11 September 2008

A ribbon of life in the deep ocean: David Gallo on TED.com

With vibrant video clips captured by submarines, David Gallo takes us to some of Earth's darkest, most violent, toxic and beautiful habitats, the valleys and volcanic ridges of the oceans' depths, where life is bizarre, resilient and shockingly abundant. (Recorded February 1998 in Monterey, California. Duration: 13:20.)

Watch David Gallo's 1998 talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 290 TEDTalks -- including more talks on oceans.

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26 June 2008

Counting down the Top 10 TEDTalks

With 50 million views since we debuted online two years ago, TED talks have become a powerful cultural force.

To celebrate this milestone, we're releasing a never-before-seen list: the Top 10 TED talks of all time, as of June 2008.

With speakers like neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor and global health expert Hans Rosling, the list proves one of the compelling ideas behind TEDTalks: that an unknown speaker with a powerful idea can reach -- and move -- a global audience. Links to all 10 talks are found below -- or browse through our Top 10 TED Talks Theme. Even if you've seen all the talks, the highlights video is darn fun.

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Download the Top 10 TED Talks highlights video:
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Hi-def video (480p)

Top 10 TED Talks of all time
1. Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
2. Jeff Han: Touchscreen demo foreshadows the iPhone
3. David Gallo: Underwater astonishments
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo
5. Arthur Benjamin: Lightning calculation and other "Mathemagic"
6. Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
7. Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen
8. Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better
9. Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis
10. Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote

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18 June 2008

Wordle, an addictive new web toy

Jonathan Feinberg, a sometime collaborator of artist Golan Levin (watch Levin's TEDTalk), has given the world an addictive new web toy. Wordle turns any block of text into a word cloud -- like a tag cloud but prettier. It's hard to stop using it once you start. TEDTalks transcripts produce these handsome results:

ABOVE: Erin McKean redefines the dictionary

ABOVE: Murray Gell-Mann finds beauty and truth in physics

AT TOP: David Gallo shares underwater astonishments

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11 April 2008

Biomimicry in National Geographic and on TED.com

This month's National Geographic has a great story on biomimetics, or biomimicry, the art of studying nature's engineering. If you're inspired by this story, check out these TEDTalks for more on biomimicry. Clicking on a name (or an image above) will launch the TEDTalks player >>

+ Scientist Robert Full (whose work with geckos is explored in the National Geographic story) shares his obsession with animal feet

+ Biologist Sheila Patek plays high-speed video that captures some extreme engineering from nature -- the superefficient structures that allows a tiny shrimp to move at hyperspeed

+ Journalist Janine Benyus shares her top 12 designs that we can steal from nature, from self-assembly to self-smoothing paint

+ Oceanographer David Gallo shares some amazing animal abilities that we humans might someday want (couldn't you use a little bioluminescence?)

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01 March 2008

Lost in the stars: TED@Aspen Day 3

Photo: Michael Brands/Aspen Institute

Friday at TED@Aspen, we hosted live Talks from Walter Isaacson, the head of the Aspen institute, and the wonderful Ze Frank. Between TED sessions via satellite, we heard from David Gallo and William Lange of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Joy Mountford sharing amazing data visualizations, Ron Dembo and his ZeroFootprint carbon calculator, Reto Schnyder and his thoughts on Max Frisch's I'm Not Stiller, and the Raspyni Brothers -- who put on a completely terrifying show that risked the life of the world's greatest poker player, as they juggled bowling balls over Phil Gordon's head.

The TED Prize lunch at Aspen Meadows was buzzing with great ideas, with a rich cross-pollination and connection among the three winners and their wishes. After we rocked the entire Doerr-Hosier Center with the "Ode to Joy," we rode the Silver Queen gondola, 3,000 feet up Aspen Mountain into an amazing starry sky, for dancing, drinking and more amazing conversation.

Photo: Michael Brands/Aspen Institute

See TED's flickr set for more portraits from TED@Aspen >>

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11 January 2008

Underwater astonishments: David Gallo on TED.com

David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a shape-shifting cuttlefish, a pair of fighting squid, and a mesmerizing gallery of bioluminescent fish that light up the blackest depths of the ocean. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 5:21.)

Watch David Gallo's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about David Gallo on TED.com.

NEW: Read the transcript >>

Download this talk in 480p high definition >>

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