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As part of Big Think’s “How to Think Like Shakespeare” series, our panel discusses the most common misunderstandings and misapplications of Shakespeare.

“Shakespeare steals stories from everybody, but what he does with those stories is clearly an act of his imagination and his will,” says Kahn.

Advertisers are beginning to understand the “incredible power” of giving consumers virtual currency in gaming worlds in exchange for their purchases.

Making something great is the best marketing you’ll ever have. Once that’s done, just share everything you know to get the word out.

Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments in the 1980s which suggest that our behaviors are determined by our brain and only later interpreted by our mind.

For billions of years on this planet, there was life but no free will. The difference is not in physics—which has remained the same—but is ultimately in biology, specifically evolutionary […]

Einstein believed that free will was just an illusion, and that awareness of this lack kept him from taking himself and others too seriously. But Einstein was plain wrong, says Dr. Kaku.

Einstein believed that free will was just an illusion, and that awareness of this lack kept him from taking himself and others too seriously. But Einstein was plain wrong, says […]

Last night three U.S. Supreme Court judges participated in the annual mock trial event in Washington D.C. Law professor Kenji Yoshino explains how these events use Shakespeare to teach us about justice. 

If we all became gamers, there would be more “epic wins” in the real world, says video game designer Jane McGonigal during her 2010 TED talk.

If you ask conservative and liberal judges whether George W. Bush is a war criminal for invading Iraq, you are unlikely to find agreement. But ask them about Henry V, […]

The Beatles take on the roles of the “rude mechanicals,” performing the Pyramus and Thisbee scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1964.

The global risk expert explains how the Saudi royal family is like the Vatican.

Mubarak is gone, but the military is still there and will remain the most powerful player in that country for a long time.

While technology may not have sparked the fire in the Middle East, it has helped people pressure their governments to reform.

With oil now over $112 per barrel, is it time to panic? While the American psyche is disproportionately influenced by oil prices, our economy is suited to weather the current storm.

China’s rising credit agency Dagong Global has downgraded the credit rating of the U.S., Britain and Germany while raising China’s. Is power in the global financial network in flux?

In February, as part of the Science in Society Film and Lecture series at American University, we hosted a screening of the PBS series The Human Spark. Hosted by Alan […]

On average, a brain’s short term memory can only hold between five and seven pieces of information at a time. Can steps be taken to expand the capacity of our memory—and our brains generally?

When asked to observe a man making mundane decision in his apartment, a sample of people placed greater emphasis on the importance of individual decision making in life.

With endless updates and alerts from social media informing us how much fun our friends are having in their lives, a new psychological problem of the digital era is arising: The fear of missing out. 

Despite our legislative attempts at equality, the beautiful people of the world still have it better. Numerous studies show that attractive people get better treatment in nearly every scenario. 

Stanford University’s Susan McConnell explains brain development like “a play that follows a script, that is written down by the genetic code, performed by actors who “have never spoken their […]

The federal government is offering grant money to states that pay Medicaid patients to live healthier—the program is an experiment in deflating the ballooning costs of American healthcare.

The recent 7.4 magnitude earthquake and tsunami to hit northern Japan on April 7 underscores the delicate situation at the Fukushima reactors. Although workers had to evacuate the site, preliminary […]

Right now, businesses approach all their issues as if they were in a silo. We need to see more integrated approaches that recognize the interconnectedness of the world’s problems.

People are rightly hesitant to put all their private data in the hands of big corporations, but Gelernter argues that this is in fact the safest place for it.