5 mnemonic devices for reading Chinese charactersTo an outsider, the Chinese language “seems to be as impenetrable as the Great Wall of China,” says ShaoLan Hsueh in today’s talk, given at TED2013. Hsueh’s mission over the past few years has been to break down that barrier, making reading and writing in Chinese accessible to people who didn’t grow up doing it. […]
The teachers who inspired us, and even changed the trajectories of our livesRita Pierson is the kind of teacher you wish you had. An educator for 40 years, she is funny, sharp and simply has a way with words — so much so that today’s talk feels a bit like a sermon. In this talk, Pierson shares the secret to teaching students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds […]
Two ways of thinking about social media: digital tattoos and virtual shadowsAt concerts, lighters once swayed in the air during poignant moments, the audience belting out lyrics together in a moment of catharsis. Today, the group sing-alongs still happen, but the air shines with a different glow: the light of cell phones. Last week, while seeing a favorite band, I couldn’t help but notice the sea […]
The language of photography: Q&A with Sebastião SalgadoI’ll never forget the first images of Sebastião Salgado’s that I ever saw. At the time, I was just getting into photography, and his images of the mines of Serra Pelada struck me as otherworldly, possessing a power that I had never seen in a photo before (or, if I’m honest, since). In the twenty […]
The future of work and innovation: Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolfsson debate at TED2013Economists Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolffson see very different things when they look at the stagnation of the U.S. economy in recent years. It’s almost as if they’re looking at an optical illusion image – one seeing a candlestick while the other sees two faces just inches apart. In today’s talks, they both outlined their […]
Talking s**t with Rose George: A Q&A about the global health issue no one wants to bring upA single gram of poop contains 50 diseases, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasites, 100 worm eggs and 10 million viruses, by journalist Rose George’s tally. For people who have flushing toilets, this is something that they rarely have to think about. But for the 2.5 billion people in the world who have no toilet at […]
7 writer/artist/thinker groups whose members made a tremendous impact on their time … as well as oursIn 1812, four men met for a “philosophical breakfast” at Cambridge University: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell. Over food and drinks, they debated the state of knowledge –- imagining a world in which thinkers drew conclusions based on data, where research was done for the good of humanity rather than for […]
7 covetable toys that blurred the line between robot, pet and friendChildhood pals Keller Rinaudo, Phu Nguyen and Peter Seid had a simple motivation for creating the smartphone toy robot Romo. As Rinaudo told CNET, it was because most personal robots on the market are simply “sucky.” Rinaudo, Nguyen and Seid — who founded the company Romotive — set out to build a personal robot that […]
Holocaust Remembrance Day: Remembering those lost and those who survivedToday, we remember the 11 million lives taken during the Holocaust — a catastrophe that thoroughly transformed our world. As we take time to honor lives lost, we look towards people like Viktor Frankl, who gave this talk “Why to believe in others.” A Holocaust survivor and renowned author, in this rare clip, Frankl discusses […]
Remembering Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, passed away today after suffering from a stroke. The longest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century, Thatcher also holds the distinction of being the only woman to hold the post. She has died at 87-years-old. Below, some TED Talks that examine Thatcher’s […]
5 great stories with double lives as allegories“Once upon a time, there was a place called Lesterland,” Lawrence Lessig begins today’s talk. “Of its 311 million people, it turns out 144,000 are called Lester,” Lessig says. In Lesterland, this .05% of the population is granted extraordinary power. Each election cycle, there’s a general election, in which the people get to vote, and […]
9 transportation devices that could make your commute far more funWhen engineering grad students Sanjay Dastoor, John Ulmen and Matthew Tran met at Stanford University, they lamented the fact that there was no good way to get around campus. And so, they invented one: a longboard skateboard fashioned with an electric motor. In today’s talk, given at TED2013, the three give demo their Boosted Boards […]
Not just for April Fools’ Day: 8 winners of the Ig Nobel Prize, whose scientific works sounds funny but is actually perfectly serious, mostlyIn 1995, Kees Moeliker heard a loud bang coming from the Natural History Museum Rotterdam’s new wing. He knew exactly what it was. A curator at the museum, Moeliker had gotten used to the sound of birds hitting the glass exterior of the new wing, and had even taken to stuffing the dead birds for […]
How a dead duck changed the TED audience’s lifeIn the days leading up to TED2013, we at the TED Blog revealed the best props at TEDs past and showed you the speakers who’d brought animals on stage with them. Little did we know that, on the day two of the conference, we’d meet a speaker who’d combine both. In today’s talk, given at […]
Happy Pi Day! Two talks to watch as you celebrateToday is March 14, otherwise known as 3/14. For any math enthusiast, these numbers will certainly set off a bell — they are the first three digits of Pi. To help you celebrate Pi Day, here are two TED Talks, starting with Daniel Tammet’s “Different ways of knowing.” Tammet has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia […]
