One of the most important lessons we learn from studying the Universe is that none of the sources of light that we see — none of the stars, galaxies, stellar remnants, quasars, or heated matter — will continue to shine forever. After a finite amount of time, anything powered by nuclear fusion or infalling matter will run out of fuel. Anything that emits light because it’s hot will cool, and once it’s cooled enough, it won’t emit detectable light signatures any longer: not only ultraviolet and visible light, but infrared, microwave, and even radio emissions will eventually cease. Every point-like and every extended light source, even though they shine brilliantly and ubiquitously today, will someday be snuffed out.
For stars, there are three main fates that a star can have, all of which are heavily dependent on their mass at birth.
The most massive stars will burn through their fuel and undergo collapse: either direct collapse to a black hole or core-collapse, leading to a supernova. These stars can leave black holes, neutron stars, or nothing at all behind when they die.
The ... Continue Reading »
The great management guru Peter Drucker wrote about the need to observe how people work, identify their needs, and then translate that need into demand for something better. “The only purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
Design firm IDEO and its CEO, Tim Brown, spent a career popularizing human-centered design and integrating it into corporate strategy—but what were the results? If it’s such a natural thing to do, why don’t we see more successes on the level of Uber, Airbnb, iPhone, Fitbit, eBay, and PayPal? The problem is that conventional research methods don’t uncover how people work and, importantly, how people work around problems to create jury-rigged solutions that satisfy them, at least for a time. So their needs may be obfuscated, obscured even, from them!
For example, I would love to have a pair of lightweight running shoes to use when I travel. Most of the weight in my suitcase is from shoes, and the rubber in running shoes is a big culprit. I haven’t found a shoe that meets my needs, and the rental of shoes ... Continue Reading »
In 2015, the New York Times ran a “Modern Love” column that might have made it into your inbox. The title, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” apparently tapped into some of our collective anxieties and quickly went viral. In the essay, writer Mandy Len Catron tells the story of using a set of increasingly intimate questions to get to know a potential romantic partner. The 36 questions, actually developed many years prior as an experimental research tool by Arthur Aron and colleagues, are designed to accelerate close connection between two people. They start with “easy” ones, like Would you like to be famous? In what way? (#2), but lead inexorably to If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet? (#33).
The purpose of this task was to help the pairs develop a close bond in a short period of time, by accelerating through the moments of connection that would otherwise naturally occur as a friendship or ... Continue Reading »
Today’s most urgent challenges — social fragmentation, educational inequity, food insecurity, environmental stress — seem to have trapped the world in gridlock.
Despite all our technological advances, we haven’t yet nailed the basics: Almost a third of the world’s population faces moderate to severe food insecurity; 70 percent of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries struggle with reading comprehension; economic mobility is stagnant; the list goes on.
When the stats are bleak, it’s easy to feel disheartened. At the same time, people in communities around the world are still testing creative ways to address pressing problems.
“It’s a special power that we have as humans — to find a point of escape, to find the light when it feels like there is none,” says Adama Sanneh, co-founder and CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting today’s creatives and helping them make positive change in their communities.
The foundation’s Creativity Pioneers Fund (CPF) supports light-finding organizations to bolster “unconventional solutions to the most urgent global challenges.” Youth unemployment in Nairobi? Restore and reactivate public libraries where young people can work. Food insecurity? Develop and maintain a vegetable seed bank. And on ... Continue Reading »
The more informed we are, the more successful we’ll be in our decision-making endeavors. That’s only true up to a point: it’s only true if the information we’ve acquired is accurate and truthful. Making good decisions doesn’t merely rely on how much information we take in, it also depends on the quality of that information. If what we’ve instead ingested and accepted is misinformation or disinformation — incorrect information that doesn’t align with factual reality — then we not only become susceptible to grift and fraud ourselves, but we risk having our minds captured by charismatic charlatans. When that occurs, we can lose everything: money, trust, relationships, and even our mental independence.
This isn’t a problem that’s new here in 2026; this is a problem as old as humanity itself. When someone is compelling to us, and their arguments are convincing to us, we tend to go along with them, lauding both the idea and the one who puts it forth. We’re even more vulnerable if the idea is something that appeals to us emotionally, playing on our fears, hopes, preconceptions, ... Continue Reading »
In 58 BC, Cicero’s house was ransacked. Returning from exile, the Roman statesman found his property vandalized; his scrolls jumbled, torn, and scattered. A library assumes an order, a schema, something that renders it sensible and accessible. Cicero’s was chaos.
Enter Tyrannio, a Greek specialist in literature and libraries, owner of some 30,000 scrolls and famed expert on Aristotle — in fact, the same man responsible for restoring the philosopher’s tattered library after it was hauled to Rome. Tyrannio stepped in to sort through Cicero’s mess. He identified volumes, repaired damage, organized the scrolls, and created title tags. Cicero marveled at the transformation.
“You will be surprised at Tyrannio’s excellent arrangement in my library,” Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus. When the work was complete, his appreciation verged on the mystical. “Since Tyrannio has arranged my books,” he wrote, “the house seems to have acquired a soul.”
