Guest Thinkers — July 21, 2010

“Dr. Bugs” Mark Moffett: How Ants and Humans Are Alike

Entomologist Mark Moffett stopped by the Big Think offices today to share a few lessons that he’s gleaned from his work studying ant societies and his time as a nature photographer for National Geographic. He spoke about how ants effectively form “super-organisms” with various members of the colony performing distinct functions within the context of the whole—and how human societies could learn from them. He also told a few stories from his travels around the world looking for small and unusual bugs, and spoke about the legacy of his mentor, former Big Think interviewee E. O. Wilson.

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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

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a group of five matches on a pink background.

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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.

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