Today is World Rare Disease Day – an event launched in 2008 to galvanize public awareness and research momentum for rare diseases. In the United States, a disease is considered rare if it affects fewer than 200,000 people. Yet there are more than 7,000 known rare diseases. This ratio means that there’s little funding for […]
Growing up in the UK and coming of age in Pakistan, TEDIndia Fellow Asher Hasan observed a vast discrepancy: those with and without access to basic healthcare, and the devastating social consequences of this disparity. He tells TED Blog the story of how he witnessed a single health disaster ruin the hopes of his childhood […]
Eight months after my talk at TEDGlobal 2013, much progress has been made on the International Non-profit Credit Rating Agency (INCRA) concept. The progress, however, has not been in the credit rating agency world itself, which is slow to change, despite strong criticism from political officials and, occasionally, the media. You may recall the public […]
TED2014, “The Next Chapter,” is less than a month away, and four new speakers have been added to the program. Here, get to know just a little bit about them. First, Peggy Liu will join session 3, “Reshape,” to talk about how environmentalism is a must in China. But do not expect to hear words […]
“What corporate management team doesn’t say that they’re open to innovation?” says Michael Metcalfe, the senior managing director of State Street, the financial institution based in Boston. In November, Metcalfe saw his company do something concrete about building a culture of openness among employees and sharing ideas across the organization. He found himself onstage in […]
Hacking has always been an important component of healthy democracies. Despite the bad connotation the word often has these days — indicating rogue criminals breaking into computer systems, stealing identities, spying or worse — hacking is really just any amateur innovation on an existing system. And that “system” doesn’t have to be a technical one. […]
The McGregor Reading Room at the University of Virginia is sometimes referred to as the “Harry Potter Room.” All bookshelves, oriental carpets and chandeliers, the room earned its nickname for its posh look and the fact that it’s a favorite spot for studying. But last December, this room filled with a little real-life magic: the […]
TED2014, our 30th anniversary conference, is less than a month away! If you’re counting the days like we are, get a head start by reading some of the insightful and compelling books by the groundbreaking thinkers who will speak in Vancouver. Books from speakers in Session 1, “Liftoff” Being Digital, by Nicholas Negroponte. This 1995 […]
Ed Boyden is the head of the Synthetic Neurobiology group at the MIT Media Lab, where he works on tools to map, control, record — and maybe even someday build — the brain. Boyden has worked on optogenetics, a technique which deploys light-sensitive molecules to the brain and then applies light to them to “turn […]
Four TED speakers have been given the AIGA Centennial Medal, billed as “the highest honor in the design profession.” Chip Kidd (watch his talk), David Carson (watch his talk), Bob Greenberg (who spoke at TED3, in 1992, and will appear at TED2014), Nancye Green (who spoke at TED2, in 1990!) are among the 24 medalists. […]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_lk4Q-2x8I&w=560&h=315%5D This video features the work of TED Fellow Nina Tandon and Sarindr Bhumiratana, her colleague at Columbia University’s Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering and partner-in-new-business-crime. Together with a group of fellow bio-engineers, the pair recently founded the company, Epibone, which they describe as “a revolutionary bone reconstruction company that allows patients […]
The standard narrative of human sexual evolution says: men provide women with goods and services in exchange for women’s sexual fidelity. But is that really true or relevant today? Christopher Ryan, the co-author of Sex at Dawn with Cacilda Jethá, takes a deeper look and has quite a few bones to pick with this idea. Ryan […]
A persistent sight in David Sengeh‘s childhood, growing up in Sierra Leone: amputees. Losing a limb was an all-too-common fact in the civil-war-torn region. But as if the loss of a limb weren’t enough, the aftermath was almost worse, Sengeh saw, as he watched family members and friends struggle with ill-fitting, uncomfortable prosthetics that hurt […]
Think parents should be able to select their children’s talents and personalities? Or want to run and hide in the woods at the thought of it? Whatever your opinion, it is precisely the kind of question that Julian Savulescu wants you to take seriously. Professor of practical ethics at the University of Oxford, Savulescu thinks […]
“How do you ensure technology reaches users?” Krista Donaldson asks in her TED Talk. “How do you put it in their hands?” Donaldson is the CEO of D-Rev, which creates medical devices for people around the world who make less than $4 a day. She spoke at TEDWomen this past December about the company’s in-development […]
Last year, MIT neuroscientists Xu Liu and Steve Ramirez manipulated the memory of a mouse. In a fascinating and mildly troubling breakthrough caused by a laser and the protein channelrhodopsin, they “activated” fear memories in a mouse. The impetus, says Ramirez, was the awful feeling of a break-up, the desire, Eternal Sunshine-style, to erase the […]