Guest Thinkers

James Bain was convicted of kidnapping and rape of a 9 year-old boy in a field back in 1973. The DNA testing of crime scene evidence used to free him […]

Some time in the early 1960s, the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot was asked by a university librarian to give his advice about some dusty journals no one consulted—should they be thrown […]

An iron sign bearing a Nazi slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, was stolen early this morning from the main entrance of the Poland-based death camp Auschwitz, according to police.

Rescue workers are searching for survivors after a ship carrying more than 80 people and a cargo of livestock sank during a storm off the north Lebanese coast.

When James Hansen created one of the world’s first climate modelers—then termed “Model Zero”—thirty years ago, he sounded a novel and somewhat abrupt alarm. The world, he predicted, is getting […]

 “Hold tight,” said UNFCCC secretary Yvo de Boer yesterday at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. “Mind the doors. The cable car is moving again.” De Boer – who has […]

People do many things without knowing why: buy stuff they didn’t think they wanted, vote differently when they’re in one setting than they would in another, order a different lunch […]

The Good Soldiers is nearly unbearable. Relentlessly so. Commendably so. Whether you’re a combat veteran, a soldier’s mom, an Iraqi, the 43rd U.S. president, an ordinary American, or some pundit […]

Even while wars have unfolded in all kinds of ways since it ended, World War II remains the war to end all wars. It’s scope so large that seemingly everyone […]

The former prime minister of Russia, Yegor Gaidar, who three years ago accused the authorities of trying to poison him, has been found dead of a “blood clot” aged 53.

Police in Pakistan are investigating a possible link between the killing of a leading Al-Qaeda militant last week and a bomb attack yesterday in Punjab which killed more than 20 people.

What do popular T-Shirt slogans tell us about our current notions of happiness? According to Big Think’s new guest, Steven Hayes, they signal that mass, commercial culture has cheapened our […]

A boom in the demand for illegal motorbikes in Gaza is fuelling a dangerous – and sometimes deadly – smuggling trade orchestrated via complex tunnels all the way from Egypt.

Thousands have been evacuated from the areas surrounding the Mayon volcano in the Philippines after it began oozing lava and shooting plumes of ash.

There’s always a lot of chaos and confusion surrounding a physical assault made on a political figure, but yesterday’s attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has the potential to […]

Rarely has so much buzz surrounded a Big Think guest. It was our pleasure today to have historian of technology Dr. Rachel Maines in to discuss her bestselling 1999 volume, […]

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.

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.

Everyone’s running their mouth about COP15 this week. No progress will be made; great progress will be made!; developed countries won’t put enough money on the table; developed countries will […]

In a recent NPR interview, National Book Award finalist Daniyal Mueenuddin spoke with arresting candor about Pakistan, using the word “feudalism” to describe the structure of life in the Indus […]

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.

Hostage negotiations are continuing after at least nine of the 57 detainees being held by gunmen in the Southern Philippines were released.

Grave robbers have stolen the body of Tassos Papadopoulos, the former president of the Republic of Cyprus, a year after his death.

My dad read me Jack London’s The Call of the Wild when I was nine. I graduated from high school in a city that makes a big deal of its […]

Stewart Brand, one of the most influential experts we’ve interviewed, is also one of the hardest to define. Former military man, Merry Prankster with Ken Kesey’s circle, pioneering environmentalist, and […]

Researchers have uncovered the secrets of a catastrophic flood which happened more than five million years ago and is thought to have refilled the Mediterranean Sea.