At TEDGlobal2012, Ramesh Raskar demonstrated his remarkable femtosecond camera, which can image a light-pulse as it travels through an object, or potentially see around corners. But Raskar’s projects go far beyond even that. After the talk, in a brief Q&A with host Bruno Giussani (above) he introduced NETRA, a simple attachment for a smartphone that […]
Mentored from childhood by Gregory Hines and Savion Glover, Andrew Nemr has tap-danced his way through life. Now, with the Tap Legacy Foundation, he’s using new technology to augment oral tradition, passing on the craft he learned at the knees of the old masters. Tell us about your life as a dancer. I grew up […]
Philippe Petit startled the world when he walked on a taut cable between the soaring twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1974. But even a death-defying high-wire artist has to start somewhere. In Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist, Petit takes you on a […]
What can you learn from your muscles? A lot, according to Alexander Grey, the chief technology officer of Somaxis, who has created sensors that measure muscle workload. In a talk given at TED@New York — one of 14 events that was part of the 2013 Talent Search — Grey demonstrates how people can use these sensors […]
In an interview you should ask a movie star about her movies, an author about his books, a musician about her latest album. But Randy Cohen, the original New York Times Ethicist, hopes to bypass all those boring questions on his radio show “Person Place Thing” and find out what weird passions people of note […]
Whale researcher Asha de Vos spends her days weaving a 6-meter boat through shipping lanes crowded with giant container ships, fishing boats, and marine life, collecting data crucial to the survival of the singular Sri Lankan blue whale. Tell us about the first time you saw the Sri Lankan blue whales. In 2003, I was […]
Cognitive neuroscientist John Kounios was curious: what happens in the brain when someone has a great idea? And so the Drexel University psychology professor designed an experiment to measure subjects’ brain activity as they solved problems. In a talk given at TED@New York — one of 14 events that was part of the 2013 Talent […]
Imagine flames that dance to the sounds jazz guitar. Or downloading a song simply because you like the way it looks. Or seeing Stephen Hawking’s Cambridge lectures in the stars. In a mind-expanding talk given at TED2012, design technologist Jared Ficklin demonstrated all three of these ways to literally see sound, as well as several […]
Daniel Ogilvie was shocked when his 4-year-old daughter ran out of her bedroom screaming, “I don’t want to be a thing that dies.” But every child goes through this moment of recognizing their mortality. A Rutgers University professor who has studied philosophy for the past 25 years, Ogilvie has become fascinated with our beliefs about […]
Pancreatic cancer is devastating. Only 5.5% of those diagnosed with the disease survive past five years, because — once it’s diagnosed — it generally has already spread around the body. And that’s where 15-year-old high school student Jack Andraka sees a major opportunity for change. In a spirited talk given at TED@New York — one […]
Tania Luna, the CEO of SurpriseIndustries.com and a psychology instructor at Hunter College in New York, came to the United States as a 6-year-old immigrant from Ukraine. While she and her family thought that they were staying at a hotel when they first arrived in New York, upon returning years later, they discovered that it […]
We know other primates are a lot like us. But how close are they, and what can we learn about ourselves from them? Lauren Brent is a primatologist and evolutionary biologist who has spent years studying social bonds — particularly friendship — with an eye to learning how and why those behaviors evolved. We talked […]
Kids these days are “speaking” a new language, right under our noses and literally right under the table. But is texting making us dumber? No, says John McWhorter, Associate Professor at Columbia University and Contributing Editor at The New Republic. In his talk from TED@New York — one of 293 talks given as part of […]
By far the most viewed talk from TED2012 was given by an introvert who doesn’t like talking. Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, quietly and powerfully delivered a call to action: take introverts seriously and understand what they can do in the right environment. There is, […]
Biomineralogist Damian Palin (watch his TED Talk) collaborates with bacteria to mine valuable minerals from desalination brine, the toxic byproduct of desalinating seawater — creating wealth from waste while protecting the environment. You work in the field of geomicrobiology. What is it, and why is it becoming increasingly important? Geomicrobiology is a field of science […]
Prize-winning novelist and MD Uzodinma Iweala traveled to Nigeria to talk to everyday people, doctors, government officials, activists, sex workers, even Femi Kuti — Fela Kuti’s son — about HIV/AIDS. Our Kind of People is his highly personal account of the AIDS epidemic and its transformative effect on love, relationships and humanity. Healing requires more […]