It’s a poetic but poor translation. Cicero used the Latin word mens — not “soul,” but “mind.” Another translation says the house “recovered its intelligence.” And he’s not talking about Tyrannio’s intelligence, but rather the intelligence ... Continue Reading »
In leadership discourse, the spotlight often falls on strategy, execution, vision, and charismatic influence. Yet one of the most persistent failure modes for even the most outstanding leaders lies not in what they do, but in what they fail to sense: the emotional currents around them, the whispers hidden behind applause. It turned out to be Julius Caesar’s fatal trap, a figure who conquered nations, reshaped Rome, and rewrote what leadership looked like. Caesar’s sudden and tragic end to his career at the hands of his followers was not due to arrogance or a power grab. It resulted from a deficit in emotional intelligence (EI or EQ), the quiet skill that sustains trust once one attains a leadership position. Something that Caesar could well have prevented.
A legendary rise — and an under-appreciated blind spot
Julius Caesar’s rise more than two millennia ago was stellar: both in Roman government and as a general. Ever since, Caesar remains one of history’s most compelling case studies in leadership. His career offers timeless lessons about influence, reputation, and human behavior inside large, competitive systems. His ... Continue Reading »
Joy is often mistaken for a stronger version of happiness. But historian and writer Kate Bowler argues that they are fundamentally different emotions.
Happiness, she explains, depends on things going well. It’s cumulative, fragile, and easily undone. Joy, by contrast, can exist alongside pain, grief, and uncertainty. It doesn’t erase what’s broken — it helps hold it together.
Drawing from psychology, faith traditions, and her own experience living with stage four cancer, Bowler explores why joy is less about ease and more about connection, openness, and love. It’s not a mood or an achievement, but a way of seeing reality clearly and still saying yes to life. Joy, she suggests, isn’t a bonus for the fortunate. It’s something that carries us when happiness no longer can.
This video The brain-deep emotion that matters more than happiness is featured on Big Think.
Continue Reading »
The grandest cosmic question remains unanswered: “Are we alone?“
This depiction of an Earth-like exoplanet showcases a rocky world with a thin atmosphere in its parent star’s habitable zone. It has oceans and continents and clouds, and could possess macroscopic life forms on its surface. At a distance of multiple light-years away, it would take a gargantuan telescope to image them, and it would only be able to see the world as it was in the distant past, not as it is right now.
Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Earth stands alone as a definitively inhabited world.
This aerial view of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is one of the most iconic hydrothermal features on land in the world. The colors are due to the various organisms living under these extreme conditions, and depend on the amount of sunlight that reaches the various parts of the springs. Hydrothermal fields like this are some of the best candidate locations for life to have first arisen on a young Earth, and may be home to abundant life on a variety of exoplanets.
Credit: Jim Peaco/National Parks ... Continue Reading »
Consciousness feels like the most familiar thing in the world, and yet science still can’t say what it is, where it begins, or why it exists at all.
Annaka Harris examines the assumptions shaping consciousness research, from the belief that awareness requires complex brains to the intuition that thought drives behavior.
This video The hard problem of consciousness, in 53 minutes is featured on Big Think.
Continue Reading »
One of the most important lessons we learn from studying the Universe is that none of the sources of light that we see — none of the stars, galaxies, stellar remnants, quasars, or heated matter — will continue to shine forever. After a finite amount of time, anything powered by nuclear fusion or infalling matter will run out of fuel. Anything that emits light because it’s hot will cool, and once it’s cooled enough, it won’t emit detectable light signatures any longer: not only ultraviolet and visible light, but infrared, microwave, and even radio emissions will eventually cease. Every point-like and every extended light source, even though they shine brilliantly and ubiquitously today, will someday be snuffed out.
For stars, there are three main fates that a star can have, all of which are heavily dependent on their mass at birth.
The most massive stars will burn through their fuel and undergo collapse: either direct collapse to a black hole or core-collapse, leading to a supernova. These stars can leave black holes, neutron stars, or nothing at all behind when they die.
The ... 
The great management guru Peter Drucker wrote about the need to observe how people work, identify their needs, and then translate that need into demand for something better. “The only purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
Design firm IDEO and its CEO, Tim Brown, spent a career popularizing human-centered design and integrating it into corporate strategy—but what were the results? If it’s such a natural thing to do, why don’t we see more successes on the level of Uber, Airbnb, iPhone, Fitbit, eBay, and PayPal? The problem is that conventional research methods don’t uncover how people work and, importantly, how people work around problems to create jury-rigged solutions that satisfy them, at least for a time. So their needs may be obfuscated, obscured even, from them!
For example, I would love to have a pair of lightweight running shoes to use when I travel. Most of the weight in my suitcase is from shoes, and the rubber in running shoes is a big culprit. I haven’t found a shoe that meets my needs, and the rental of shoes ... 
