Julie Taymor, the director behind Frida, Across the Universe and the Broadway reimagining of The Lion King, creates productions that tickle the senses. Filled with saturated colors, offbeat imagery, stacatto movement and big sound — each of her productions shares her unique style, yet manages to be completely distinct. In today’s talk, Taymor shares with […]
Art so often seeks to capture the beauty of the natural world — from cave drawings of animals, to paintings of landscapes, to sculptures of the human form in marble, bronze or wood. But in this playlist, find artists and designers who take this to the next level, making art based on the laws of […]
TED Talks are available in 102 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our volunteer translators. So far, more than 10,000 volunteers have created upwards of 44,000 talk translations — and today, the TED Blog brings you a Q&A with one of them. Here, meet Wataru Narita of Tokyo, Japan. 1. […]
In today’s talk, Eli Beer shares an incredible story of how he, as a frustrated 17-year-old ambulance volunteer, was sick of sitting in traffic and getting to patients too late to save them. And so he organized a group of 15 fellow EMTs to respond to calls in their neighborhood, on foot if needed, and […]
In today’s talk, Eli Beer explains how United Hatzalah, his organization of ambucycle-riding volunteer emergency medical responders, has shaved critical minutes off of the average emergency response time — first in Jerusalem, then throughout Israel, and now in several countries around the world. The core mission of United Hatzalah (which is Hebrew for “rescue”) is […]
In his TED Talk, Gavin Pretor-Pinney urges us to look to the skies and appreciate the incredible shapes — a heart, fish or a hand waving goodbye — that can be spotted (or imagined) in clouds. But what if you want to take your cloud-spotting game to the next level? The technology and art collective […]
It is the dawn of the era of 3D printing. From artificial prosthetics to very real human kidneys to filigree skull sculptures — the number and variety of applications for this technology are growing, layer by printed layer. Combine this with the decreasing cost of owning a printer, as well as the cheaper cost of manufacturing […]
Does listening to music generate colors in your mind? Do bright, lively songs sound yellow or orange while darker, more somber ones sound dark blue and grey? Well, for artist Neil Harbisson, this happens the other way around. Colorblind since birth, Harbisson has sported an electronic eye since 2004 that fits over the top of […]
This week TEDx celebrated the birthday of Rosalind Franklin, the pioneering scientist who helped our fundamental understanding of the structure of DNA strands. Sixty years after her famous Photo 51, Czech designer Vit Zemcik created a video to showcase his own understanding of the geometry of life. Zemcik explains his video, which showed at TEDxHradecKralove […]
“By inspiring ourselves, we inspire others.” These are the words of tightrope walker Philippe Petit in this week’s TED Radio Hour from NPR, “To the Edge.” hosted by Guy Raz. The episode overflows with speakers who have gone to the edge in some way: rowing across oceans; exploring caves as deep as Mount Everest is […]
In today’s talk, Tania Luna shares her experience of immigrating to the United States from Ukraine as a little girl. Perfectly happy with her family’s outhouse and with chewing a single piece of Bazooka gum for a week, Luna found herself blown away by the wonders of her new country. From pizza to pennies to […]
TED Fellow Renée Hlozek — currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University — recently established a fund and mentoring program to bring young South African female science undergraduates to the US for summer research. The mentorship’s first recipient, Julia Healy, just completed four weeks working alongside Hlozek at Princeton. […]
Did you go outside and smile for the camera last Friday, like Carolyn Porco (watch her talk) asked you to, while the Cassini probe snapped a photo of Jupiter with Earth in the background? In this hyper-detailed post from Diary of Numbers, the author calculates the odds that one of your photons is in the […]
Reading fiction is an escape, something transportative that pulls you out of everyday life. But don’t we also read fiction to learn more about ourselves — to see our hopes, aspirations and fears reflected in the pages, to gain insight into the confusing mechanics and meaning of love, family and community? On Thursday night, we […]
Each year, TED chooses 10 great ads to feature as part of our Ads Worth Spreading challenge. And this week, we’re featuring a whitepaper (PDF) that analyzes what makes some of those great ads great. The Ads Worth Spreading whitepaper chronicles the story behind this year’s 10 winning ads from their creative directors, and offers […]
Scientists in London have achieved a significant breakthrough on the road to curing blindness this week. Certain kinds of blindness are caused when photoreceptors — the cells in the retina that react with light and send an electrical signal to the brain — die off. Researchers at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London have, […]