culture

Most schools use a semester system, but a new study suggests that they should switch to quarters.

The Black Death wasn’t the only plague in the 1300s.

The number of PhDs has been exceeding the available academic positions since as early as the mid-1990s.

Being an intellectual is not really how it is depicted in popular culture.

Many workers moved home on the promise or hope that they’d be able to keep working remotely at least some of the time after the pandemic ended.

Curious about the most used emoji on social media?

Humans may have evolved to be tribalistic. Is that a bad thing?

Once a book is published, who gets to interpret it? Us or the author?

The pandemic has many people questioning whether they ever want to go back to the office.

Ultimately, this is a fight between a giant reptile and a giant primate.

Are we enslaved by the finer things in life?

Fifty years of research on children’s toy preferences shows that kids generally prefer toys oriented toward their own gender.

Hunter-gatherers probably had more spare time than you.

A curated list of must-watch films from Big Think readers.

A 50-year study reveals changing values children learned from pop culture.

Labeling thinkers like Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs as “other” may be stifling humanity’s creative potential.

Scans show similar activity to what occurs when you think about yourself.

Technology of the future is shaped by the questions we ask and the ethical decisions we make today.

“The Expanse” is the best vision I’ve ever seen of a space-faring future that may be just a few generations away.

MIT professor Azra Akšamija creates works of cultural resilience in the face of social conflict.

Words of wisdom from H.P. Lovecraft, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Dr. Temple Grandin, Hannah Gadsby and more.

Adam Frank, a card-carrying atheist and physics professor, wonders if there might be more to life than pure science.

Welcome to the 13.8 relaunch, a new Big Think column led by physicists and friends Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser.

In her book The Art of Rest, one researcher conducted a thorough analysis of the top 10 activities we find most restful.

Meet a spectacular new blue—the first inorganic new blue in some time.

Journalists, doctors, and others you should know.

People often make a killing in stocks, but there are other ways to potentially turn major profits.

Answering the question of who you are is not an easy task. Let’s unpack what culture, philosophy, and neuroscience have to say.

Take a journey through the maze of interpretations of one of the most famous paintings in history.

For the Iroquois, it was a type of military training and a way to honor the gods.