Esther Perel: The secret to desire in a long-term relationshipLybrido, 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 at this new drug, TED speaker Esther Perel is asked about the conundrum of desire for women in long-term relationships. “Many couples confuse love with merging,” she says. “This mix-up is a bad omen for sex. To sustain élan toward the other, there must be a synapse to cross. Eroticism requires distance.” Watch Perel’s talk “The secret to desire” »

Philosopher Dan Dennett has a great new book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. Read an excerpt containing his “seven tools for thinking, or check out any of his four TED Talks »

Last week, NASA announced the shutdown of the Kepler spacecraft mission. On the TED Fellows blog, Lucianne Walkowicz – an astronomer who worked on the project – shares her thoughts on its end. Watch her talk “Finding planets around other stars” »

Henry Markram: A brain in a supercomputer The new Wired takes a detailed look at Henry Markram’s years-long campaign to build a supercomputer replica of the human brain — a plan he shared early on at TEDGlobal, in fact. The piece begins, “Even by the standards of the TED Conference, Henry Markram’s 2009 TEDGlobal talk was a mind-bender. He took the stage of the Oxford Playhouse, clad in the requisite dress shirt and blue jeans, and announced a plan that—if it panned out—would deliver a fully sentient hologram within a decade.” And it gets weirder. Watch his 2009 talk »

CERN physicists share with the TED-Ed blog what it was like to have their words — and sometimes their personas — animated in five TED-Ed videos that boil down concepts in particle physics into understandable terms. Watch these five animated lessons »

Rose George: Let's talk crap. Seriously.Related to Rose George’s talk, “Let’s talk crap. Seriously”: On Monday, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, 184 couples wed in a mass ceremony — before which the husband-to-be had to prove he had a toilet or would build one within the month. As a reward, The Wall Street Journal reports, “the state covers the costs of the wedding and gifts for the groom’s family, which are traditionally provided by the bride’s parents.” Watch George’s talk »

Finally, fashion website Refinery 29 admits that Meg Jay’s talk “Why 30 is not the new 20” got their “entire office buzzing.” Watch the talk »

Congratulations to TED Fellow Kellee Santiago for being named one of Inc. Magazine‘s ”5 Most Powerful Women in Gaming.” Read a TED Blog interview with Santiago about the inspiration behind the game Journey »

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 in 2011 to make way for a national unity government.

He has been invited to share his views on these events and other themes at TEDGlobal 2013, which will take place in three weeks. With all due respect for those who have signed the petition, the TEDGlobal program won’t change. Papandreou’s experience as the PM of his country during a phase of political and economic turmoil is an interesting lens into the broader problems that continue to trouble Europe. That’s why we invited him to TEDGlobal. What he learned from his period in office gives him a rare insiders’ viewpoint, at a crucial moment for the continent.

For the record, any politicians coming to TED are asked to give a talk that is framed around ideas and insights, rather than partisanship. And like all our speakers, Papandreou is not being paid to speak at TEDGlobal.

TED speaker Hyeonseo Lee (right) meets Dick Stolp (left), the kind stranger who gave her a wad of cash to help get her family out of jail four years ago. Photo: SBS

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.

Hyeonseo Lee: My escape from North KoreaIn Lee’s TED2013 talk, “My escape from North Korea,” she describes defecting from North Korea in the late ’90s and how, after nearly ten years of living in hiding, she returned to help her family make their own escape. When her mother and brother were captured in Vientiane, Laos, and jailed for illegal border crossing, Lee describes how, out of money and desperate for a solution, she was approached by a foreigner. After hearing Lee’s story, this stranger withdrew a large sum of cash — £645 to be exact — from an ATM. With the money to use as a bribe, Lee’s family was able to escape.

When Lee asked the stranger why he was helping her, he replied, “I’m not helping you. I’m helping the North Korean people.” As Lee says in an emotional moment in her talk, “The kind stranger symbolized new hope for me and the North Korean people when we needed it most.”

