Culture & Religion — July 9, 2009

Call for Tweets on Pandemic and Genomic Science

Next week, Big Think will host two groundbreaking panels on pandemic and genomic science. A handful of the world’s foremost experts–including Esther Dyson, Francis Collins, Michael Woroby and Boonsri Dickinson–will discuss and debate the latest developments in swine flu research and the biomedical implications of personal genomics. Content from the evening will be released on the site, and we would be thrilled to have Big Thinkers participate! Please Tweet questions for our panelists at @Big_Think.

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.

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7 min

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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

We Love Science, We Love it Not

The Pew Research Center has just released its new polling data on the state of science, and attitudes toward science in America are just as disheartening as you might imagine. […]