Surprising Science — April 19, 2010

The Responsibility of Wealth

“It has been clear to me since the time of the commission that I led in the ’80’s, that no doubt the historic responsibility for where we are has to be born or taken on by those countries that have industrialized,” says Gro Harlem Brundtland, United Nations’ Special Envoy on Climate Change. According to the former Prime Minister of Norway, developing countries shouldn’t have to go through a period of industrialization in the old fashioned way. “We have to be investing and helping them by paying some of those debts

to nature that we have already taken on,” says Brundtland.

Today marks the third installment of Big Think’s series “Balancing People, Planet, and Profit: The Future of Business Sustainability, sponsored by Logica. For the next seven Mondays (through June 7, 2010), we will continue to release our in-depth discussions with top European experts focusing on how we can better align the interests of business with the greater social good.

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

Living Too Long?

As we push for better health care and longer lives, Gregory Rodriguez writes that we should think about the societal consequences of having so many old people hanging around.