cells from patients with diseases like diabetes, Down syndrome, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia, scientists can examine how the disorders affect the body.

When the bodies of newborns lack iron, physical and mental development can be stifled. New research suggests that leaving the umbilical cord attached longer prevents iron deficiencies.

Tonight, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be speaking to the Secular Student Alliance at Syracuse University on December 9, one week from tomorrow. The talk will be about ethics […]

When Facebook becomes a publicly traded company, it stands to earn $24 billion. So why doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg compensate us? After all, we supply all the personal data he sells to advertisers.

Hundreds of thousands of curious minds have signed up for the online technology courses. Now the college will offer courses on information technology and business, also for free.

“One of the problems with promotions is that we promote people based on outcomes, not about the quality of their decisions,” says Ariely.

If a public stock offering went ahead, some say Facebook would use the cash for more acquisitions and refine or work on new projects, such as a Facebook phone or netbook.

Amid growing concerns about the psychological impact of widespread digital ‘enhancement’ of photos comes a new tool to reveal how much fashion and beauty pics have been altered.

Responding to privacy concerns, the European Commission plans to crackdown on Facebook allowing users’ most personal information to be used to create bespoke advertising.

We’ve had the industrial revolution, and now we’re amid the data revolution. ‘Big data’ is a tectonic shift that will continue to affect many things we do for decades to come.

Harvard Professor Lisa New describes how Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables speaks to classic American responses to economic crisis.

In this selection from his Floating University lecture, Dr. Jeffrey Brenzel presents five takeaways from reading the classics.

How could science fiction get it all so wrong? Big Think posed this question to Jim Kakalios, Professor of Physics at the University of Minnesota in a previous post. In […]

In this amazing video, aerial acrobat and dare devil Yves Rossy jumps from a helicopter and flies over the Swiss Alps using a jet pack. Rossy then joins two jets […]

There are fears on both sides of the political spectrum in France that if China helps fund a European bailout it will come at the cost of some of their sovereignty.

Several disorders whose symptoms are similar to autism have been traced to specific genetic mutations. Scientists hope that my toggling specific genes, an autism treatment is closer.