Rebecca Saxe speaks at TEDGlobal 2009. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Above and slightly behind your right ear, exists a part of your brain many scientists believe is specifically dedicated to thinking about other people’s thoughts – to predicting them, reading them, and empathizing with them. It’s called the temporoparietal junction, and this is the area cognitive neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe focuses on in her research.

Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other's mindsAt TEDGlobal 2009, Saxe delves into our amazing capacity to identify and predict others’ emotions and actions, and how this ability is learned throughout childhood. This skill serves an important function in human relationships – we learn how to fill in the unspoken blanks between what someone is thinking and how they are presenting themselves. This is what allows us to glance at a photo of someone and be able to know what she is feeling.

Saxe’s talk is this week’s featured idea for TED Weekends on the Huffington Post. Below, find essays all about our ability to, in a sense, read minds.

Rebecca Saxe: Learning to Read Someone Else’s Mind

My TED Talk, above, is about the process by which we learn to read each other. Here are five reasons that I study how human brains think about other minds.

(1) It is a hard, and awesome, problem. To me, the most breathtaking idea I’ve ever heard is that each thought a person ever has, every moment of experience, of insight, of reflection, of aspiration, is equivalent to a pattern of brain cells firing in space and time. How does a pattern of brain activity constitute a moral judgment? A moment of empathy for a fictional character? The idea for a sentence you’re about to write? Someday, scientists will be able to imagine, simultaneously, these abstract thoughts and how each corresponds to a specific pattern of brain activity. I don’t expect this understanding to arrive in my lifetime. But it’s thrilling to imagine that future, and to feel that my research might be a small step on the route that gets us there. Read the full essay »

Phillip M. Miner: The Neurology of Disgust

Growing up believing you are an abomination is strange. But, if you are gay and grew up in Kansas (or many other parts of the world) — like I did — it’s not all that uncommon. We’re told from a very young age that being gay is wrong and gross. The lesson that men who have sex with men are disgusting is repeated so frequently, your average kid quickly gets the message.

Sometimes the moral judgment is delivered directly — often times through someone with religious moral authority or family. Other times it comes more subtly through language cues. In my experience, the euphemisms for men who have sex with men seem to bleed together to form a powerful and often false identity, saying all men who have sex with men are feminine (“pansy”, “fairy”, “poof”), perverts (“pillow biter,” “corn holer,” “sword swallower”), and abominations (“queer,” “bent”).

There’s disagreement on the physical mechanisms for creating moral beliefs in the brain. Read the full essay»

Barbara Ficarra: Equipped for Empathy

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” These are heartfelt words by award-winning actress Meryl Streep.

Do we all have the power of empathy? Are we hardwired to know what other people want? Is it easy to think about other people’s thoughts?

Rebecca Saxe’s enlightening TEDTalk ”How To Read Each Other’s Minds” asks: “Why is it so hard to know what somebody else wants or believes?” “Why is it so hard to change what somebody else wants or believes?” And “How is it so easy to know other minds?” Read the full essay »

Mary Roach is the kind of journalist who gets excited about the details of embalming, court cases involving ghosts and the mechanics of how exactly one uses the bathroom in space. So we are excitedly awaiting the release of her new book, Gulp, in which she explores the eccentricities of the digestive system. We have to admit, we are pretty amused by this trailer for the book, in which broccoli rides the roller coaster of the alimentary canal and then plays a little intestinal skeeball.

Watch the trailer and then watch Roach’s amazing TED Talk, “10 things you didn’t know orgasm.”

And bonus: check out Jon Ronson’s talk “Strange answers to the psychopath test,” as Ronson had the honor of reviewing Gulp in The New York Times.

Take a bike ride down the 27-kilometer Large Hadron Collider — thanks to a lucky Google Glass winner, whose ride-along video premiered Friday during TEDxCERN.

Andrew Vanden Heuvel always dreamed of being an astronaut; he ended up becoming a pioneering online physics teacher. So when he was selected to be one of the first to try out Google Glass, he knew exactly what he wanted to do: travel to Switzerland, go to CERN (aka the European Laboratory for Particle Physics), check out the Large Hadron Collider and beam the live footage back to a classroom.

More: Sergey Brin talked about the impetus for creating Google Glass, the tech giant’s new augmented-reality headset, at TED2013.

At TED2008, Brian Cox explained what the LHC is looking for: the elusive Higgs boson.

