Big Think
Astrophysicists anxiously await the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, slated for December 18. Things can go wrong. This spectacular giant will be the most powerful space telescope ever built, opening new windows to nascent galaxies and stars from billions of years ago, as well as to planets circling other stars in our cosmic neighborhood. It will help us refine our own story — a…
If there is one thing that Russia scholars can agree on, it is the poor quality of leadership that has plagued the country since its inception. Though some could have become the posthumous victims of inflated rumors or political propaganda, others may have been even crueler than we thought. People like Anna Ivanovna (Russia's ice queen) and Lavrentiy Beria (Stalin's secret police chief) continue…
Mindfulness has become a billion-dollar industry. Research shows mindfulness can be an effective wellness practice, yet the effect sizes found in studies tend to be moderate. Mindfulness may be worthwhile, but only if we approach it with understanding and realistic expectations. Unless you've recently returned from a hermitage atop the sacred mountain, you've probably noticed that mindfulness has…
Compared to other Big Tech companies, Apple has been the poster child of privacy protection. Unfortunately, a recent announcement has breached that trust. How much power do we want Big Tech to have? And what sort of society do we want? Apple has built a reputation as the "least evil" Big Tech giant when it comes to privacy. All these companies — Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon — collect…
Right now, there's just one virus on everyone's minds: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But humanity is plagued by many respiratory viruses, such as influenza A (IAV) and respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV), which cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year . Most of these viruses – apart from influenza and SARS-CoV-2 – have no vaccines or effective treatments. A recent study from…
The Einstein field equations appear very simple, but they encode a tremendous amount of complexity. What looks like one compact equation is actually 16 complicated ones, relating the curvature of spacetime to the matter and energy in the universe. It showcases how gravity is fundamentally different from all the other forces, and yet in many ways, it is the only one we can wrap our heads around.…
Imagine you've just sat down to watch your favorite TV show. You decide to snuggle in with your legs crisscrossed because you find it more comfortable that way. When the episode ends, you try to stand up and suddenly your right foot isn't working. At first you just can't move it, then it feels like it has pins and needles all over it. For a minute or two it feels uncomfortable and weird, but soon…
To prevent the present from erasing the past, non-profit organizations are creating detailed 3D scans of famous monuments. Stored online and shared with researchers around the world, these digital copies will endure long after their real counterparts are gone. Occasionally, this work is incredibly dangerous. On the night of May 14, 1940, the German Luftwaffe bombed the Dutch city of Rotterdam.…
Plato wrote profusely, and his ideas are intelligent, well argued, and powerful. His works form the backbone of so many subjects: epistemology, aesthetics, metaphysics, politics, and psychology. Plato also influenced Christianity, which in turn became a new kind of religion altogether. Nothing in life can be treated in isolation. Behind every idea, person, discovery, invention, or project is a…
A new study suggests that exomoons are common in multistar systems. Thus far, only a few exomoon candidates have been identified. Exoplanets with moons may be likelier to host life than those without moons. Though Earth has only one (very special and precious) moon, the average planet in our solar system has 26 moons . (The range is from zero moons for Mercury and Venus to 82 moons for Saturn.) If…
We assume that physical constants do not change from time to time or location to location. Measurements aimed at calculating the fine-structure constant, however, challenge this assumption. A big puzzle remains unsolved to this day: why do quasars appear to show small but significant differences in the inferred value of the fine-structure constant? Whenever we examine the universe in a scientific…
Researchers observe in a series of photos an unexpected rescue of two young wild boars from a trap. The whole rescue took less than half an hour thanks to a clever adult female wild boar. Aside from the fact of the rescue, there are signs that the rescuer was exhibiting and acting out of empathy for the captives. There is a danger in attributing human-like motivations to animal behavior. We have…
Daoism is the philosophy that there is a right way to live life, and it involves finding and following the "Dao", or path, to our life and also the universe. Yin-Yang is the symbol that represents difference yet unity in life. It is not a conflict or struggle but shows that nothing in life is solely either this or that. When things in life feel wrong, or if you get that gut feeling that you are on…
Anxiety is an inevitable feature of our lives. Our brains need stress in order to thrive, but neither too much nor too little. By harnessing neuroplasticity — the brain's ability to adapt to new situations — we can use anxiety to improve our lives. The following is an excerpt from Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion . Copyright (C) 2021 by Wendy Suzuki, PhD.…
This article was originally published on our sister site, Freethink. Oxford scientists have proposed what they believe is a more sustainable approach to copper mining: digging deep wells under dormant volcanoes to suck out the metal-containing fluids trapped beneath them. The status quo: Currently, most copper mining is done via open pits. Drills and explosives blast away rock near the surface,…
