Photo: Ryan Lash

Beauty is always a key theme at TED, and in this session, Imagined Beauty, there’s something for everyone, with speakers including a couple whose professions have required the coining of new words.  Meet the “cloudspotter,” the “mathemagician,” and the others who presented to us in this session of TEDGlobal. Click on their name for a full talk recap.

Using daring displays of algorithmic trickery, lightning calculator and number wizard Arthur Benjamin mesmerizes audiences with mathematical mystery and beauty.

Cloud Appreciation Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney shows how seemingly idle pursuits provide unexpected paths to appreciating overlooked wonders.

Uri Alon studies how cells work, using an array of tools (including improv theater) to understand the biological circuits that perform the functions of life.

Alexa Meade paints mesmerising, illusionistic portraits directly on living subjects, subverting familiar visual cues with perspective and color.

In his influential poetry criticism, Stephen Burt links the contemporary with the classical, pinpoints new poetry movements, and promotes outstanding little-known poets.

Andras Forgacs produces animal products — meat and leather — without the animal.

Wrestling with inspiration, Jamie Cullum has been ripping up the jazz rulebook.

Pico Iyer’s travel writing chronicles fascinating (and often jarring) examples of cultural mashups. Now he shows how travel can rescue us from our technological distractions.