Earlier this month Lee was invited to be a guest on the Australian broadcast show Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), where she had an unexpected visitor: Dick Stolp, the Australian backpacker who had helped her in Laos. Lee didn’t have any of his contact information – but Stolp had seen her TED Talk and SBS, catching wind of the story, orchestrated the surprise reunion.

“I was really happy … I can’t explain with words, but it was really amazing,” Hyeonseo told Sky News after the reunion. “He says, ‘I’m not a hero,’ but I say he is a modern hero.”

Stolp, for his part, was excited to see the girl he had helped years ago. “You help a small hand and it reaches to other hands and you think, ‘That’s great, that’s good stuff,’” he said. “I’m meeting someone who is now doing good things, and inside I can’t help but feel ‘Hey! I helped this lady to go out and change her life.’”

Read more about Lee and Stolp’s meeting, or watch the SBS special on North Korea in full »

“We use images like a weapon to fight for social causes,” says a man in the trailer for INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, a new documentary that airs on HBO tonight. The doc tells the story of JR’s INSIDE OUT, a global art project in which anyone, anywhere, can send the artist a portrait and have a poster-sized version sent back to them for pasting in public spaces. JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside outSince the project’s launch in 2011, when JR received the TED Prize, these oversized black-and portraits with a faded polka dot motif in the background have become a fixture on the walls, fences and sidewalks all around the world. To date, more than 130,000 INSIDE OUT posters have been pasted in more than 100 countries.

INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, directed by Alastair Siddons, isn’t about untangling the identity of JR  – who always appears in public wearing Ray Bans and fedora. Instead, it aims to show how people around the globe have made this fascinating project their own. Yes, cameras show JR in his Paris studio but, from there, they travel to Haiti, where photographer Benoit has pasted up dozens of images of those living in tent cities following the devastating earthquake of 2010. The message: that while hardship continues in the country, people remain infused with hope.

The film goes on to bring viewers to North Dakota and the West Bank, where major INSIDE OUT actions have been launched, as well as to Tunisia, where portraits of everyday people are revolutionary in and of themselves. “We were always seeing pictures of the dictators,” says an INSIDE OUT artist in the country. “Now it’s people—Tunisians.”

INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April. And tonight, the film makes its television debut on HBO at 9pm ET/PT. The documentary will also be available on demand through June 30. Find out more about the film and its airdates at HBO’s website »

See JR interviewed about the documentary by Christiane Amanpour last Friday »

Are you or someone you know interested in launching a worldwide project on the scale of INSIDE OUT? Nominations for the 2014 TED Prize are open, from now until June 16 »

Paul Bloom: The origins of pleasure

TED speaker Paul Bloom makes a compelling case against empathy, arguing that empathy alone is not sufficient to uphold morality — and may even work against it. [The New Yorker]

42 truly stunning photos from the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. [The Atlantic]

Would you be friends with Humbert Humbert? Authors weigh in on whether fictional characters ought to be likable. [New Yorker blog]

Damon Horowitz: Philosophy in prison

The most popular way to spend time at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center in Virginia is … reading Tolstoy? [The Washington Post] Watch a talk on philosophy in prisons »

Scientists show an electronic jolt to the brain can improve mental arithmetic skills in the long-term, and without negative side-effects. [New Scientist]

Chris Hadfield alights from space with another social media masterpiece, a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” along with a full-length music video. Shot in the International Space Station. [YouTube] Watch a TED Blog playlist we published to welcome him home »

Raghava KK: My 5 lives as an artist

And a brief congrats to TED speaker Raghava KK, who was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer this week, and TED Fellows Skylar Tibbits and Marc Fornes, who were both awarded the 2013 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers.

The TEDxBahrialUKarachi show went on, despite a bombing in the city the day of the event. Why? To give hope. Photo: TEDxBahrialUKarachi

The city of Karachi, Pakistan, was on lockdown after bomb blasts claimed 57 lives in the midst of a tumultuous election. And on the day of TEDxBahriaUKarachi, yet another bomb shocked the area. Still, organizers Furqan Hussein and Sana Nasir boldly tread onward toward putting on a memorable event. “‘Ideas for Survival,’ our theme, sowed the idea of surviving in situations when there’s [little] or no hope,” Nasir tells the TEDx Blog in an interview. “The one thing we wanted our audience to take back [with them] was hope.”