Is there an external reality? Is reality objective? Is the information your senses are feeding you an accurate depiction of reality? Most neuroscientists and scientific leaders believe that we can only comprehend a sliver of what is true reality. Although we assume our senses are telling us the truth, they're actually fabricated to us. Considering senses are unique from person to person, and…
A study finds that people associate personality traits with faces. People thought to have similar personalities were viewed as looking alike; people thought to look alike were viewed as having similar personalities. The research holds a surprise for Vladimir Putin and Justin Bieber. Humans are so good at identifying faces that we see them in places where they do not exist, such as on the moon or…
For centuries, sailors have been reporting strange encounters like the one below. “The whole appearance of the ocean was like a plain covered with snow . There was scarce a cloud in the heavens, yet the sky … appeared as black as if a storm was raging. The scene was one of awful grandeur, the sea having turned to phosphorus, and the heavens being hung in blackness, and the stars going out, seemed…
This article was originally published on our sister site, Freethink. When Sophia the robot debuted in 2016, she was one of a kind. She had a remarkably lifelike appearance and demeanor for a robot, and her ability to interact with people was unlike anything most had ever seen in a machine. Since then, Sophia has spoken to audiences across the globe (in multiple languages), been interviewed on…
The 20th anniversary of 9/11 arrives with pessimism and a sense of defeat. 9/11 caused a national trauma that lasted for years. We should remember this when analyzing the mistakes that America made in its war on terrorism during the subsequent 20 years. As the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack approached, I was disappointed to see how negative the media coverage is. The overall…
One of the popular memes in literature, movies and tech journalism is that man's creation will rise and destroy it. Lately, this has taken the form of a fear of AI becoming omnipotent, rising up and annihilating mankind. The economy has jumped on the AI bandwagon; for a certain period, if you did not have "AI" in your investor pitch, you could forget about funding. (Tip: If you are just using a…
Many small animals grow their teeth, claws and other “tools" out of materials that are filled with zinc, bromine and manganese, reaching up to 20% of the material's weight. My colleagues and I call these “heavy element biomaterials," and in a new paper , we suggest that these materials make it possible for animals to grow scalpel-sharp and precisely shaped tools that are resistant to breaking,…
Despite being the only bridge early hominin species could have crossed to enter Eurasia, the Arabian Peninsula bears little to no evidence of early human occupation. Subverting expectations, a recent excavation in the Nefud Desert found tools dated to different stages of hominin evolution. It turns out that early humans moved in and out of the peninsula whenever the climate allowed them to do so.…
Mass psychogenic illness, also known as mass hysteria, is when a group of people manifest physical symptoms from imagined threats. History is littered with outbreaks of mass hysteria. Recently, alleged cases of Tourette's syndrome appeared all over the world. Was it real or mass psychogenic illness? While the term is often avoided for fear of ridiculing something more serious, mass psychogenic…
Concentrated solar thermal power is a fascinating technology. These plants can produce power after dark, unlike standard solar photovoltaic plants. Currently, they cost too much, but some innovative companies are forging ahead. How mirrors could power the planet... and prevent wars | Hard Reset by Freethink www.youtube.com Flying across the American Southwest, brilliant points of light shine in…
Just like you and me, stars change over time. By studying the characteristics of stars, like their temperature and luminosity, astrophysicists figured out how stars evolve over time. This amazing insight is the primary lesson of the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. Human beings, as the species Homo sapiens , have been around for about 300,000 years. That turns out to be about 100 million nights…
Before migrating to the sea, whales were terrestrial herbivores. As they transitioned to the ocean and became carnivores, at least one proto-whale was an eating machine — both on land and in the sea. This fearsome fossil was found in the Sahara desert, which used to be an ocean bottom. Whales are carnivorous , although gigantic baleen whales feed on such tiny prey that it is hard to believe that…
Conventionalism is the idea that right and wrong depend entirely on the cultures and traditions to which we belong. What one culture calls immoral, another accepts as normal. But if we accept this reasoning, we are forced to conclude that any manner of atrocities — from ritual child sacrifice to female genital mutilation — are permissible. Without a universal standard of morality, it is difficult…
In recent decades the cost of wind and solar power generation has dropped dramatically. This is one reason that the U.S. Department of Energy projects that renewable energy will be the fastest-growing U.S. energy source through 2050 . However, it's still relatively expensive to store energy. And since renewable energy generation isn't available all the time – it happens when the wind blows or the…
Worldviews change and, with them, the way we see ourselves and our place in the universe. The transition from myth to science as an explanation for the workings of nature took place in pre-Socratic Greece, beginning around 550 BCE. At that time, the Earth was believed to be the center of the universe. The first mechanical model of the cosmos is attributed to Anaximander. Corrections to that model,…