-
2 months ago | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people In a series of experiments described in Science Magazine in 2011, a trio of researchers found evidence to support a sneaking suspicion bubbling up in the minds of many Google aficionados: Frequent users of internet search engines didn’t retain information gleaned through online sleuthing as well as individuals who learned information offline.
-
Jan 17, 2025 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people It’s trendy to be single. According to a 2023 data release from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.4% of American adults are single. The proportion of adults who have never been married has never been higher. Roughly 32% of women and 37% of men have never tied the knot. Those rates were 22% and 30% in 1980.
-
Jan 15, 2025 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Something is happening in the lunchrooms of America’s middle and high schools: They’re getting louder. In the past few years, the aural environment has been dominated by clanging trays, pinging registers, and scraping silverware. Now, raised voices are once again soaring above the cacophony. Educators are generally happy with the trend. It’s an audible sign that smartphone bans are working.
-
Dec 25, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Twenty-eight years ago as of December 20, the human race lost one of its finest. Carl Sagan passed away. As an astrophysicist, science communicator, husband, and father, Carl Sagan spent much of his adult life inspiring others. Not by spouting flowery falsehoods, but by conveying — as perhaps no one else could — the radiant majesty of reality.
-
Dec 24, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
-
Dec 23, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. Daniel Kahneman was perhaps the world’s leading psychologist. He died in March of this year. A Nobel Prize winner and a professor emeritus at Princeton University, he may also be the field’s foremost educator.
-
Dec 14, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people California, August 2048. Much of the state has been baking in a severe heat wave going on for two weeks, with temperatures consistently reaching 100°F. The air is dry; the ground is parched; the flora is kindling. In this tinderbox, suddenly there’s a spark…Within 15 minutes, the power grid’s artificial intelligence (AI) system detects signs of smoke and fire in satellite imaging and alerts the human operators on duty.
-
Dec 12, 2024 | 
geneticliteracyproject.org | Ross Pomeroy
Many scientists are already excited about AI. In a Nature survey of 1,600 scientists published in September 2023, more than half of respondents expected AI tools to be “very important” or “essential,” citing faster data processing, expedited computation, and a reduction of research time and costs.
-
Dec 9, 2024 | 
freethink.com | Ross Pomeroy
California, August 2048. Much of the state has been baking in a severe heat wave going on for two weeks, with temperatures consistently reaching 100°F. The air is dry; the ground is parched; the flora is kindling. In this tinderbox, suddenly there’s a spark…Within 15 minutes, the power grid’s artificial intelligence (AI) system detects signs of smoke and fire in satellite imaging and alerts the human operators on duty. They dispatch a drone to the area to confirm the nascent wildfire.
-
Dec 7, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Ross Pomeroy
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people There is a popular theory that the internet is “dead.” The claim is that the vast majority of the internet’s content and traffic is now generated by artificial intelligence and bots, talking aimlessly to each other, rendering the online world effectively lifeless – devoid of human creation. This dystopian view stands in stark contrast to the early internet of the 1990s.