These are the lengths some TEDx organizers go to in order to put on great events — dozens of which are held across the world every week. From these events, the TEDx team chooses four favorite talks each week, highlighting just a few of the enlightening speakers from the TEDx community and its diverse constellation of ideas. Below, listen to this week’s talks – on topics ranging from the data revolution to how we perceive pain.

Democracy’s data revolution: Simon Jackman at TEDxSydney
At TEDxSydney, Stanford researcher Simon Jackman demonstrates some of the ways in which an increased availability of data gives us a more accurate picture of electoral trends, the political zeitgeist, and the serious implications this has on the shape of public conversation. (Filmed at TEDxSydney.)

Pain is all about perception: Silje Endersen Reme at TEDxNHH
Nearly everyone will suffer from some form of back pain during their lifetime, often without a specific cause. At TEDxNHH, Silje Endersen Reme explains how our mental state can affect the way we perceive chronic and acute forms of back pain. (Filmed at TEDxNHH.)

Detecting cancer before it spreads: Raj Krishnan at TEDxSanDiego 2012
Curing cancer isn’t just about better treatment, says Raj Krishnan. If we can improve detection, patients will enjoy much better odds of survival and recovery. Krishnan demonstrates how doctors can use existing technology to scan for DNA markers of cancer cells — even before the patient is showing symptoms. (Filmed at TEDxSanDiego.)

African thumb piano jam: Hiroyuki at TEDxTokyo
At TEDxTokyo, Japanese artist Hiroyuki plays a remarkable musical performance on the kalimba — also known as the thumb piano. A handheld plucking instrument still relatively obscure in Western music, the kalimba is an ancient part of the heritage of several cultures in sub-Saharan Africa. (Filmed at TEDxTokyo.)

And here, some of the week’s highlights from the TEDx blog:

• Portrait of a TEDx’er: Austin Kleon
• Instagrammed: Completing the sentence “Before I die, I want to…” at TEDxRiyadh
• Quoted: Jackson Katz viral TEDx talk, “There are no women’s issues.”

Jamie Oliver, who won the TED Prize in 2010, has declared May 17 as Food Revolution Day. Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about foodHis vision: that people gather in homes, schools, workplaces and social spaces to share their culinary knowledge, cook together and simply enjoy each other’s company as they chow down and discuss the centrality of food in life. Anyone is invited to host a Food Revolution Day activity — Oliver recommends organizing a potluck dinner, leading a farmers market tour, planting a community garden or throwing a street party. There’s a downloadable activity guide for those interested in hosting an event, and a search engine for those interested in joining one in their area. Anyone is also welcome to get involved by sharing a treasured recipe.

Why Food Revolution Day? Because Oliver has been on a many-year mission to change the way people relate to food. As he explains on the holiday’s website, “Cooking skills used to be passed down from generation to generation, but now millions of people lack even the most basic cooking skills. We need to get back to basics: to cook and eat fresh local produce; to share cooking skills and food knowledge; to join forces within communities and get as many people involved as possible. Food Revolution Day is our opportunity to get the world to focus on the importance of good food and essential cooking skills.”

In an unexpected TED Prize synergy, Oliver has teamed up with fellow prize-winner JR, who launched the global art initiative Inside Out, to get the word out about Food Revolution Day. Oliver visited JR’s studio and shared a snapshot of himself holding his portrait on Instagram. He also posted an image of JR pasting the poster in Times Square, along with thousands of other portraits.

“Me laid out!! My TED brother @jr pasting the paper & glue in Time Square NYC for his incredible ‘Inside Out project,’” Oliver wrote. “FOOD REVOLUTION DAY is coming this Friday thank you. @jr Can’t wait to do a massive wall for the #insideoutproject.”

Oliver is planning on doing an Inside Out group action, around his message of getting people to eat healthier. Stay tuned for more information.

