11 June 2009

Science and art, long-lost lovers, reunite for opening night of the World Science Festival

The second year of the World Science Festival got off to a spectacular start last night at New York's Lincoln Center, with a program star-studded from both science and the arts. We loved it here at TED, not just because it featured so many of our TED favorites -- physicist Brian Greene (who co-founded the Festival with partner Tracy Day), biologist E.O. Wilson, actor Anna Deavere Smith, Nobel winner James Watson, photographer Frans Lanting and cellist Yo-Yo Ma to name a few -- or because we share a lot of cross-disciplinary DNA with WSF, or because it was held in the new Alice Tully Hall (designed by TED speaker Liz Diller) but also for the its fresh, innovative approach and playful sense of fun.

The evening paid tribute to legendary biologist (and beloved TED Prize winner) E.O Wilson, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, but the program was really a love letter to science itself -- for its importance, yes, but also for the inspiration and wonder it offers, and for its deep but often-unacknowledged kinship with the arts.

"Tonight, science and art, long-lost lovers, reunite" Alan Alda said, as he opened the show. And that sensibility pervaded the program, as it blended science and the arts in innovative and unusual ways -- from a sequence of broadway musical stars singing light-hearted tributes to science (For example, a guided tour of the periodic table, set to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's "I am the very model of a modern major general". Brilliant!) to an intellectual pas de deux, featuring Brian Greene waxing eloquent on the nature of the universe, and Joshua Bell performing lyrically on the violin.

The evening included several heartfelt odes to Wilson -- the transcendent cellist YoYo Ma performed playfully as young "ants" wiggle-danced around him (Wilson's career was built on his research on ants); Anna Deavere Smith impersonated Wilson as only she could. And Nobel winner James Watson (of Watson & Crick double-helix fame) paid homage in his own eccentric way: "When we first met, Ed thought I was the most unpleasant person he'd ever known," Watson explained to a chuckling audience. "And when I first met Ed, I didn't think there was any point in knowing him. Because everyone knew: Biology was the dumb part of science."

READ MORE: The NY premiere of Frans Lanting's LIFE, live performance of the Philip Glass score and Wilson's central message.

Photos: Robert Leslie. Courtesy WSF

Posted by June Cohen | Permalink

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31 March 2009

TED and National Geographic: Shared mission, shared planet, shared stage

National Geographic shares stories that inspire people to care for our world, and TED leverages the power of ideas to change the world. It could be said that we share some common ground.

Unsurprisingly, almost half of the National Geographic Explorers, as well as a few members of their staff, have given TEDTalks. Below the jump is a list of links to all the talks that bring TED and National Geographic together.

Here's National Geographic Explorer and TED Prize 2009 winner Sylvia Earle:

Posted by Shanna Carpenter | Permalink

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13 July 2007

E.O. Wilson on PBS: Why should we care if the woodpecker goes?

The last "Bill Moyers Journal", the weekly report on PBS, featured a long interview (video - transcript) by Moyers with biologist and TED Prize 2007 winner EO Wilson. The focus was very much on Wilson's career -- "No one in our time has added more to our understanding of Earth's ecology than Ed Wilson" is how Moyers described him -- but Moyers took the opportunity to also ask questions about the Encyclopedia of Life. The EOL is Wilson's TED Prize wish (video - summary - text): It's a vast project aimed at documenting all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth, and those yet to be discovered ("We're maybe today about 1/10 through the discovery of species", says Wilson). Efforts towards an EOL have been underway since January 2006, but Wilson's TED2007 speech has significantly accelerated the process, with the McArthur Foundation leading a US$ 50 million funding commitment, leading scientific institutions including Harvard University and the Smithsonian teaming up, and agency Avenue A/Razorfish creating a first design concept for the Encyclopedia and a video to explain the ambitious vision behind the initiative, using photography by Frans Lanting (watch his TED 2005 speech) and others.

Moyers is a great interviewer. At a certain point, he asks Wilson: why should we care if the woodpecker goes? I mean, we've lost---how many species have we lost?

Wilson: How many species going extinct or becoming very rare do you think it takes before you see something happening? We now know from experiments and theory that the more species you take out of an ecosystem like a pond, a patch of forest, a little bit of marine shallow environments, the more you take out the less stable it becomes. If you have a tsunami or a severe drought or a fire, it is less likely that that ecosystem, that body of species in that particular environment, is going to come back all the way. So it becomes less stable with fewer species. And then we also know it becomes less productive. In other words, it's not able to produce as many kilograms of new matter from photosynthesis and passage through the ecosystem. It's less productive. It sure is less interesting, though, isn't it? And more than that: we lose the services of these species.

Moyers: The services of these species.

Wilson: Yes, services of these species to us. Like pollination and water purification.

Moyers: That we get free from nature.

Wilson: Yeah. Here's an easy way to remember it.

Posted by Bruno Giussani | Permalink

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20 April 2007

Frans Lanting on TED.com

In this stunning slideshow, celebrated nature photographer Frans Lanting presents The LIFE Project, a poetic collection of photographs that tell the story of our planet, from its eruptive beginnings to its present diversity. Soundtrack by Philip Glass.

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