Roger Ebert, beloved film critic, diesRoger Ebert, the film critic who guided American movie selections for decades, has died, a family friend revealed to newspapers today. He was 70 years old. This sad news comes just days after Ebert wrote a column in the Chicago Sun-Times, celebrating the 46th anniversary of his column and announcing a “leave of presence.” “On […]
TEDWeekends asks: Can trauma be a gift?At TED2010, Stacey Kramer told the moving story of the most treasured gift she ever received: a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Despite the pain, she wouldn’t have traded her experience for anything – because, in the end, it changed her life for the better. Kramer’s poignant talk is featured on today’s […]
An early detection test for pancreatic cancer: Jack Andraka at TED2013When Jack Andraka was 15 years old, he didn’t know what a pancreas was. Now, this teenager has created a test for the early detection of pancreatic cancer that, while still in the preliminary stages, looks promising. So how did he become an health innovator? Andraka tells the story during Session 6 of TED2013. “Have […]
In short: Looking for love during chemo, Kierkegaard’s love letter to a penHere, some staff picks of smart, funny, bizarre and cool stuff on the interwebs this week, with a light Valentine’s Day theme: Suleika Jaouad, who writes about being young with cancer, talks about the embarrassing but very real prospect of being a sexually active cancer patient. [The NYTimes Well Blog] For other unconventional responses to […]
10 talks to help you better understand cancerWhen you hear the word “cancer,” what do you think about? And how do you know what you think you know? Do you think of cancer as a disease of the old or as something that can affect anyone, as a death sentence or as a surmountable twist of fate? When you picture someone with […]
Seeds for healthy cells, candy for cancer: The stop motion tricks behind this TED-Ed lessonMaking this TED-Ed video required (a) a lot of knitting and (b) a ton of boxes of Nerds. When it came time to animate the lesson “How do cancer cells behave differently from healthy ones?” from educator George Zaidan, our TED-Ed animators had a crazy idea for how to make cell division come alive — […]
The latest on Salvatore Iaconesi: the continued momentum of open-sourcing cancer cures“This is my brain cancer. It isn’t nice,” says Salvatore Iaconesi, the engineer, artist and TED Fellow who recently opened up his medical files to the world, crowdsourcing cures of the medical type as well as those for the soul. In this just-released talk from TEDxTransmedia, Iaconesi explains why he made the decision to release […]
Make art (or a cure) from my brain cancer, says TED Fellow Salvatore Iaconesi“I have a brain cancer.” Data artist and TED Fellow Salvatore Iaconesi posted these words this morning, along with a video of himself speaking. With his long ponytail reduced to a scruffy mohawk, he shares this story: Yesterday I went to get my digital medical records: I have to show them to many doctors. Sadly […]
5 teenage cancer innovators. Brittany Wagner taught a computer to diagnose breast cancer, a feat that required 600 hours of coding as well as the running of 7.6 million trials. In other words, this 17-year-old has been very busy for the past few years. That’s right, Wagner — who was named the winner of Google’s second annual International […]
Rethinking cancer treatment: 9 great talks, plus 1 bookMina Bissell was not always the most popular person in the field of cancer research. After studying chemistry in college and getting her Ph.D. in bacteriology, the leading theory on how cancer develops — that a single cancer gene in just one of the body’s trillion cells is enough to cause the disease — simply […]
Detecting pancreatic cancer early: Q&A with 15-year-old Jack AndrakaPancreatic cancer is devastating. Only 5.5% of those diagnosed with the disease survive past five years, because — once it’s diagnosed — it generally has already spread around the body. And that’s where 15-year-old high school student Jack Andraka sees a major opportunity for change. In a spirited talk given at TED@New York — one […]
Unreasonable people unite: John Wilbanks at TEDGlobal 2012John Wilbanks arrives on stage with some bad news, some good news and a task. But first, he says, let’s be honest. We all get sick. We don’t always die, but quite reasonably we do try to find out what’s going on. In the late 1800s, Dr. Carlos Finlay had a hypothesis. He thought yellow fever was not […]