As part of TEDxCERN, physicists from the famous institution, home of  the Large Hadron Collider (and birthplace of the Word Wide Web), teamed up with animators from TED-Ed to create easy-to-understand animated lessons that explain concepts like dark matter, big data and the Higgs boson in lay terms.

Below, watch all five animations and find out: How did the universe begin? What’s up with antimatter? And why is everyone so excited about the Higgs boson? Enjoyable whether you are new to these terms or have been studying them for years.

The beginning of the universe, for beginners. (Lesson by Tom Whyntie, animation by Hornet Inc.)
How did the universe begin — and how is it expanding? CERN physicist Tom Whyntie shows how cosmologists and particle physicists explore these questions by replicating the heat, energy and activity of the first few seconds of our universe, from right after the Big Bang.

Exploration on the Big Data frontier. (Lesson by Tim Smith, animation by TED-Ed.)
There is a mind-boggling amount of data floating around our society. Physicists at CERN have been pondering how to store and share their data for decades – stimulating globalization of the internet along the way, while “solving” their big data problem. Tim Smith plots CERN’s involvement with big data from 50 years ago to today.

Dark matter: The matter we can’t see. (Lesson by James Gillies, animation by TED-Ed.)
The Greeks had a simple and elegant formula for the universe: earth, fire, wind and water. Turns out there’s more to it than that — a lot more. Visible matter (and that goes beyond the four Greek elements) comprises only 4% of the universe. CERN scientist James Gillies tells us what accounts for the remaining 96% (dark matter and dark energy) and how we might go about detecting it.

What happened to antimatter? (Lesson by Rolf Landua, animation by TED-Ed.)
Particles come in pairs, which is why there should be an equal amount of matter and antimatter in the universe. Yet scientists have not been able to detect antimatter in the visible universe. Where is this missing particle? CERN scientist Rolf Landua returns to the seconds after the Big Bang to explain the disparity that allows humans to exist today.

The basics of boson. (Lesson by Dave Barney and Steven Goldfarb, animation by Jeanette Nørgaard.)
In 2012, scientists at CERN discovered evidence of the Higgs boson. The what? The Higgs boson is one of two types of fundamental particles, and it’s a particular game-changer in the field of particle physics, proving how particles gain mass. Using the Socratic method, CERN scientists Dave Barney and Steve Goldfarb explain the exciting implications of the Higgs boson.

TEDxCERN will not be a closed door event. More than 25 universities, laboratories and organizations around the world will be tuning in. In fact, anyone anywhere in the world with a curiosity about how and why the universe exists is welcome to watch through a free webcast.

The webcast begins at 13:45 (CEST) — that’s 7:45am (EST) to anyone living on the East Coast — and will run until 20:00. Watch here »

Below, some TED Talks to get you hyped for the event:

• Brian Cox: CERN’s supercollider
• Tom Whyntie: The beginning of the universe, for beginners
• Garrett Lisi: An 8-dimensional model of the universe
• Brian Greene: Making sense of string theory
• Brian Cox: Why we need the explorers

Still not sure if you want to watch? Read 6 reasons to tune in »

TEDxCERN will be held inside CERN’s world-famous Globe. Photo: TEDxCERN

You have probably heard of CERN — the European Organization for Nuclear Research and the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator that is longer than the island of Manhattan. CERN and LHC are famous for their role in the recent discovery of what very likely is the Higgs boson, a particle crucial to the standard model of physics. But now, CERN will house another exciting first: their first TEDx event.

This Friday, May 3, CERN will bring together thinkers of all kinds to examine our universe and provide insight into why studying it matters. And lucky for you, you don’t have to go to Switzerland to watch in real time. The program will stream live online at the TEDxCERN website from 13:45  to 20:00 (CEST).

So why should you tune in?

1. Because of the incredible speaker lineup. CERN has invited 23 great speakers and performers to the stage. Some highlights of the lineup:

• Philosopher John Searle, the winner of the 2004 National Humanities Award
• Astrophysicist George Smoot, cosmologist and Nobel Prize laureate
• Chris Lintott, the head of Zooniverse at Oxford University and co-presenter of the BBC’s Sky at Night program
• Marc Abrahams, MC of the Ig Nobel Awards and editor of the Annals of Improbable Research
• 18-year-old Britney Wegner, grand prize winner of the 2012 Google Science Fair
• Sergio Bertolucci, director for research and scientific computing at CERN

2. Because the venue will be thrilling. TEDxCERN will take place at the Globe of Science and Innovation on the CERN campus in Geneva. This giant wooden globe — about the size of the Sistine Chapel — was first constructed for the 2000 World Exhibition in Hanover, but now stands as a stirring tribute to the groundbreaking work happening at CERN’s headquarters every day. Says the CERN website, “A landmark by day and by night, the Globe … sends a clear message on science, particle physics, cutting-edge technologies and their applications in everyday life.”

