Deborah Scranton‘s latest “virtual embed” documentary film, Bad Voodoo’s War, premieres April 1, 2008, on PBS’s Frontline and online. From the Frontline site: In June 2007, as the American military surge reached its peak, a band of National Guard infantrymen who call themselves “The Bad Voodoo Platoon” was deployed to Iraq. To capture a vivid, […]
Ode Magazine writes of the inspiring efforts of TEDGlobal Fellow and agriculture activist Thomas George to build fair-play marketplaces for poor farmers in Kenya. His organization, Vipani, is a resource for workers on small farms — people without credit, connections or know-how — to access networks of other farmers, buyers, suppliers and lenders. George’s work […]
Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he’s not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll’s to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply […]
At TED 2006, Dan Dennett spoke out for the unbiased study of religion as a natural, biological phenomenon. His hope may come true. The Economist writes of recent headway made into understanding of religious belief — in particular a new project called Explaining Religion, the “largest-ever scientific study of the subject.” EXREL’s goal is to […]
From last month’s TED conference: Neuroscientist Christopher deCharms demos an amazing new way to use fMRIs to watch the brain in action. Using this technology, if you move your arm, get angry, feel pain, you can see what it looks like in your brain as it happens — and then you can learn to control […]
Ben Saunders, who spoke at the 2005 TED Conference about his solo trip to the Geographic North Pole, is heading north again in an attempt to set a world speed record. From Ward Hunt Island in Canada he’ll ski against bitterly cold winds across the Arctic Ocean’s frozen, fluctuating surface. He hopes to complete the […]
From the DLD Conference in Munich: Architect Norman Foster discusses his own work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and “basically pollution-free.” He shares projects from throughout his career, from the pioneering roof-gardened Willis Building (1975) to the London Gherkin (2004). He also comments on two upcoming megaprojects: […]
Robert Full (watch his TEDTalk on gecko feet) and his team at UC Berkeley have uncovered more oddly-worth-knowing facts about geckos and how they move. It turns out that, along with their amazing sticky paws, geckos use their tails as a kind of fifth limb to help them balance while they climb walls. The team […]
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers new details on how mirror therapy addresses phantom limb pain — a topic covered by Vilayanur Ramachandran in his 2007 TEDTalk. Inspired by Dr. Ramachandran’s work, a team of researchers from military hospitals tested a group of 22 patients with amputated lower limbs, […]
Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, physicist Neil Turok speaks out for talented young Africans starved of opportunity: by unlocking and nurturing the continent’s creative potential, we can create a change in Africa’s future. Turok asks the TED community to help him expand the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences by opening 15 new centers across Africa […]
As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions — Islam, Judaism, Christianity — have been diverted from the moral purpose they share: to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act […]
Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to engage with their local school. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don’t need to go that far, he reminds us […]
The TED office is running in circles trying to get the word out about Pi Day, that special day for number nerds that only comes around once a year. We’d love to hear what TED fans are doing to celebrate — whether watching Pi, baking a pie or taking an irrational out to dinner. If […]
At TED2008 in Monterey, two sketch artists captured the Big Questions live as they happened — watching each speaker, sketching their impressions, and feeding everything into a groundbreaking new system for sharing and connecting ideas. Autodesk‘s BigViz system is an interactive way to record and synthesize big ideas in a collaborative environment — what better […]
From the TED archives: Speaking at TED2 in 1990, the not-yet-legendary architect Frank Gehry takes a whistlestop tour of his work to date, from his Venice Beach house to the under-construction American Center in Paris. Over the course of this 45-minute slideshow (before TED’s 18-minute limit), Gehry explains the site-specific nature of his buildings — […]
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery […]