On April 6, 2026, humanity set an all-time record as part of the Artemis II mission: the distance record for how far a living human has ever traveled away from planet Earth. Traveling farther than any other humans in history, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen reached a maximum distance of 406,773 km (252,757 miles), breaking the previous record set way back on April 15, 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission. For 56 years, the Apollo 13 record stood, as those astronauts reached a maximum distance of 400,171 km (248,655 miles): a record that has now been extended by an impressive 6602 km (4021 miles), greater than the radius of the Earth.
But why did this happen? What enabled the Artemis II mission to surpass the Apollo-era distance record? That’s what Daniel Fleisher wants to know, writing in with the following inquiry:
“NASA is telling the world that the Artemis mission has now traveled farther from Earth than any previous crewed space mission. I don’t doubt them, but what explains it? Or maybe, what allows for it? Google ... Continue Reading »
Most people chasing excellence are chasing the wrong thing entirely. Brad Stulberg argues that the 4am routines, optimization stacks, and recovery scores are just elaborate performance passed off as “excellence.”
Stulberg breaks down the biology, philosophy, and psychology behind genuine excellence and how to reach it.
This video Over-optimizing your life is making you fragile, not better is featured on Big Think.
Continue Reading »
With the latest detection of organic compounds by the Curiosity rover, the case for past life on Mars becomes stronger than ever, as suggested in a recent paper by Alexander Pavlov in the journal Astrobiology. And that lends additional credence to an even more exciting idea — that living organisms may still exist on Mars today.
If that’s true, what form should we expect them to take? And where should we search for them? The planet’s surface is a brutal environment for any known type of organism, with huge temperature swings (from approximately -150 °C to 25 °C), virtually no water, and high doses of radiation. Yet we know from our own planet how resilient and adaptive life can be. Besides, this hostile environment didn’t always exist on Mars.
So if life once thrived on the Red Planet, where did it go?
Option 1: Retreat!
We know from half a century of robotic Mars exploration that the planet once had watery environments similar to those on Earth’s surface, probably including shallow lakes, streams, and deeper-water seas. It may even have had hydrothermal vents similar ... Continue Reading »
Imagine that you live in total freedom among a group of people unencumbered by traditions, customs, and any other restrictions. Would that be the pinnacle of joy? Maybe not so much. There would be no government, no police, no fire department, no traffic laws, no court of justice; life would be totally free but totally lawless. As the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) wrote in his magnum opus Leviathan, there would be no culture, no navigation, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no arts, no letters, no society; instead, there would be rapes, thefts, murders, and continual fear of violence. Human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
As more and more people began to live in close proximity, they realized the need for some sort of arrangement among themselves as an alternative to the chaotic state of nature. Such an arrangement, generally called a social contract, is based on the explicit or tacit consent of the citizens. In exchange for the curtailment of some freedoms, the people submit to an authority, thereby gaining protection and security. ... Continue Reading »
Every 90 minutes, our bodies go paralyzed while our brains become more active than during waking life. Sleep psychologist Dr. Shelby Harris and neuroscientist Dr. Patrick McNamara, Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University, dig into one of the most fascinating mysteries in human biology: why we dream and what our brains are actually doing during REM sleep. They explore competing theories of what dreaming is for, McNamara makes a compelling case that REM sleep may have been a key driver of early human creativity, and both reflect on why reclaiming our reverence for the dream state could change the way we think and create.
We created this video for Brain Briefs, a Big Think interview series created in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators. As a creative non-profit organization, they’re on a mission to help people challenge their perceptions and expand their thinking. Often, that growth can start with just a single unlikely question that makes you rethink your convictions and adjust your vantage point. Visit Perception Box to see ... Continue Reading »
Right now, at this very moment, the total amount of entropy contained within the observable Universe is greater than it’s ever been before. Tomorrow’s entropy will be even greater still, while yesterday, the entropy wasn’t quite as great as it is today. With each passing moment, inevitably, the Universe inches closer to its seemingly inevitable maximum entropy state known as the “heat death” of the Universe: a situation where all the particles and fields have reached their lowest-energy, equilibrium state, and no further energy can be extracted to perform work, or any other useful, order-creating tasks.
The reason for the inevitable increase in entropy is as simple as it is inevitable: the second law of thermodynamics. It states that the entropy of a closed-and-isolated, self-contained system can only increase or, in the ideal case, stay the same over time; it can never go down. It has a preferred direction for time: forward, as systems always tend toward greater (or even maximal) entropy over time. Commonly thought of as “disorder,” it seems to take our Universe toward a more chaotic state over ... Continue Reading »
“Rawdogging” is a deeply unfortunate term that was popularized with fresh connotations a couple of years back, when people started using the word to describe the unmediated friction of sitting through a flight without any distractions. Video after video began to appear on TikTok, each featuring someone engaging in quaint, analogue activities like looking out the window, people watching, or staring vaguely ahead while thinking. There is something confronting about taking a form of introspection — a term formalized by early psychologists Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener to refer to conscious inward focus with a view to self-understanding — and giving it a name that originally described having unprotected sex. A little unfortunate, perhaps, because despite its name, rawdogging is neither new nor useless. People have been doing nothing — and doing it constructively — for aeons. It’s only in recent history that we’ve developed an anxious and avoidant relationship with downtime.
