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American literature, charted in one monumental map

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/american-literature-charted-in-one-monumental-map/

Published: July 24, 2026 16:21

The second map ever featured on Strange Maps — back in 2006, when it was still a fledgling WordPress blog — was a literary take on Maine. It showed the real and imagined places that tether Stephen King’s horror stories to the rugged landscape of his home…

Ask Ethan: Should we stop worrying about vacuum decay?

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/worry-vacuum-decay/

Published: July 24, 2026 06:00

When we gaze out into the abyss of space, it seems like the most peaceful, serene of sights. Night after night, the planets and our Moon migrate predictably — like clockwork — while the stars, the Milky Way, and even extragalactic objects hardly change at…

Physician: The outdated mindset that gets in the way of our healing

https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/body-intelligence-enders/

Published: July 24, 2026 04:00

Physician Giulia Enders spent years studying the gut before realizing no organ works alone. Here, she walks through 5 body parts — the lung, the immune system, the skin, the muscles, and the brain — and what each one reveals about how we work, heal, and…

Live with Big Think: Inside “The Opt-Out Nation”

https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/opt-out-nation-live-event/

Published: July 23, 2026 18:27

Big Think hosted its inaugural live event to bring our summer special issue, The Opt-Out Nation, to life. Join our candid conversation with the editors and writers behind it, featuring voices from The New York Times, WIRED, and County Highway. Hosted by…

The value of time off isn’t better productivity — it’s your humanity

https://bigthink.com/books/big-time-off/

Published: July 23, 2026 14:30

As humans, we instinctively understand that time has profound worth, regardless of any workplace benefits. This is what sabbatical alumni mean when they ascribe a feeling of humanity to their time off. Unfortunately, the burden of proof for many is to…

The psychology of revenge, in 19 minutes

https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/psychology-of-revenge/

Published: July 23, 2026 13:00

Psychologist Paul Bloom explains why morality, the thing that makes cooperation and trust possible, is also what drives cruelty, cycles of revenge, and wars where both sides believe they’re the moral ones. This video The psychology of revenge, in 19…

How Ice-T evolved out of ‘survival mode’

https://bigthink.com/perception-box/how-ice-t-evolved-out-of-survival-mode/

Published: July 23, 2026 13:00

From writing ‘Cop Killer’ to playing a cop on SVU, ICE-T is no stranger to personal evolution. After losing both parents by seventh grade, he was sent to Los Angeles, where he learned to survive without a family. Here, he hustled for money and respect…

4 myths cause us to abandon science. Here’s the path back.

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/4-prominent-myths-science/

Published: July 23, 2026 06:00

There are a lot of people who think they know what science is, what science tells us, and how to evaluate claims based on their scientific merits. But are their assessments accurate? How do you, yourself, conceive of science? Do you do what most people do,…

How the wrong kind of nostalgia can endanger a society

https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/how-the-wrong-kind-of-nostalgia-can-endanger-a-society/

Published: July 22, 2026 15:25

If you spend any time on the artsy and philosophical side of social media (of which I am a proud denizen), you will eventually stumble upon some nostalgia-made-cool. I am as guilty as the rest. Because English has only a few words for nostalgia-adjacent…

The goal-setting mistake you don’t know you’re making

https://bigthink.com/business/the-price-of-becoming/

Published: July 22, 2026 13:00

I have struggled to set goals for most of my life. I’ve wondered for a while what they actually do for me. When I was younger, my dad had us write down big, ambitious, long-term goals. I still have some of those handwritten notes.  Two of them were: 1.…

2026’s Perseids, lousy this July, will peak at the perfect time

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/2026-perseids-peak-perfect-time/

Published: July 22, 2026 06:00

During most times of the year, when you look up at a dark, clear night sky, the stars, planets, and perhaps the Moon shine brightly, along with if you’re lucky a view of the plane of the Milky Way. As far as objects moving through the sky go, you’re…

Exercise works for depression. So why isn’t it treated like real medicine?

https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/exercise-works-for-depression-so-why-isnt-it-treated-like-real-medicine/

Published: July 21, 2026 20:30

After fracturing my humerus in an arm-wrestling match, something happened that I wasn’t prepared for. For the first time in my life, I lost the ability to exercise; the one thing that had always anchored my mental health. My mood began to unravel. The only…

A cosmic first: separated sibling stars reunited by supernovae

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/separated-stars-reunited-supernovae/

Published: July 21, 2026 15:00

Out there in the Universe, a similar cosmic story plays out time and time again: the stellar life cycles. A massive, cold cloud of gaseous material, under the power of its own self-gravitation, begins to contract. As clumps within that gas get denser, the…

