Jessica Gross is a writer based in New York City. She's contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, The Atlantic Cities, and Scientific American Mind, among other places. Jessica has a Master's degree in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University and a Bachelor's in anthropology from Princeton University.
Counting the days ’til TED2015? Yeah: we are, too. Before the conference begins on March 16, dive into a great book written by one of our speakers. Books from speakers in Session 1, “Opening Gambit” National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear, by David Rothkopf. The foreign policy specialist examines the way U.S. […]
There aren’t many places on earth more mythical than the Galápagos Islands, the archipelago that sparked Charles Darwin to form his theory of evolution almost two centuries ago. Protected as a World Heritage Site, they’re bursting with life, from ancient tortoises to Darwin’s finches to bright sea creatures. But as a place for people to […]
Can’t wait for TEDGlobal 2014? We’re here to help! Spend the next two weeks curling up with these books by the wonderful speakers who will grace the stage in Rio. Memoir American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood, by Marie Arana. The writer’s classic, in which she shares her own experience growing up between Peru and the United […]
Writer/director Stewart Thorndike is working on a trio of female-driven horror films — sharp, low-budget psychological thrillers. Her first installment, Lyle, stars Gaby Hoffman as a mother trying to protect her toddler from sinister forces. Thorndike is now running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the second film, Putney, which is billed as being about “a […]
In 2008, Patricia Zougheib was at work in Beirut, Lebanon, when she came across a video of Jill Bolte Taylor describing her own stroke. She was awed, and Googled the three red letters she noticed in the background—T-E-D. “I started watching one talk after the other,” she says, “and I got hooked, big-time.” For a […]
[ted id=1942] When TED Fellow Gabriel Barcia-Colombo saw an extraction of strawberry DNA for the first time, he was smitten. “I’d never thought about DNA being a beautiful thing before I saw it in this form,” he says in today’s talk, given at the TED Fellows Retreat. Barcia-Colombo was inspired to join the public biotech […]
TED2014, our 30th anniversary conference, is less than a month away! If you’re counting the days like we are, get a head start by reading some of the insightful and compelling books by the groundbreaking thinkers who will speak in Vancouver. Books from speakers in Session 1, “Liftoff” Being Digital, by Nicholas Negroponte. This 1995 […]
The standard narrative of human sexual evolution says: men provide women with goods and services in exchange for women’s sexual fidelity. But is that really true or relevant today? Christopher Ryan, the co-author of Sex at Dawn with Cacilda Jethá, takes a deeper look and has quite a few bones to pick with this idea. Ryan […]
During an interview at TEDWomen 2013, host Pat Mitchell asked Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to explain how her 2010 TED Talk evolved. “I asked myself the question that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and my boss, asks all of us, which is: What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?” Sandberg said. Her answer: “I […]
If you’re dreading the inevitable day your New Year’s resolutions—to lose weight, get a better job, and drink less, perhaps?—fall flat, it might be because you need different resolutions. Instead of focusing on outcomes, why not set your sights on process this year? Here, 10 resolutions inspired by TED Talks. They just might inspire you […]
Packing up for your holiday trip home? For the downtime from eggnog, food and family, consider bringing a couple of these excellent novels from TED speakers whose talks were published this year. Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel, The Age of Miracles, quickly took off when it was published last year. Walker imagines a world in […]
How does being rich affect the way we behave? In today’s talk, social psychologist Paul Piff provides a convincing case for the answer: not well. “As a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases,” he says in […]
Gratefulness isn’t always something that comes easily. Below, some reading and watching to get you into a thankful headspace. Watch: “Want to be happy? Be thankful.” This TED Talk from David Steindl-Rast is the perfect Thanksgiving appetizer. In it, the Benedictine monk and interfaith scholar talks about what, exactly, it means to be grateful and offers a simple process for living […]
After 25 years working in sustainability, Steve Howard made a surprising move: he went to work for IKEA. In today’s talk, he explains why by giving a sense of just how far IKEA is going to make sure it has a positive environmental impact. “Sustainability’s gone from a ‘nice-to-do’ to a ‘must-do,’” says Howard in […]
When yet another romantic relationship came “burning down in a spectacular fashion,” Amy Webb sought the advice of her friends and family, including her grandmother. “She said, ‘Stop being so picky. True love will find you when you least expect it,’” Webb recalls in her TED Talk. This advice struck Webb, who works with data for […]
In the 1980s, psychologist James Flynn discovered that, over the past century, our average IQ has increased dramatically. The difference, in fact, is so stark that the phenomenon garnered its own name: the Flynn effect. In today’s talk, Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents’, given at TED2013, Flynn explains that if you […]