Topics
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Arts & Culture
FU Asks: Should the Government Fund the Arts?
about 11 hours ago
Welcome to a new feature on the Floating University blog, FU Asks, where we open up the academic debate on our e-learning platform to the Big Think community. This week we're featuring a discussion prompt from Leon Botstein, President of Bard College and conductor of the American Symphony ... Read More
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Belief
Standardized Testing: The Monster that Ate American Education
5 days ago
None of the characteristics that are important for thriving in the world of the twenty-first century are encouraged by standardized testing, argues Diane Ravitch, one of the most respected educational historians in the world. What we need is a generation of students who can think critically and creatively. Read More
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Business & Economics
Paul Ryan, Individual Liberty, and the Fate of Medicare
3 days ago
Just as Mitt Romney appears to be wrapping up the Republican nomination for the presidency, congressional Republicans are taking steps to set up their own political framework for the 2012 election. In short, the future of Medicare is on the line and a Romney vs. Obama match-up will surely address ... Read More
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Environment
Technology for a Cause
26 days ago
The XO 3.0 tablet was one of the most talked about gadgets at this year’s Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. The tablet has a hand cranked accessory that powers the device which can run on Linux or Android. This is helpful for children living in rural areas of developing countries where there ... Read More
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Future
WTF Wikipedia? What SOPA, PIPA, and the Blackout Mean To You
23 days ago
What's the Big Idea? Wikipedia’s call to “imagine you live in a world without free knowledge” may have been dramatic, but it was also effective: after 24 hours of living without the history of everything at your fingertips, you probably got the point. Journalists compared the shutdown of hundreds ... Read More
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Health & Medicine
This Is Your Brain On Sports
6 days ago
What's the Big Idea? On June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD: “The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t,” he noted. Five years later, he was traded to the Yankees. Fourteen years later ... Read More
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History
Standardized Testing: The Monster That Ate American Education
5 days ago
What's the Big Idea? As the Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration, Educational historian Diane Ravitch became known for her push to establish national standards for K-12 education. From 1997-2004, she served as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board ... Read More
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Identity
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Inspiration & Wisdom
Simon Doonan's Fashion Tips For Mad Scientists
7 days ago
The hilarious swami of style and fashion egalitarian Simon Doonan, author of Gay Men Don't Get Fat, offers some efficient guidelines to personal style for the mad scientist whose mind is on loftier things. Read More
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Life & Death
Your Storytelling Brain
27 days ago
The left hemisphere of the brain is always trying to make sense of past thoughts and experiences. Cognitive Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga ponders our need to hear and tell coherent stories about ourselves. Read More
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Love, Sex, and Happiness
Stupidity Only Partly Explains Homophobia
5 days ago
I have always thought that the fable that best describes the modern world is that of the Emperor’s New Clothes. You know the one in which the ruler struts around naked while his subjects tell him how wonderful his new robes are rather than risking to appear to be stupid. Of course at the end of the ... Read More
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Media & Internet
Is Kim Jong-un Dead?
about 9 hours ago
On China's microblogging site Weibo, rumors of Kim Jong-un's death surfaced earlier today when bloggers posted that he was assassinated in Beijing. Media outlets have yet to issue any official reports, but the rumors have spread to Twitter and they are ripe for punny jokes. Gawker was one of the ... Read More
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Politics & Policy
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Science & Tech
Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Are One Step Closer to Reality
9 days ago
As Dr. Michio Kaku has been predicting for years, we are inching ever closer to producing virtual reality contact lenses that will add a layer of interactive, rich information over our mundane visual landscape. The newest innovation comes from a joint venture between DARPA (Defense Advanced ... Read More
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Truth & Justice
Julian Assange To Host Talk Show On Russia Today
15 days ago
Julian Assange: Establishment outsider. Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Talk show host? Apparently so. The Australian founder of controversial website WikiLeaks will be at the helm of "The World Tomorrow," a series comprised of 10 interviews with "key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries," to ... Read More
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World
Is the U.S. Still the "Land of the Free?"
11 days ago
What's the Big Idea? Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... Immigration is an integral part of the story Americans tell themselves about who they are. A paper in the Journal of Politics found that more than 90% of Americans believe that just thinking of ... Read More