Stop worshipping hard work — find smart shortcuts instead

https://bigthink.com/business/stop-worshipping-hard-work-find-smart-shortcuts-instead/

Published: July 21, 2026 14:30

Low-agency people tend to believe in what I call the “myth of willpower,” the idea that virtue lies in exerting extreme effort to overcome obstacles. This is different from putting on a show of effort to impress others or to cover your ass. This is about…

The universe isn’t random – it’s something stranger

https://bigthink.com/the-well/the-universe-isnt-random-its-something-stranger/

Published: July 21, 2026 13:00

Stephen Wolfram — physicist and creator of Wolfram Alpha — has spent decades trying to understand why the universe produces so much complexity from such simple beginnings. His answer? The same principle that drives biological evolution, shapes living…

Have we seen the last Einstein?

https://bigthink.com/science-tech/have-we-seen-the-last-einstein/

Published: July 20, 2026 14:48

Albert Einstein is one of a handful of scientific minds in history who made profound mental leaps that arguably no other researcher could have achieved during their era. There just wasn’t sufficient scientific data to motivate anyone else to come up with…

Stop giving advice. Start asking better questions.

https://bigthink.com/work-wise/stop-giving-advice-start-asking-better-questions/

Published: July 20, 2026 13:21

“What do you want?” might be one of the hardest questions for humans to answer.  Not at the drive-thru or cafe — if you’re in line in front of me, you better have your order locked and loaded or I’ll be speaking to your parents, who I know raised you…

Sugar in space: another step towards life’s origins

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/sugar-space-life-origin/

Published: July 20, 2026 06:00

Today, life on Earth is highly evolved, diverse, and complex. This tree of life illustrates the evolution and development of the various organisms on Earth. Although we all emerged from a common ancestor more than 2 billion years ago, the diverse forms…

A brief reminder of the folly of war (Korea edition)

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/a-brief-reminder-of-the-folly-of-war-korea-edition/

Published: July 17, 2026 14:30

In case you need a reminder that war is not just evil and destructive, but can also be just plain stupid, study this map. It shows how much territory changed hands after the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953 and claimed between 2.5 and 4 million…

2 ways to deradicalize someone (and the 1 that works the best)

https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/2-ways-to-deradicalize-someone-and-the-1-that-works-the-best/

Published: July 17, 2026 13:43

Arguing a point has never changed my mind. As a philosopher, that’s a brazen thing to say. It’s pig-headed, closed-minded, and stubborn. But, it’s also very human. Of course, I’ve changed my beliefs over the years. I would have to have been an especially…

Ask Ethan: Does Mars’s gravity prohibit human colonization?

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/mars-gravity-human-colonization/

Published: July 17, 2026 06:00

For as long as we’ve looked up at the night sky and realized that there were other stars and planets out there beyond our own, they’ve captured our imaginations and made us wonder what was possible. How different or similar are they to Earth? Have any of…

A philosopher’s guide to thinking for yourself in an age built to think for you

https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/philosophy-of-stupidity/

Published: July 17, 2026 04:00

Philosopher Jonny Thomson walks through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 3 conditions for the kind of stupidity that destroys societies: outsourcing your thinking to an authority, willful ignorance, and conformity.  He shows how each one shows up today, from AI…

Inside the minds of 5 chilling literary psychopaths

https://bigthink.com/books/stories-psychopathic-protagonists/

Published: July 16, 2026 14:30

Literature explores the breadth of human experiences, even those behaviors and thoughts we find abhorrent. Characters who are cruel, malicious, and heartless are typically the villains of the story. They stand in opposition to a protagonist who, while…

The harmony Carnie Wilson spent her whole life trying to find

https://bigthink.com/perception-box/the-harmony-carnie-wilson-spent-her-whole-life-trying-to-find/

Published: July 16, 2026 13:00

Carnie Wilson — best known as one-third of Wilson Phillips and daughter of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson — revisits some of the most defining moments of her public and private life. From a childhood spent in the chaos of rock-and-roll royalty, to her…

The physical Universe isn’t made of pure mathematics alone

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-made-pure-mathematics/

Published: July 16, 2026 06:00

Beyond the limits of the theoretical physics we currently understand, many of the most popular ideas have one thing in common: at their core, they’re mathematical extensions of what we presently know and understand. By adopting a mathematical framework…

Who pays the cost when Americans opt out of science?

https://bigthink.com/13-8/who-pays-the-cost-when-americans-opt-out-of-science/

Published: July 15, 2026 20:08

I had thought science denial would hit a bottom — that once people began to experience the direct consequences of being wrong, of holding fast to beliefs that were demonstrably at odds with well-established science, they would drop those beliefs. It turns…