This revived form of introspection saw TikTokers, rather than early psychologists, declining to use technology to distract themselves (unless, of course, we count the bit where they’re recording) in ... Continue Reading »
You might think that the best leaders possess a long list of competencies. Perhaps you’ve read books detailing these competencies, or perhaps your company measures its leaders against some required list, using 360-degree surveys or performance ratings.
No matter how specific these lists are, or how tightly the ratings are tied to specific behaviors, the overwhelming body of data-based evidence reveals that all of these lists lack validity: We have no reliable way of measuring leader competencies, and so no valid way of proving that the best leaders possess more of them than average leaders.
The fact is, the best leaders do not have much in common at all. They do not all possess the same list of competencies. Nor do these leaders get better by identifying and then trying to acquire the competencies on the list that they lack.
Yes, it might be desirable for a leader to possess strategic thinking or executive presence or emotional intelligence, but the data shows that all of these skills are simply nice-to-haves. For every leader who excels at strategic thinking, you find a different excellent ... Continue Reading »
Of all the planets, star systems, and galaxies we’ve ever discovered, the only one that displays any yet-detected signals of life is right here: planet Earth which orbits the Sun right here in our own Milky Way. While there are:
hundreds of known planetary bodies in our own Solar System,
more than 6000 known exoplanets detected so far,
approximately 400 billion stars located within the Milky Way,
and trillions of galaxies within the observable Universe,
each one of them only represents a chance for life and living beings here in 2026. At present, only Earth, of all the known worlds, and only our Solar System, out of the 2 × 10²¹ stars suspected to exist in the visible Universe, has been demonstrated to have living organisms thriving upon it.
But any world that’s home to life is also, inevitably, going to be home to death as well. Earth may be the only known planet with life on it, but it’s also the only known planet with war, conflict, and murder on it as well. From up close, these tensions are palpable, and their effects on the ... Continue Reading »
Sneaky sideways moves that strong chess players swear by are called “intermezzos,” or “in-between moves.” The American chess genius and unofficial World Champion Paul Morphy executed these many times in the New Orleans cafés where he won game after game in the 1800s. Morphy’s move seemed obvious. Why not just recapture the piece that was just taken? But then, BOOM. Morphy interrupted the sequence with a different aggressive move, throwing his opponent’s position into turmoil. Intermezzos are shocking. When Judit Polgár played one against another top grandmaster, he jumped out of his chair. Intermezzos are reminders that instead of looking far in advance, we should search for little surprises that no one else sees.
The futility of planning far in advance is nailed in one of my favorite one-liners, from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg:
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” “Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking me that question.”
Indeed, five-year plans fall apart when encountering the unexpected — like a global pandemic, for example. I think of five-year plans as five future me’s. I consider the overlapping risks ... Continue Reading »
On April 6, 2026, humanity set an all-time record as part of the Artemis II mission: the distance record for how far a living human has ever traveled away from planet Earth. Traveling farther than any other humans in history, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen reached a maximum distance of 406,773 km (252,757 miles), breaking the previous record set way back on April 15, 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission. For 56 years, the Apollo 13 record stood, as those astronauts reached a maximum distance of 400,171 km (248,655 miles): a record that has now been extended by an impressive 6602 km (4021 miles), greater than the radius of the Earth.
But why did this happen? What enabled the Artemis II mission to surpass the Apollo-era distance record? That’s what Daniel Fleisher wants to know, writing in with the following inquiry:
“NASA is telling the world that the Artemis mission has now traveled farther from Earth than any previous crewed space mission. I don’t doubt them, but what explains it? Or maybe, what allows for it? Google ... 
With the latest detection of organic compounds by the Curiosity rover, the case for past life on Mars becomes stronger than ever, as suggested in a recent paper by Alexander Pavlov in the journal Astrobiology. And that lends additional credence to an even more exciting idea — that living organisms may still exist on Mars today.
If that’s true, what form should we expect them to take? And where should we search for them? The planet’s surface is a brutal environment for any known type of organism, with huge temperature swings (from approximately -150 °C to 25 °C), virtually no water, and high doses of radiation. Yet we know from our own planet how resilient and adaptive life can be. Besides, this hostile environment didn’t always exist on Mars.
So if life once thrived on the Red Planet, where did it go?
Option 1: Retreat!
We know from half a century of robotic Mars exploration that the planet once had watery environments similar to those on Earth’s surface, probably including shallow lakes, streams, and deeper-water seas. It may even have had hydrothermal vents similar ... 
