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Rebekah Barnett

Stories by Rebekah Barnett:

Ideas from the intersections: A night of talks from TED and Brightline

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Ideas from the intersections: A night of talks from TED and Brightline

At the intersections where we meet and collaborate, we can pool our collective wisdom to seek solutions to the world’s greatest problems. But true change begs for more than incremental steps and passive reactions — we need to galvanize transformation to create our collective future. To celebrate the effort of bold thinkers building a better []

Insanity. Humanity. Notes from Session 8 at TED2018

Live from TED2018

Insanity. Humanity. Notes from Session 8 at TED2018

The seven speakers lived up to the two words in the title of the session. Their talks showcased both our collective insanity — the algorithmically-assembled extremes of the Internet — and our humanity — the values and desires that extremists astutely tap into — along with some speakers combining the two into a glorious salad. []

Wow. Just wow. Notes from Session 7 of TED2018

Live from TED2018

Wow. Just wow. Notes from Session 7 of TED2018

What we need sometimes is a little awe, a little wonder. This session of TED Talks was designed to provoke an exquisite human emotion: the sense that the world is bigger and stranger than you’d known. Without further ado, wow. A blueprint for how humans and machines can coexist. American researchers are leading AI discoveries, []

What on earth do we do? Notes from Session 6 of TED2018

Live from TED2018

What on earth do we do? Notes from Session 6 of TED2018

This beautiful blue marble, our shared earth: On a sunny morning in Vancouver, we pack into the darkened TED theater to learn more about its mysteries, its challenges, and how we might help it thrive. There’s no shiny “nature porn” here (well, maybe a little bit) but a clear-eyed look at what’s going right and []

Space to dream: Notes from Session 5 at TED2018

Live from TED2018

Space to dream: Notes from Session 5 at TED2018

Session 5, hosted by TED Curator Chris Anderson and astrophysicist and TED Fellow Jedidah Isler, is called “space to dream.” As Isler points out, we’re not just talking about outer space — it’s also about “the right to take up space, to dream, to do.” Seven dreamers, doers and designers offer a variety of ways []

Nerdish delight: Notes from Session 3 of TED2018

Live from TED2018

Nerdish delight: Notes from Session 3 of TED2018

For the Session 3 of the conference, TED Head of Curation Helen Walters says, “We’re throwing off all pretense of cool.” Seven speakers are queued up to discuss the latest advances in their fields of technology. And while the gadgets do all different things, they share one crucial function: the power to make jaws drop. []

After the end of history … : Notes from Session 2 of TED2018

Live from TED2018

After the end of history … : Notes from Session 2 of TED2018

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, says TED Curator Chris Anderson as he opens Session 2, “we used to think that democratically-powered capitalism was supposed to take over the world.” Political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously called it the “end of history.” So now what happens? Five TED speakers come to the stage to talk []

Doom. Gloom. Outrage. Uproar. Notes and feelings from Session 1 of TED2018

Live from TED2018

Doom. Gloom. Outrage. Uproar. Notes and feelings from Session 1 of TED2018

Let it be noted, says co-host Chris Anderson, that this year’s TED started with a roaring cheer and with a scream of anguish. Our job this week is to explore what’s amazing, in every sense of the word, from the jaw-droppingly wonderful to the shocking and urgent. So Chris and co-host Helen Walters have decided []

Into the fray, undaunted: Notes from TED Fellows Session 2 at TED2018

Live from TED2018

Into the fray, undaunted: Notes from TED Fellows Session 2 at TED2018

To commence TED Fellows Session 2, multi-hyphenate Paul Rucker takes the stage with his cello. (Spoiler alert: you will see him later in this writeup showcasing another artform.) Inspired by his mother, who learned to play the organ through a mail-order course, Rucker taught himself how to play this instrument. But right here on the []

Reimagining the future: Notes from TED Fellows Session 1 at TED2018

Live from TED2018

Reimagining the future: Notes from TED Fellows Session 1 at TED2018

Forget those miserly folk who hoard their best for the last — TED believes in starting strong. Kicking off TED2018 is Session 1 of the TED Fellows, who count among their ranks artists, activists, scientists, researchers, conservationists, thinkers and changemakers of all kinds. The Fellows program now total 453 individuals from 96 countries. In this []

Lee Cronin’s ongoing quest for print-your-own medicine, and more news from TED speakers

In Brief

Lee Cronin’s ongoing quest for print-your-own medicine, and more news from TED speakers

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Behold, your recap of TED-related news: Print your own pharmaceutical factory. As part of an ongoing quest to make pharmaceuticals easier to manufacture, chemist Lee Cronin and his team at the University of Glasgow have designed a way to 3D-print a portable “factory” for the complicated and multi-step chemical reactions needed to create useful drugs. []