This short post collects messages and reflections on Rita Pierson, who passed away Friday in Texas. If Dr. Pierson’s talk or work touched your life, please share in the comments below. So very sorry to have this terrible news. I only met Dr. Pearson on the day of the recording and was deeply impressed as […]Read more
The TED community was deeply saddened to hear that Rita Pierson, whose powerful, funny, heartfelt talk kicked off TED Talks Education just a few months ago, died today in Texas, at age 61. It was truly an honor to help share her message with the world. Hers is truly an idea worth spreading: that every child, rich […]
Your life’s turning point — whether it happens in an instant or is the culmination of gradual change — could occur tomorrow. Would you be ready for it? How would you reconcile your former self with the person you’ve become? In this week’s TED Radio Hour, we hear from TED speakers forever changed by major and […]
Audience members at TEDxWWU, an event at Western Washington University, played a cathartic game of Jenga. The TEDx’ers built and broke down structures made of Jenga blocks on which they had written ideas for how they would like to “renovate” their lives. The theme of this event in Bellingham, WA: “Renovations: Building Our Future.” This […]
Roy Amara’s classic quote goes: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” In today’s talk from TED2013, Rodney Brooks invokes this law to talk about robots. While people panic about robots taking their jobs over the course of the next few […]
In the past week, vast protests sparked by a bus-fare increase have rocked Brazil, taking its leaders – and the world – by surprise. TED Fellow and conservation biologist Juliana M Ferreira offers an insider’s perspective on what led to this transformational moment. With all the eyes of the world on Brazil due to the […]
“If there is this big difference, with some people worth everything and other people worth nothing, where do you come?” So asks Richard Wilkinson in the trailer for the forthcoming documentary based on his influential book The Spirit Level. Wilkinson, an epidemiologist, spent his career examining health issues caused or worsened by poverty and inequality — […]
Death by gun and death by fungus. The thylacine, otherwise known as the Tasmanian tiger, and the gastric-brooding frog are two species that are now extinct, not by accident nor natural means, but by our own hands. In today’s talk, paleontologist Michael Archer explores the moral obligations we have in reviving a species whose demise […]
By Logan Smalley Everyone fantasizes about what it would be like to lift a building, run faster than a speeding bullet, or temporarily turn on their invisibility. However, not everyone takes the time to consider the scientific ramifications of utilzing such spectacular gifts. For instance, did you know that being invisible would render you blind? The […]
In the image above, one million handmade bones — made by schoolchildren and artists around the world — have been methodically laid across the National Mall in Washington, DC, from the US Capitol building all the way to the Washington Monument. The culmination of a five-year project from TED Fellow Naomi Natale (read our interview […]
The past two weeks have seen some fascinating TED-related news items. Below, highlights. As the mayor of Tirana, Albania, Edi Rama transformed his city into a multi-colored explosion of geometric pattern. (Watch his TED Talk.) The leader of Albania’s opposition Socialist Party, Rama has now been named the nation’s new Prime Minister following his party’s commanding win in […]
The image above is classic Liu Bolin — the artist painted exactingly to blend in with the scene behind him. (Watch his talk from TED2013, “The invisible man.”) But if you look closely, you will see that the man in the picture is not actually Bolin—the tell-tale Ray-Bans reveal that this is JR, the artist […]
Bob Mankoff lives and breathes cartoons. He’s drawn many himself — he’s had a contract with The New Yorker for more than 30 years and, in 1997, he became the magazine’s cartoon editor. It’s now his job to sift through the 1,000 or so “idea drawings” (as they’re called within The New Yorker‘s walls) that […]