Imagine that you live in total freedom among a group of people unencumbered by traditions, customs, and any other restrictions. Would that be the pinnacle of joy? Maybe not so much. There would be no government, no police, no fire department, no traffic laws, no court of justice; life would be totally free but totally lawless. As the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) wrote in his magnum opus Leviathan, there would be no culture, no navigation, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no arts, no letters, no society; instead, there would be rapes, thefts, murders, and continual fear of violence. Human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
As more and more people began to live in close proximity, they realized the need for some sort of arrangement among themselves as an alternative to the chaotic state of nature. Such an arrangement, generally called a social contract, is based on the explicit or tacit consent of the citizens. In exchange for the curtailment of some freedoms, the people submit to an authority, thereby gaining protection and security. ... 
Right now, at this very moment, the total amount of entropy contained within the observable Universe is greater than it’s ever been before. Tomorrow’s entropy will be even greater still, while yesterday, the entropy wasn’t quite as great as it is today. With each passing moment, inevitably, the Universe inches closer to its seemingly inevitable maximum entropy state known as the “heat death” of the Universe: a situation where all the particles and fields have reached their lowest-energy, equilibrium state, and no further energy can be extracted to perform work, or any other useful, order-creating tasks.
The reason for the inevitable increase in entropy is as simple as it is inevitable: the second law of thermodynamics. It states that the entropy of a closed-and-isolated, self-contained system can only increase or, in the ideal case, stay the same over time; it can never go down. It has a preferred direction for time: forward, as systems always tend toward greater (or even maximal) entropy over time. Commonly thought of as “disorder,” it seems to take our Universe toward a more chaotic state over ... 
“Rawdogging” is a deeply unfortunate term that was popularized with fresh connotations a couple of years back, when people started using the word to describe the unmediated friction of sitting through a flight without any distractions. Video after video began to appear on TikTok, each featuring someone engaging in quaint, analogue activities like looking out the window, people watching, or staring vaguely ahead while thinking. There is something confronting about taking a form of introspection — a term formalized by early psychologists Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener to refer to conscious inward focus with a view to self-understanding — and giving it a name that originally described having unprotected sex. A little unfortunate, perhaps, because despite its name, rawdogging is neither new nor useless. People have been doing nothing — and doing it constructively — for aeons. It’s only in recent history that we’ve developed an anxious and avoidant relationship with downtime.
This revived form of introspection saw TikTokers, rather than early psychologists, declining to use technology to distract themselves (unless, of course, we count the bit where they’re recording) in ... 
You might think that the best leaders possess a long list of competencies. Perhaps you’ve read books detailing these competencies, or perhaps your company measures its leaders against some required list, using 360-degree surveys or performance ratings.
No matter how specific these lists are, or how tightly the ratings are tied to specific behaviors, the overwhelming body of data-based evidence reveals that all of these lists lack validity: We have no reliable way of measuring leader competencies, and so no valid way of proving that the best leaders possess more of them than average leaders.
The fact is, the best leaders do not have much in common at all. They do not all possess the same list of competencies. Nor do these leaders get better by identifying and then trying to acquire the competencies on the list that they lack.
Yes, it might be desirable for a leader to possess strategic thinking or executive presence or emotional intelligence, but the data shows that all of these skills are simply nice-to-haves. For every leader who excels at strategic thinking, you find a different excellent ... 
Of all the planets, star systems, and galaxies we’ve ever discovered, the only one that displays any yet-detected signals of life is right here: planet Earth which orbits the Sun right here in our own Milky Way. While there are:
hundreds of known planetary bodies in our own Solar System,
more than 6000 known exoplanets detected so far,
approximately 400 billion stars located within the Milky Way,
and trillions of galaxies within the observable Universe,
each one of them only represents a chance for life and living beings here in 2026. At present, only Earth, of all the known worlds, and only our Solar System, out of the 2 × 10²¹ stars suspected to exist in the visible Universe, has been demonstrated to have living organisms thriving upon it.
But any world that’s home to life is also, inevitably, going to be home to death as well. Earth may be the only known planet with life on it, but it’s also the only known planet with war, conflict, and murder on it as well. From up close, these tensions are palpable, and their effects on the ... 
Sneaky sideways moves that strong chess players swear by are called “intermezzos,” or “in-between moves.” The American chess genius and unofficial World Champion Paul Morphy executed these many times in the New Orleans cafés where he won game after game in the 1800s. Morphy’s move seemed obvious. Why not just recapture the piece that was just taken? But then, BOOM. Morphy interrupted the sequence with a different aggressive move, throwing his opponent’s position into turmoil. Intermezzos are shocking. When Judit Polgár played one against another top grandmaster, he jumped out of his chair. Intermezzos are reminders that instead of looking far in advance, we should search for little surprises that no one else sees.
The futility of planning far in advance is nailed in one of my favorite one-liners, from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg:
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” “Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking me that question.”
Indeed, five-year plans fall apart when encountering the unexpected — like a global pandemic, for example. I think of five-year plans as five future me’s. I consider the overlapping risks ...