3. Because they make understanding particle physics child’s play. Part of CERN’s mission is making the work done there accessible to those who don’t have a deeply-honed understanding of particle physics. To that end, CERN scientists have teamed up with the animators of TED-Ed to create five easy-to-understand (and fun-to-watch) lessons that explain concepts like the Big Bang, dark matter, big data and Higgs boson. The first of these lessons, “The beginning of the universe, for beginners,” is currently available via TED-Ed. The other four lessons will premiere at TEDxCERN — those watching live will be the first to see ‘em.

4. Because CERN is part of the reason we have the internet. Ever wondered who created that little thing called the World Wide Web? Tim Berners-Lee was a software engineer at CERN in the 1980s, when he proposed the idea to his bosses as a way to “reframe the way we use information.” Twenty years ago this week, CERN offered up the software required to run a web server, a basic browser, and a standard library of code — all royalty free. To celebrate the anniversary, CERN posted the very first public web page ever — dedicated to the “World Wide Web project itself.”

5. Because Higgs boson is poised to change everything. In 2012, the media was abuzz with stories about the “god particle,” aka Higgs boson. This particle was theorized to exist in 1964 by six scientists, including one Peter Higgs. The existence of the particle would confirm the existence of the Higgs field, believed to surround everything, giving mass to elementary particles that, without it, would be massless. The discovery of Higgs boson is the beginning of a whole new field of research and several TEDxCERN talks will touch on where it’s headed. We’re looking forward to the talk, “What the Higgs might mean for the fate of the universe,” from theoretical physicist Gian Giudice.

6. Because you won’t be alone. More than 25 universities, laboratories and organizations will be hosting TEDxCERN livestreaming parties, including TEDxAthens in Greece, the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, Università di Pavia in Italy, Kathmandu University in Nepal, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the United States, and even TED HQ here in New York! Take stock in knowing you’ll be watching along with some of the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and hard thinkers.

Tune in to the TEDxCERN webcast on Friday, May 3rd. It will be available to the public here »

For more information on TEDxCERN, visit their website, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

TEDxCERN set-up, in progress. Photo: TEDxCERN

Taylor Wilson has been called “The Boy Who Played With Fusion” by Popular Science magazine. At age 9, Wilson stunned tour guides at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with his complex understanding of rocket science. At 12, he set out to make a “star in a jar.” By 14, Wilson had become the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion with a working reactor. Built in his parents’ garage, the deuterium-hurling device is now housed in the physics department of the University of Nevado, Reno.

At TED2013, Wilson made his second appearance on the TED stage, above. Now 19, he arrived with a bold new idea — a way to make nuclear energy safe and portable, on a scale where it has the potential to address the global energy crisis. In today’s talk, Wilson shares his latest innovation — Small Modular Fission Reactors. These reactors are small, meaning that they can be built in factories and shipped around the globe. They run on already-molten material, so meltdowns won’t be an issue. They’re installed three meters underground, making them hard to tamper with, and yet, in the event of a disaster, the core can be drained to a tank underneath, stopping the reaction. And while traditional nuclear power plants run for 18 months before needing refueling, the small-scale versions could run for up to 30 years, after which they could be sealed for discarding.

To hear how these reactors work — and a few potential applications, from bringing carbon-free energy to the developing world to propelling rockets into space — watch this talk.

A year ago, at TED2012, Wilson took the TED stage to talk about the nuclear fusion reactor he created in his basement. “I would like to make the case that nuclear fusion will be … our energy future,” he says in this talk, “Yup, I built a nuclear fusion reactor.” “I’d also like to make the case that kids can really change the world.”

Wilson isn’t the only teenager who has shared an energy innovation on the TED stage. At TEDGlobal 2007, William Kamkwamba answered questions about his incredible creation – a homemade windmill he built at age 14.

