Researcher and activist Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. (Recorded at TED U 2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 04:04.) Get the slide deck from this talk >> Watch Kamal Meattle’s talk […]Read more
New Scientist is running a fascinating article on new brain research happening at INSERM that appears to show that consciousness arises from activity distributed across the brain — rather than any single locus or “seat.” Gaillard’s team flashed words in front of volunteers for just 29 milliseconds. The words were either threatening (kill, anger) or […]
Bruce McCall paints a future that never happened — full of flying cars, polo-playing tanks and the RMS Tyrannic, “The Biggest Thing in All the World.” At Serious Play ’08, he narrates a brisk and funny slideshow of his faux-nostalgic art. (Recorded at Serious Play ’08, May 2008, in Pasadena, California. Duration: 13:01.) Watch Bruce […]
At EG’08, Adam Savage talks about his fascination with the dodo bird, and how it led him on a strange and surprising double quest. It’s an entertaining adventure through the mind of a creative obsessive. (Recorded at EG’08, December 2008, in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:39.) Watch Adam Savage’s talk from EG’08 on TED.com, where you […]
Applications for Fellowships at this summer’s TEDGlobal 2009 in Oxford are open! TED is excited to build a class of Fellows to participate in the TEDGlobal Conference this summer in Oxford, UK, July 21-24, 2009. We are looking for an eclectic group of 25 innovators from around the world. Who should apply: Young thinkers and […]
TEDIndia’s Lakshmi Pratury will be interviewing two TED speakers next week in the Bay Area: + March 30, 2009, hear TED2009 speaker Nandan Nilekani, the founder of Infosys and the author of Imagining India, at the Crowne Plaza Cabana in Palo Alto, 6:30-8pm. Tickets: $15 members, $25 nonmembers. Premium tickets (includes reception, book and priority […]
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it’s OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we’re predictably irrational — and can be influenced in ways we can’t grasp. (Recorded at TED2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 16:23.) Watch […]
It takes a certain courage to look at the design of nearly every ground vehicle that exists and say, “You know the real problem with these? They run on wheels.” A stunned silence descended over the TED office as this amazing demo video hopped from email to email, and we think you may react the […]
Why are babies cute? Why is cake sweet? Philosopher Dan Dennett has answers you wouldn’t expect, as he shares evolution’s counterintuitive reasoning on cute, sweet and sexy things (plus a new theory from Matthew Hurley on why jokes are funny). (Recorded at TED U 2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 07:45.) Watch Dan […]
Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, presented a jaw-dropping talk on cheating and dishonesty at TED2009. We’re posting Ariely’s TEDTalk next Tuesday, and we asked him for his thoughts on the Bernie Madoff scandal unfolding now in New York: The first chapter of the Bernie Madoff fiasco has come to a close, with Madoff […]
-able, everyone’s favorite “can-do” adjective suffix, is enjoying a revival. 20-some years since its heyday, we’ve found it stitched to no less than six modern product names, deriving for them a certain adroitness that a lonesome noun mightn’t have provided. And two of these products, as it happens, have been demoed at TED. 1. Siftables: […]
Today, CERN’s been throwing a party to celebrate the 20th birthday of the web — which they date to the now-famous memo that Tim Berners-Lee wrote to his boss, sketching out a framework for a document-sharing system. As they tell it: Twenty years ago this month, something happened at CERN that would change the world […]
Cross-posted to the TED Prize blog: Last week, an amazing group of religious thinkers and leaders, the Council of Conscience, met outside of Geneva to finalize the Charter for Compassion. Previously called the Council of Sages, the group consists of individuals from the five major religions and almost every continent. The Councilors spent two days […]