Are you or someone you know interested in launching a worldwide project on the scale of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution? Nominations for the 2014 TED Prize are open, from now until June 16 »

Oliver with his Inside Out poster.

JR pastes Oliver’s image in Times Square.

]]> http://blog.ted.com/2013/05/16/jamie-oliver-gears-up-for-food-revolution-day-on-may-17/feed/ 3 Jamie-Oliver-Food-Revolution kateted Jamie-Oliver-Food-Revolution Jamie-Oliver-poster Jamie-Oliver-poster-painting http://blog.ted.com/2013/05/11/your-weekend-reading-depression-in-comics-betting-on-the-origin-of-the-universe/ http://blog.ted.com/2013/05/11/your-weekend-reading-depression-in-comics-betting-on-the-origin-of-the-universe/#comments Sat, 11 May 2013 16:30:21 +0000 Thu-Huong Ha http://blog.ted.com/?p=75679 ]]> A round-up of funny, interesting and strange stories on the Internet this week:

Hyperbole and a Half’s Allie Brosh is back after a two-year hiatus, with part 2 of an illustrated account of overcoming depression. Dark and delightful. [Hyperbole and a Half]

Stephen Hawking: Questioning the universe

Even world-famous scientists have tiffs. Obviously this bet between Stephen Hawking and Neil Turok means they are just like us. [Mail & Guardian]

A Spanish foundation uses lenticular printing to show a different anti-abuse ad to people depending on their height, to convey a secret message to abused children when walking with their abusers. [Gizmodo]

Julian Baggini, on why Kierkegaard is still awesome and relevant. [Aeon] Watch his TEDx talk »

Neil Turok makes his TED Prize wish

Researchers observe that theta brainwaves are predictors for the ability to overcome ingrained Pavlovian biases, which could help in treating conditions like addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. [Sci Tech Daily]

Neurohumanities: Breakthrough cross-disciplinary approach, or reductionist field? In other words: Does “how your brain is firing … tell you if something is ironic, metaphorical or meaningful”? The jury is still out. [The Nation]

A redditor projected a circle (ish) on a map of the world and observed some astonishing facts. [io9]

Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness
Jim Holt reviews a new memoir about Benoît Mandelbrot, the mathematics legend who coined the word “fractal.” A story of truly infinite beauty. [NYRB] Watch Mandelbrot’s talk from 2010 on roughness »

Our friends at Science Studio, dedicated to collecting the best science video and audio on the interwebs, have launched a preview edition of their site. [Science Studio]

A lovely visualization of the number of meteorites with eyewitnesses in proportion to those recorded. [Bolid.es]

The Cicadapocalypse is nigh as billions of cicadas return to New York for the first time in 17 years. [Gothamist]

TED Conversations

First, a thought-provoking question from Ye-Jin Ahn:  If communism was working the way its progenitors wanted it to, would it be better than capitalism?

The main reason why communism was made was people wanted to be equal without getting restricted by their environment, but nowadays communism is abused by some dictators such as North Korean leaders. Besides, capitalism also has its own problem. There are so many people who didn’t have opportunities to try what they really wanted to do due to their poverty or else.

If communism was working as it was intended, would it be better than capitalism?

Yubal Masalker responds:

I think it would. The problem was that there was a huge gap between the theory and its practice. The communism theory was an outcry for change in the reality of severe injustice of those times. It had noble ideals. But as it usually occurs in the mankind’s history, the great ideals fell victim to basic human nature — the human nature of greed and selfishness. This means, whoever gains the power in the name of any ideals, exploit those ideals only for the benefit of himself and his close group. Communism was not exception of this basic human nature, as well as the Capitalism and many countless other man-made systems of diverse ideals.

So I think that instead of looking for the BIG answers from the failure of Communism (like dictatorships, organizing labor differently, the Chinese interpretation of communism or whatever) it would be much better for the all mankind to look for more seemingly minor answers, which are actually the real true answers. Because these answers are common to perhaps all the mankind’s ideological failures in the history and not just for the failure of the communism — for example, also the latest economic crisis due to the failure of the Capitalism.