Kamkwamba set out to make a windmill to bring electricity to his family’s home in rural Malawi. He got the basic plans from a library book, reimagining the design out of spare parts, like a bicycle frame and plastic pipes. Kamkwamba made significant alterations in the design to improve upon it, adding an extra blade to increase the windmill’s power production. In the end, the windmill created 12 watts of energy – enough to power four lightbulbs and two radios in his family’s home.  At TEDGlobal 2009, he returned to the stage to tell the story in more detail in the talk “How I harnessed the wind.”

After his TED experience, Kamkwamba set his sights on building a bigger windmill to pump water and power irrigation for his entire village. Kwambama’s story was recently the subject of the documentary William and the Windmill, which won the Grand Jury Award at SXSW.

Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, is an adult now. But in his talk from TED2003, he revealed that he started his first energy company — called Solar Devices — when he was 15 years old, building on what he learned in school about how parabolas could concentrate rays of light onto a single point. At the height of the gas shortage in 1973, Gross developed his own design for a Stirling engine in metal shop.

“I sold the plans for this engine and for this dish in the back of Popular Science magazine, for $4 each,” he says in this talk, “Bill Gross on new energy.” “I earned enough money to pay for my first year of Caltech.”

Want more talks with ideas for energy (regardless of the speaker’s age)? Watch the TED playlist “The End of Oil.” It begins with Wilson’s talk about his nuclear fusion reactor, continues with Donald Sadoway sharing the missing link to renewable energy, and continues with eight more great ideas for moving beyond our reliance on oil.

According to EarthDay.org, Earth Day was founded in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, who called for a “national teach-in on the environment” after witnessing the terrible effects of the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. The first Earth Day brought major actions to the streets of many major U.S. Cities. For fun, check out this vintage newscast from after that first Earth Day.

Earth Day went global in 1990 and, today, is celebrated in an estimated 192 countries. Which makes today the perfect day to take time to appreciate the land, air, oceans and wildlife that sustain us — and to think about how our lives, both individually and as a group, affect the environment. To that end, here are 12 talks — some reflective, some terrifying, some beautiful, some galvanizing — to watch today.

Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis Former vice president Al Gore flipped the way so many think about global warming in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Two years after the doc’s release, he returned to the TED stage with a new presentation … showing that the impact of climate change may be even worse than scientists had predicted.

Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. Louie Schwartzberg is a master of time-lapse photography, and his images of flowers dancing as they bloom will pierce your heart. In this talk from TEDxSF, he invites Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast to lead a meditation on gratefulness for the beauty and bounty that surrounds us.

Sylvia Earle's TED Prize wish to protect our oceans Sylvia Earle’s TED Prize wish to protect our oceans Ocean researcher Sylvia Earle knows that the waters of the deep contain amazing wonder. And yet, she worries that they are quickly becoming a “paradise lost.” Watch Earle accept the TED Prize at TED2009 and unveil Mission Blue, an initiative to protect our oceans. As she puts it, “No blue, no green. If you think the ocean isn’t important, imagine Earth without it. Mars comes to mind.”

John Doerr sees salvation and profit in greentech John Doerr sees salvation and profit in greentech Silicon Valley legend John Doerr had an ‘aha’ moment when his 15 year old daughter accused him and his generation of ruining the planet. In this talk from TED2007, he gives a personal, heartfelt call for investors to look at clean energy, and for big companies to make the little changes that will add up over time.

Vicki Arroyo: Let's prepare for our new climate Vicki Arroyo: Let’s prepare for our new climate As our climate changes, many areas of the world — including major cities like New Orleans — are at risk of flooding and drought. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Vivki Arroyo calls on use to prepare now, by sharing examples of cities that are planning ahead and implementing big projects that take these risks as a given.

Karen Bass: Unseen footage, untamed nature Karen Bass: Unseen footage, untamed nature Karen Bass shoots incredible wildlife footage for National Geographic and the BBC. In this talk from TED2012, she shares awe-inducing video — from the tube-lipped nectar bat feeding on a flower to grizzly bears emerging from hibernation.

James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change Scientist James Hansen saw it as his moral imperative to speak out about the rapidly changing planet he saw in his work. In this talk from TED2012, Hansen explains why global warming is happening (“Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed”) and calls on us to start reversing it.

Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic We recycle a “diddly-point-squat” percentage of the plastics we use. The result — they end up in the oceans.  In this talk from TED2009, Captain Charles Moore shows us the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — an endless floating wasteland of plastic. His call to all of us: to stop our throwaway mentality and stop the plastic on land.

