Big Think

An astrophysics column on big questions and our universe. Science and TechAstronomyUniverse ExpansionCosmologyPhysics It was nearly a full century ago that enough data came in to map out both the distance to a significant number of extragalactic objects and also measure the amount that their light was redshifted: interpreted as an apparent recession speed away from us.

A philosophy column for personal reflection. History and SocietyPhilosophyMind and BehaviorAnthropologyCultural Practices I’m going to call you a Christian. I don’t care if you don’t believe in God, or read the Bible, or accept that Jesus died for your sins. I’m going to call you a Christian anyway, because you do Christian things. You’re kind to others, you give to charity, you look after your neighbor.

An astrophysics column on big questions and our universe. Science and TechAstronomyCosmologyBiologyCell Biology Our observable Universe is enormous compared to a human: over 10²⁶ times as large. This horizontally-oriented logarithmic map of the Universe shows how, from left-to-right, we go from Earth-sized scales to the largest cosmic distances of all.

We've lost half our gut microbes over time Martin Blaser: Farmers feed antibiotics to their farm animals to fatten them up. At the moment I said that, I thought to myself, well, I wonder if that's what we're doing to our kids. Because of changes in human society and human medicine, we have been losing more and more of our ancestral microbes. And that loss has consequence. You can make a list of what are the diseases that have risen dramatically since World War II.

A literature column to feed your curiosity. PhilosophyClassic LiteratureSocial ProgressAbsurdismLiterary Criticism In 1599, John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard Bancroft, the Bishop of London, issued an edict that became the “ most sweeping and stringent” instance of censorship in the early modern period.

An astrophysics column on big questions and our universe. Science and TechSpace ExplorationPhysicsSpaceSpace Science If you want to go to space for any significant duration of time, you should be prepared to suffer from a number of maladies. The zero-gravity (or microgravity) environment of space is catastrophic, in many ways, to the normal, everyday functions of the human body.

For decades, atheists have used one move to dismantle the case for God: swap in an evil one and show that the arguments work just as well. Philosopher Jack Symes was convinced by it, and was 50,000 words into a book defending atheism when he noticed that the exercise kept tipping toward goodness. He threw out the manuscript and started over. From atheism to multiverse pantheism I'm Dr. Jack Symes. I'm a philosopher and YouTuber currently at Durham University.

Latest Topics Videos Latest Videos The Second Amendment has a hidden origin story Author Malcolm Gladwell explores the fallacies behind the Second Amendment in conversation with Jonny Thomson. Your Brain on Books What’s happening in your brain and body while you’re lost in a great book? Columns Columns Mini Philosophy A philosophy column for personal reflection. Starts With A Bang An astrophysics column on big questions and our universe. Books A literature column to feed your curiosity.

A literature column to feed your curiosity. Mind and BehaviorCognitive PsychologySocial PsychologyCuriosityLearning With frustration and fascination, I’ve come to begrudgingly accept that the questions I’m most interested in surface when I’m least equipped to answer them. Lights off, eyes closed, the pull of sleep growing stronger — a memory flashes across my mind. As I sink into it, the images turn into questions: Did I mess that up at work? What did they mean by that? Did I make the right decision?

JENNIFER DOUDNA: There's a lot of discussion about AI and biology, a lot, right? And people are always asking me about this too. You know, how is AI going to change biology? How is it going to change the genome editing? And my immediate answer is, well, it's certainly going to accelerate everything. It's making our work go a lot faster because we can increasingly speed up things that used to take a lot more time. And I think in the future that'll happen even more.