Watching curator Chris Anderson in speaker rehearsals before a TED conference feels like witnessing the zen of a longtime coach who knows his sport both inside out and backwards. Whenever a trial run of a talk feels just a little askew, a few simple sentences are whispered. Magically, the next time the talk is given […]
Science
Playing memory games on this week’s TED Radio Hour
How do you keep memories? And how much can you trust those preservations? This week’s TED Radio Hour, “Memory Games,” looks at recollections versus actual experiences, sorts through our tendency to create false memories, and unpacks how we can actually enhance our ability to remember. Forensic psychologist Scott Fraser starts the hour. He is the […]
Global Issues
Bones of remembrance: Fellows Friday with Naomi Natale
For four years, artist Naomi Natale’s social art practice, the One Million Bones project, has used education, hands-on artmaking and public art installation to raise awareness of ongoing genocide and mass atrocities. On June 8, Naomi and the One Million Bones team will be joined by thousands of volunteers to lay down the one million […]
playlist
8 lyrical talks about the violin
At age 14, violin virtuoso Ji-Hae Park was accepted to a prestigious music conservatory in Mainz, Germany – even though the school only accepted students 16 and older. By the time she was 17, a German foundation had lent Park a rare Guarneri violin to play, worth millions. But Park’s early fame took its toll. […]
playlist
A look at 10 TED Prize wishes past, to help inspire new ones
A TED Prize wish must be ambitious and bold, with the ability to impact lives all across the globe. And yet, a TED Prize wish must also be practical — an actionable plan that can flourish with $1 million in seeding and access to leverage the power of the TED community. With nominations open for […]
News
Your weekend reading: The ban on gay Boy Scouts lifted, Carl Zimmer on rare diseases, and more
Fun stuff, stuff to make you cry, serious stuff, weird stuff. Here, a recap of all the coolest stuff on the interwebs this week. More than 60 percent of 1400 Boy Scout leaders voted to lift its longtime ban on openly gay scouts. [The New York Times] . A fantastic piece by Carl Zimmer on […]
News
X marks the spot: TEDx on Mount Everest, for the second time
Call it TEDx from the mountaintop: This photo is brought to you by TEDxEverest, which was organized by Nate Mook and Eiso Vaandrager on the 60th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first hike up the mountain. These ambitious organizers brought bold ideas to an audience of sherpas and climbers at an Advanced […]
News
TED Global newsmakers: A closer look at Laptop U, plus the first all-female race in Beirut, and more
With TEDGlobal 2013 just 17 days in the distance, we in the TED office are getting very excited to “Think Again.” Here, a look at the conference speakers who made the news this week. Education innovator Anant Agarwal is interviewed in The New Yorker article “Laptop U.” The founder of edX, Harvard and MIT’s online […]
Gallery
How to print out your own house
Architect Alastair Parvin came to TED2013 with questions that challenge our preconceptions about building. How about we involve everyone in the architectural design process, not just professional architects building for the super-wealthy? What about a world in which cities are built by citizens? Parvin isn’t merely being rhetorical, as he shares in today’s talk. He […]
Culture
Further reading on what makes a good end of life
“What would be a good end of life?” Judy MacDonald Johnston asks in today’s talk, given at TED2013. Her answer — based on her own experience of helping two friends face death in a way that respected the incredible life they’d built — involves five practices, all of which can help maintain a high quality […]
News
TED news in brief: Esther Perel on female libido, an update on Henry Markram’s supercomputer brain, and more
Below, take a look at some of the TED speakers and Fellows who are cropping up in the news this week. Lybrido, a drug to treat women with low libido, is in clinical trials and could be presented to the FDA for review as early as this summer. In The New York Times Magazine‘s look […]
Entertainment
TEDxSydney sets up at the Opera House: A timelapse
On May 4, a TEDx event took place in one of the most architecturally recognizable sites in the world — the Sydney Opera House. Here, with the help of The MilkBar, the organizers of TEDxSydney captured the event from dawn to dusk and compressed it all into 78 seconds. Watch above as the sun rises […]
Technology
A library revolution, started in part by Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk
Libraries are generally where you go to check out books; not where you go if you want to write one. This is an old assumption that Librii — a concept for a community-based, digitally-enhanced series of libraries in the developing world — would like to flip on its head. TED speaker Jane McGonigal has given […]
Global Issues
The World on its Head: A Q&A about the ideas behind this exciting TEDGlobal session
Session 6 of TEDGlobal 2013 has a captivating title: “The World on its Head.” Guest curated by Nassim Assefi and Gabriella Gómez-Mont — both from the inaugural class of TEDGlobal 2009 Fellows — the session will be a chance to turn our conceptions of the Middle East and Latin America upside down, and to rethink staid […]
art
Crowdsourcing limitations: How you can become a part of Phil Hansen’s latest art piece
As an artist, I’m always interested in looking at the defining moments in our lives, understanding how these moments affect us and finding different ways to represent them. We all face limitations. I had the amazing opportunity to share my story at the TED conference this year. I came to do the art I do today not […]
News
Responding to the petition to disinvite George Papandreou from TEDGlobal
An online petition was posted early this past weekend, asking that “the TEDGlobal conference organizers remove George Papandreou from the speakers list.” Papandreou is the former prime minister of Greece. He was prime minister in 2009, when the euro crisis flared up. Under pressure from the markets and from Greek citizens protesting harsh austerity measures, he resigned […]
News
North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee reunited with the man who saved her family
A total stranger helped Hyeonseo Lee pay her mother and brother’s way out of jail as they fled from North Korea. Now, four years later, Lee has been reunited with that stranger, getting the chance to thank him in person. In Lee’s TED2013 talk, “My escape from North Korea,” she describes defecting from North Korea […]


























