Technology & Innovation — March 29, 2011

In Case You Don’t Know Moshi Monsters

What if the most innovative kids’ property today was not a TV show, but a website? For Aardman Animations’ head of broadcast, Moshi Monsters leads the way.

bigthinkeditor

James MIPBlog: “The other innovation that I can see coming is that a big new kids entertainment proposition will originate on the web but break out and become a mass media hit. Extraordinary things are happening with this (Moshi Monsters) website for 5 to 11 year olds that is a sort of Tamagochi/Facebook hybrid — you get to adopt and customise a monster and socialise in a moderated environment with other monster adopters. Moshi Monsters has surged past 35 million subscribers this year and reached profitability with subscription as its main business model.

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.

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