I'm the director of The Story Collider, where people tell true, personal stories about science in their lives. I'm also a Contributing Editor for TED.com, a Moth StorySLAM champion and an ex-High Energy Particle Physicist.
A choir live and online: Eric Whitacre at TED2013In an extraordinary finale for TED2013, Eric Whitacre stages a type of performance that has never been seen before, with a choir assembled to sing his composition, “Cloudburst.” It’s not just any choir. He’s joined on stage by 100 live singers formed from choirs from California State University, Long Beach Campus, California State University, Fullerton […]
How societies grow old: Jared Diamond at TED2013Growing old in traditional societies Jared Diamond is the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was a provocative answer to the question of why Europe dominated the world for much of recent history. More recently, he has written The World Before Yesterday, an investigation of traditional societies, and what the modern world might learn from […]
Understanding what we believe about life after death: Daniel Ogilvie at TED2013When Daniel Ogilvie was a child, he often imagined what would it be like to be dead. (“I think that’s why I was so popular.”) He’d imagine himself in a coffin, cold and lonely. So he asked his Sunday school teacher what heaven was like. What he heard: Heaven is like a picnic that goes on […]
“I was watching like no one was dancing”: Allison Hunt at TED2013“If you’re middle-aged and North American, you probably learned to dance when you were in a gymnasium in junior high.” Allison Hunt didn’t get that training, because her mother was always chaperoning the dances, and worse than that: dancing. What could be more embarrassing to a teenager? She says: “You know the expression, dance like no one is […]
The vastness of human sexuality: Christopher Ryan at TED2013Humans have sex like apes Christopher Ryan begins his talk with a strong reminder, “We didn’t descend from apes. We are apes.” A special kind, but we are one. We’re closer to chimps and bonobos than they are to any other primate. But he wants to know, “What kind of ape are we? Particularly in terms […]
Hunting monster primes: Adam Spencer at TED2013Adam Spencer is a radio host in in Sydney during the morning commute. But he says he’s here not as a radio host or as a comedian, “But as someone who is was and always will be a mathematician.” He got bit in second grade when a teacher told him, “That would be like putting […]
Breaking the silence of deafness: Mohamed Jemni at TED2013“80% of deaf people in the world,” says Mohamed Jemni, “do not have access to education.” Jemni, professor of ICT and Educational Technologies at the University of Tunis, Tunisia, is working with new technology to find ways of helping the deaf to communicate. His team has developed WebSign, an extraordinary set of applications, to “break the […]
Fighting the growing deserts, with livestock: Allan Savory at TED2013The growing desert Allan Savory has dedicated his life to studying management of grasslands. And if that doesn’t sound exciting, just wait, because it touches on the deepest roots of climate change and the future of the planet. “The most massive, tsunami, perfect storm is bearing down on us,” is the grim beginning to Savory’s talk. […]
A local bacteria to solve a local problem: Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao at TED2013Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao were the winners in British Columbia of the 2012 Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada. After a visit to a Vancouver waste station, Wang and Yao were blown away by the enormous amount of waste in plastic. Plastic is very hard to sort for recycling — all types have a similar density. Says Wang, “Plastics are useful, but […]
Finding ways to let the story tell itself: Jacky Myint at TED2013Recently, the New York Times released Snow Fall, an extraordinary interactive experience that was heralded by many as a milestone in interactive narrative. The experience was enhanced by extra media, as had many projects before. But unlike previous projects the blending was seamless and the whole experience felt completely natural. TED invited the designer, Jacky Myint, […]
What happens after the droids take our jobs? Andrew McAfee at TED2013The rise of droids Andrew McAfee starts his TED2013 talk by making a forecast: “In the world that we’re creating very quickly, we’re going to see more and more things that look like science fiction and fewer and fewer things that look like jobs.” It’s clear, he says, that big technology-driven changes in employment are […]
Create!: The speakers in Session 6 at TED2013Once you dream, you have to do. The speakers in Session 6 have spent their careers giving form to ideas. They are makers, builders, artists and implementers — all with fascinating ideas about what it means to be a creative person. The speakers who appeared in this session. Click on their name to read a […]
Reading minds with a brain scanner — it’s happening: Mary Lou Jepsen at TED2013“Let’s talk about what’s in our heads and how to get it out,” says Mary Lou Jepsen as she begins her talk at TED2013. Jepsen, a display engineer, recently had brain surgery. Afterward she faced a stigma: “Are you still smart? If not, can you make yourself smart again?” Well, her surgery gave her a […]
Dream!: The speakers in Session 5 at TED2013Before you can create a new world, you have to imagine new possibilities. The speakers in this session are the visionaries who propose that which couldn’t be seen before, and suggest new paths that not only haven’t been traveled yet — but haven’t been thought of. Here are the speakers in this session. Click their […]
Trust people to pay for music: Amanda Palmer at TED2013Amanda Fucking Palmer wants us to re-think how we think about paying for music. She is known for her music, first as half of the Dresden Dolls, now as a solo artist. But for 5 years after graduating, Palmer made her living as a living statue called the Eight Foot Bride. (“Everyone always wanted to […]