While John Moonstroller reminds us that:

First we need to find a country that practices communisim without dictators to determine an answer to this question.

And Heather White adds:

The current problem capitalism has is the same problem communism had — its utopian ideology was infiltrated by psychopaths. I’m serious.

People with psychopathic tendencies are attracted to power and prestige — they climb the greasy pole, by whatever means, and when they get power or influence they use it for their own gratification, glorification and empowerment. They lobby for the relaxation of regulation, and once they achieve this they exploit it ruthlessly. You cannot expect a psychopath to have self restraint or feelings of remorse — they are relentless — they want it all.

Corporation directorships, government departments and politics, are disproportionally represented by psychopaths. In the population as a whole they make up 1%, within the halls of corporate and political power it is estimated that they make up to 4% (source: Jon Ronson’s TED Talk).

With 221 comments and five days remaining, there’s plenty of time to get involved in the debate!

Also this week:  The latest in our TEDinClass series, from University of Oregon student Jon Cox:  Cats pose a serious threat to biodiversity: Why do we accept it? What should be done?

According to the ASPCA, there are around 90 million owned domestic cats (Felis catus) in the U.S., and taking into account strays and feral cats, the total number is estimated to be as high as 160 million (1).Loss et al. (2013) estimates that cats roaming outdoors kill 1.4-­3.7 BILLION birds and 6.9­-20.7 BILLION mammals in the U.S. annually (2). Reptiles and amphibians such as snakes, lizards, frogs, etc., are also frequently killed by cats.

Cats are even more popular New Zealand, where they are contributing to declines of endemic birds such as the critically endangered kakapo (3), which have evolved in the absence of predators. Businessman/philanthropist Gareth Morgan is trying to gather support for legislation that would aggressively deal with stray and feral cats and potentially eliminate cats from New Zealand to take pressure off of threatened species (4 & 5). With Morgan’s plan, in addition to regulation that would reduce cat populations and increase owner accountability, residents would be encouraged to not replace their cats. As of now the majority of New Zealanders surveyed are in opposition to Morgan’s initiative.

Would a proposition like Morgan’s meet similar resistance in the U.S.? Probably, but is he on the right track? Would you personally support something like it for your state or country?

Mario R responded:

I found an interesting article that highlighted the effects of reducing predatory effects in ecosystems. The article was talking about predatory chains and how the elimination of a top, or superpredator, might open the door for a different predator, or mesopredator, to take the original predator’s place. This would in fact lead to the extinction of the prey. The example they looked at was an endemic bird population, and the superpredator were feral domestic cats.

This got me to thinking about the effects of suppressing cats’ activities outdoors. If something was done to regulate cats’ outdoor liberties, would there be increases in predatory activity of a different species on the same prey?

And Erik Parker replied:

Great point as usual, Mario.

That was exactly the same line of thought that I was mulling over. For as long as there have been modern urban and suburban areas there have been cats present, really. So I think it makes sense to think about it as though those environments and cats have co-evolved in a way. That means we have no real way of knowing what will happen if cats are eliminated from an area all together. Sure we can speculate that maybe those species preyed upon by the cats in those environments will recover greatly, but what’s to say that some other species wouldn’t come in to fill that niche vacated by the cats? The reality is that we really don’t know what will happen until it does, and this unpredictability is why removal experiments are often so dangerous.

The article Mario linked to makes the good point that other predators often move in to such situations quickly, and in particular uses the example of rodents coming in to prey on the eggs of birds usually targeted by feral cats. I was able to find some more articles that addressed this phenomena of top predator removal harming an ecosystem overall, and I think they would be valuable to take a look at as it is a really counterintuitive but interesting viewpoint:

1. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1671/3249.short
2. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534701021942

While Phoebe Cone added:

I find it pretty ironic to call for the elimination of cats as pets because of their effect on bird biodiversity, when humans are directly causing the loss of so many other species. You could argue that legislation to limit the population of humans in the US should be implemented, because “it is for the greater good and humans are just too destructive to justify”, but of course most people would not support that. Similarly, the majority of people will never support a decision to make cat ownership illegal. There has to be a balance. I do not think it is reasonable to force people to give up pets, a major source of enjoyment and entertainment (a provider of “cultural services”, if you will) to protect other species that the general population, to be honest, probably doesn’t care all that much about.