In 2015, the New York Times ran a “Modern Love” column that might have made it into your inbox. The title, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” apparently tapped into some of our collective anxieties and quickly went viral. In the essay, writer Mandy Len Catron tells the story of using a set of increasingly intimate questions to get to know a potential romantic partner. The 36 questions, actually developed many years prior as an experimental research tool by Arthur Aron and colleagues, are designed to accelerate close connection between two people. They start with “easy” ones, like Would you like to be famous? In what way? (#2), but lead inexorably to If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet? (#33).
The purpose of this task was to help the pairs develop a close bond in a short period of time, by accelerating through the moments of connection that would otherwise naturally occur as a friendship or ... 
Today’s most urgent challenges — social fragmentation, educational inequity, food insecurity, environmental stress — seem to have trapped the world in gridlock.
Despite all our technological advances, we haven’t yet nailed the basics: Almost a third of the world’s population faces moderate to severe food insecurity; 70 percent of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries struggle with reading comprehension; economic mobility is stagnant; the list goes on.
When the stats are bleak, it’s easy to feel disheartened. At the same time, people in communities around the world are still testing creative ways to address pressing problems.
“It’s a special power that we have as humans — to find a point of escape, to find the light when it feels like there is none,” says Adama Sanneh, co-founder and CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting today’s creatives and helping them make positive change in their communities.
The foundation’s Creativity Pioneers Fund (CPF) supports light-finding organizations to bolster “unconventional solutions to the most urgent global challenges.” Youth unemployment in Nairobi? Restore and reactivate public libraries where young people can work. Food insecurity? Develop and maintain a vegetable seed bank. And on ... 
The more informed we are, the more successful we’ll be in our decision-making endeavors. That’s only true up to a point: it’s only true if the information we’ve acquired is accurate and truthful. Making good decisions doesn’t merely rely on how much information we take in, it also depends on the quality of that information. If what we’ve instead ingested and accepted is misinformation or disinformation — incorrect information that doesn’t align with factual reality — then we not only become susceptible to grift and fraud ourselves, but we risk having our minds captured by charismatic charlatans. When that occurs, we can lose everything: money, trust, relationships, and even our mental independence.
This isn’t a problem that’s new here in 2026; this is a problem as old as humanity itself. When someone is compelling to us, and their arguments are convincing to us, we tend to go along with them, lauding both the idea and the one who puts it forth. We’re even more vulnerable if the idea is something that appeals to us emotionally, playing on our fears, hopes, preconceptions, ... 
In 58 BC, Cicero’s house was ransacked. Returning from exile, the Roman statesman found his property vandalized; his scrolls jumbled, torn, and scattered. A library assumes an order, a schema, something that renders it sensible and accessible. Cicero’s was chaos.
Enter Tyrannio, a Greek specialist in literature and libraries, owner of some 30,000 scrolls and famed expert on Aristotle — in fact, the same man responsible for restoring the philosopher’s tattered library after it was hauled to Rome. Tyrannio stepped in to sort through Cicero’s mess. He identified volumes, repaired damage, organized the scrolls, and created title tags. Cicero marveled at the transformation.
“You will be surprised at Tyrannio’s excellent arrangement in my library,” Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus. When the work was complete, his appreciation verged on the mystical. “Since Tyrannio has arranged my books,” he wrote, “the house seems to have acquired a soul.”
It’s a poetic but poor translation. Cicero used the Latin word mens — not “soul,” but “mind.” Another translation says the house “recovered its intelligence.” And he’s not talking about Tyrannio’s intelligence, but rather the intelligence ... 
In leadership discourse, the spotlight often falls on strategy, execution, vision, and charismatic influence. Yet one of the most persistent failure modes for even the most outstanding leaders lies not in what they do, but in what they fail to sense: the emotional currents around them, the whispers hidden behind applause. It turned out to be Julius Caesar’s fatal trap, a figure who conquered nations, reshaped Rome, and rewrote what leadership looked like. Caesar’s sudden and tragic end to his career at the hands of his followers was not due to arrogance or a power grab. It resulted from a deficit in emotional intelligence (EI or EQ), the quiet skill that sustains trust once one attains a leadership position. Something that Caesar could well have prevented.
A legendary rise — and an under-appreciated blind spot
Julius Caesar’s rise more than two millennia ago was stellar: both in Roman government and as a general. Ever since, Caesar remains one of history’s most compelling case studies in leadership. His career offers timeless lessons about influence, reputation, and human behavior inside large, competitive systems. His ... 
The grandest cosmic question remains unanswered: “Are we alone?“
This depiction of an Earth-like exoplanet showcases a rocky world with a thin atmosphere in its parent star’s habitable zone. It has oceans and continents and clouds, and could possess macroscopic life forms on its surface. At a distance of multiple light-years away, it would take a gargantuan telescope to image them, and it would only be able to see the world as it was in the distant past, not as it is right now.
Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Earth stands alone as a definitively inhabited world.
This aerial view of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is one of the most iconic hydrothermal features on land in the world. The colors are due to the various organisms living under these extreme conditions, and depend on the amount of sunlight that reaches the various parts of the springs. Hydrothermal fields like this are some of the best candidate locations for life to have first arisen on a young Earth, and may be home to abundant life on a variety of exoplanets.
Credit: Jim Peaco/National Parks ...