David Keith's unusual climate change idea David Keith’s unusual climate change idea Environmental scientist David Keith bemoans the fact that we’ve been reading the same headlines about the environment since the 1950s, while achieving very little to change them. In this talk from TEDSalon 2007 Hot Science, he shares a bold idea: What if we released a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight and heat?

Cesar Harada: A novel idea for cleaning up oil spills Cesar Harada: A novel idea for cleaning up oil spills When TED Senior Fellow Cesar Harada heard about the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he quit his job and set about designing an efficient way to soak up oil. At the TEDxSummit, he shares his creation — a highly-manueverable boat that is capable of cleaning large tracts of oil quickly.

Alex Steffen: The route to a sustainable future Alex Steffen: The route to a sustainable future If people across the globe had the ecological footprint of those in the United States, we’d need 5 to 7 planets to sustain it all, says Alex Steffen at TEDGlobal 2005. But of course, we only get one. Here, he asks us to actively reduce our footprint, especially as the consumer lifestyle spreads across the globe.

James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss Thanks to photographer James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey, we can actually see glaciers recede before our eyes — the process of several years condensed into a few seconds.  In this talk from TEDGlobal 2009, Balog shares how he brings together art and science to deepen all our understanding of how quickly ice is disappearing. (See also: Camille Seaman’s haunting photos of polar ice.)

There’s something oddly satisfying about hearing something gross — something that automatically scrunches your face and makes you cover your eyes, though maybe opening two fingers so that you can sort-of, kind-of see. That’s why we created the new TED Playlist called GROSS!

Included in this playlist: Marcel Dicke’s rousing case for why we should eat insects. Kees Moeliker on how discovering a live duck copulating with a dead duck changed his life. And Marcus Byrne’s love letter to the dance of the dung beetle, which allows it to roll poop over great distances.

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built for you in a thoughtful sequence to illuminate ideas in context. A new playlist is added every week. We hope you enjoy this installment.

Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness “These are just remarkable changes,” says Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, in today’s talk given at TEDxCaltech. “All of them boil down to understanding something about the disease that has allowed us to detect early and intervene early.”

Sadly though, Insel says, the news isn’t good across the board. The rate of suicide, he says, has not changed at all over the last three decades. About 90% of suicides are related to mental illness. And while 1 in 5 people will be affected by a psychiatric disorder, scientists still understand dangerously little about these diseases. In fact, says Insel, we don’t even know what to call them. The terms preferred at the moment – “mental disorders” and “behavioral disorders” — are misleading, because they point to symptoms rather than to the disease itself.

“Both of those terms which have been in play for a century or more are actually now impediments to progress,” says Insel. “What we need conceptually here is to rethink these disorders as ‘brain disorders.’”

In this talk, Insel reveals why he believes we are about to turn a corner in understanding the brain, which he calls an “organ of surreal complexity.” As scientists get a better understanding of its workings and development, they’ll start to understand the patterns of brain disorders. It’s possible that, as with heart disease, scientists will be able to identify risk factors. To hear how this could lead to early detection of brain disorders — and even interventions before a person so much as experiences or displays symptoms — watch this fascinating talk.

“The good news stories in medicine are early detection and early intervention,” explains Insel. “If we waited until the heart attack, we would be sacrificing 1.1 million lives every year in this country to heart disease. That’s precisely what we do when we decide that everyone with one of these brain disorders has a ‘behavioral disorder’ – we wait until the behavior becomes manifest.”

Insel’s talk reminds us of two powerful TED playlists.

First it reminds us of the list “All Kinds of Minds,” which features several TED Talks from people who’ve had the experience of living with a brain disorder. It begins with legal scholar Elyn Saks describing her own experience of schizophrenia, moves on to activist autism activist Temple Grandin describing how her mind works, and builds to Joshua Walters, who is bipolar, asking: What’s the balance between medicating craziness away and riding its creative edge?

Insel’s talk also reminds us of the playlist “How does my brain work?,” which brings together talks about incredible research that’s helping scientists better understand our minds. It begins with neuroscientist Daniel Wolport giving a fascinating theory on why the brain evolved, moves on to Allan Jones and his initiative to map of the brain, and ends with Michael Merzenich giving evidence of the brain’s plasticity.

Also very worth checking out: Thomas Insel’s blog, where he just last week wrote about CLARITY, the newest way scientists at Stanford University are looking at the brain »