I think the focus should be on public education and on feral cat population control. The people who are most likely to want to donate their time and resources to organizations that advocate things such as the protection of bird biodiversity are probably animal lovers, and therefore are likely to keep pets themselves. If we increased public education that let people know that regulating their cats’ outdoor activities could lead to more beautiful birds gracing their feeders and yards, I think people would be much more receptive to the idea that cats harm bird biodiversity. As another person mentioned, putting bells on cat collars is a great idea … It’s not perfect, but it’s a much more balanced and reasonable approach to this issue.

This conversation has ended, but be sure to check out the rest of the 198 comments here!

We are excited to introduce you to three new speakers who’ve been added to the program for TEDGlobal 2013, themed “Think Again.”

First, jazz-pop singer Jamie Cullum will take the stage to perform during session 10, “Imagined Beauty.” Just last week, Cullum released this nerdily adorable video — shot in one continuous Steadicam take — for the song “Everything You Didn’t Do.” Check it out above and marvel at the incredibly quick scene changes.

Photographer Fabian Oefner has also been added to the TEDGlobal program. Oefner brings together science and art in his stunning visualizations, which are meant to give us a sense of awe at the natural forces at work around us each and every day. In March, Oefner wowed us with the project “Black Hole,” which used the centripetal force of a spinning drill to splatter acrylic paint in the most beautiful patterns – all captured in millisecond through a unique sensor rig. See the images and how they were created on his website.

Finally, sustainability expert Johan Rockström is rounding out the program, taking the stage during session 8 “State of Nations.” Rockström recently published the book Bankrupting Nature: Denying Our Planetary Boundaries about the deep denial our culture is in about the magnitude of environmental challenges ahead. At TEDGlobal, he’ll speak about how this impending crisis may be an opportunity to spur innovative thinking.

Check out the full lineup of TEDGlobal 2013 speakers here, and read their detailed bios. Below, a few other speakers who made the news this week:

• As we read the news that U.S. beekeepers lost 1 in 3 of honeybee this winter – due to a deadly combination of pesticides, fungicides, parasites, viruses and malnutrition – we couldn’t help but think of bee scholar Marla Spivak, who’ll speak during the session “Listening to Nature.” Her talk will no doubt be poignant given this recent development. She tells the TED Blog: “It’s good that the complexity of the bee issue to coming to light:  Bees are dying from multiple, interacting causes. Sometimes one factor is the driver (e.g., parasitic mites or viruses), sometimes poor nutrition, sometimes drought, sometimes pesticides, but in the end, all these factors interact to weaken bees.  Our bees, all of our bees (honey bees and all the thousands of species of wild bee pollinators) need help. While scientists figure out causes and solutions to the pathogens, parasites and pesticide problems, everyone can help by planting flowers and keeping them clean of pesticides.”
  .
• In this great profile of frequent TED speaker Marco Tempest in Wired, Apollo Robbins — the so-called “gentleman thief” and session 4 speaker — stops by his loft and discusses the differences in their magic. Says Robbins, “Marco approaches the craft through his passion for innovation and technology. I approach the craft through the study of applied deception.”

In other news, we’ll be paying particular attention to session two, “Those Flying Things,” which focuses on debate about drones. While the session will feature fascinating demonstrations of how drones can be used to great end, we also can’t forget their potential to be used in war. Jody Williams, who gave the talk “A realistic vision for world peace” at TEDWomen, recently launched a campaign against robot warfare. She tells the TED Blog, “While we in the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots follow work on drones, we are not addressing them in the Campaign. We are seeking a pre-emptive ban on lethal robotic weapons on the land, in the sea and in the air that would be able to target and kill human beings on their own. With no human involvement. Terrifying.”