I'm the director of The Story Collider, where people tell true, personal stories about science in their lives. I'm also a Contributing Editor for TED.com, a Moth StorySLAM champion and an ex-High Energy Particle Physicist.
Recognizing the impact of the late Steve Jobs on the lives of essentially every person in the TED crowd, curator Chris Anderson introduces this ad, the original Apple “Think Different” ad, narrated by the company founder.
Marco Tempest, the magician who was a spectacular hit at TEDGlobal 2011, takes the stage to tell a story, with projections, pop-up books, magic gestures, to tell the story of Nicola Tesla. Photo: James Duncan Davidson Marco dons a hat, and Tesla’s face projects on his, as he continues the story. Photo: James Duncan Davidson […]
Photos: James Duncan Davidson “Be nice to nerds…” As the opening slide from a TEDTalk, not too surprising. As the opening line from Regina Dugan, the director of DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), kind of ominous. But the projects she demonstrated are extraordinary, and how they get there, even more so. If you want […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson “Bye, Lisa, I’m off to the TED Conference!” That’s what Scooter announced just before being grabbed by a hook and pulled into a series of wonderful events. So, there was a delay, but he made it. And what he didn’t mention in the movie is: He was a speaker! On stage […]
Because experimentation and innovation form the stuff of TED… In this session: Who showed up? Scooter the Muppet! And he laid a smackdown on CGI upstarts: “Can Tactile Icons Survive in an Integer-Driven Environment?” >> Regina Dugan directs the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the DoD innovation engine responsible for creating and preventing strategic […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidason Author and UVA psychology professor Jonathan Haidt kicks off his TED2012 talk with a provocative question: “how many of you think of yourselves as religious?” Some people raise their hands, but not so many. Another question: “Do you think of yourselves as spiritual in any shape or form?” The majority of people […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson How do we get good at anything? Doctor Atul Gawande opens his talk at TED2012 by asking that question. He writes as well as practices medicine, and constantly has to confront that question about everything in his life. But there’s a new crisis, the incredible cost of healthcare. The fight is framed as: […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson “I’m here to give you your recommended daily allowance of poetry.” So says Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States. He tells the story of being approached by the Sundance Channel to record his poems and set them to animation. Attempts to set his poetry to music had failed in the past. But […]
Image c/o Warner Brothers Pictures, 1985 Jimmy Guterman (curator of TEDxBoston) starts a short audience talk with what is unfortunately an eternal truth of the human condition: “Everyone of a certain age has felt washed up.” It doesn’t matter if you’re a country, the environment or a person. There comes a time when you want a comeback. Guterman recently […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg0KdglaOv0&list=UUjDrcS8Cocvi970K_lPffeQ&index=2&feature=plcp%5D The Helix Wave, installed at the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened in 2012. Reuben Margolin is an artist and a kinetic sculptor. He likes working in his shop, listening to the rain. And he makes sculptures that move and sway — all operated by mechanical means. In one […]
A spotlight. A smoke trail. Dancers. Session 2 of TED, The Parlor, opened with a gorgeous performance by Quixotic Fusion, a dance company out of Kansas City. In three pieces, they showed a stunning combination of dance and technology, interacting with each other and with objects projected around them. And it didn’t stop there. A company known […]
For this session, we’re resurrecting the 17th century custom of the salon in order to delight and educate everyone gathered both here at TED — and at the simulcasts taking place around the world. In this session: Quixotic, a mixed-media theater/performance/aerialist company. See a sneak peek of their stage work >> Andrew Stanton, the writer […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, is an introvert. So as she gets up to present from the TED2012 stage, bag in hand, it is not a comfortable experience. But it’s an important one, and that’s the point. Her family grew […]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson Paul Gilding starts his TEDTalk with four words that say almost everything: “The Earth is full.” It’s a terrifying concept. Have we really strained, mined and otherwise depleted the planet’s resources to the point where social collapse is inevitable? Gilding believes we have, and he launches into a defense of that […]
. Director Ridley Scott is returning to a genre he defined: Prometheus, a sci-fi epic, is due out in early June. Like the rest of Scott’s work, it’s a movie steeped in ideas about what it means to be human. Screenwriter Damon Lindelof thought it would be appropriate and, well, incredibly cool to have one of […]
It’s time for TED! To kick off this year’s official TED2012 programming, we’re taking a 30,000 foot view to examine where we are — and where we’re going. Session 1 is the “The Observatory,” with a gorgeous background imagining the audience in a space station looking down on Earth. Follow along the TED Blog as […]