Kakenya Ntaiya was engaged at 5-years-old, her family members regularly whispering in her ear, “Your husband just passed by.” This was the traditional path that unfolded before girls in the Maasai village in Kenya where Ntaiya grew up. “In Maasai culture, the boys are brought up to be warriors, the girls are brought up to […]
Here, some staff picks of smart, funny, bizarre and cool stuff on the interwebs from this (and last) week: The true story of Kid President: Watch this behind-the-scenes video of everyone’s favorite new politician. [YouTube] And make sure to watch his pep talk, posted on TED last week. An absolute must-read by Michael Specter, on […]
[ted id=1650]Colin Stokes’ favorite part of being a dad is sharing movies with his two young children. While his daughter’s favorite is The Wizard of Oz, his son quickly became obsessed with Star Wars after catching a glimpse of the movie at age three. “It imprinted on him like a mommy duck does on its […]
TED Talks are available in 94 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our translators. So far, more than 8,500 volunteers have created the upwards of 33,500 translated talks. To celebrate this accomplishment, every week the TED Blog is bringing you a Q&A with one of our most prolific translators. Today, […]
Happy New Year! To celebrate the closing of the year, we asked people around the TED office what talks have inspired them to make a New Year’s resolution. Below, check out their answers. Hint: many found aspirations hidden in unexpected talks. And several might help you formulate the perfect resolution. [ted id=1569 width=560 height=315] One answer that popped up again […]
By Andy Robertson New art forms are polarizing. We love or hate Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde animals or Tracey Emin’s unmade bed but roundly understand that avant garde art has value, the artist trying to challenge us and make us think something. Video games draw similar fire. Detractors hem and haw that they’re all about shooting […]
Teen reporters Sadie Cruz and Nia Ashley conducted lots of interviews with speakers at the TEDYouth conference on November 17. Their Q&As will run on the TED Blog over the next few weeks. Here, a interview conducted by Sadie. Photographer Rick Smolan brought the flavor of homes across the United States to life, helped 25,000 photographers capture […]
November is a special month — not just because of pumpkin-flavored goodies, but because of something sweeter that we hold in our hearts: thankfulness. While you in the United States enjoy your Thanksgiving festivities, here are some TED Talks to watch to help conjure up gratitude and compassion. Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. In the […]
Artist JR’s Inside Out Project has dispersed more than 100,000 stunning black-and-white posters all over the world, intended for groups to paste in their communities to draw attention to social injustice. Today, JR awoke to witness this amazing project, from a group at Les Bosquets in Montfermeil, a suburb of Paris. As JR explains on […]
Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the internet: This weekend, a New York Times cover story revealed how drug cartels are crafting “diesel-powered submarines that would be the envy of all but a few nations.” It’s a fact that Navy Admiral James Stavridis shared with us at TEDGlobal 2012, in his talk “A Navy Admiral’s […]
Some teenagers spend their free time playing video games. Others dedicate their after-school hours to a job, scooping ice cream or taking movie tickets. Still others play a sport, or are star members of a debate team. And still others spend their free time in a lab, working on ways to prevent, diagnose and treat […]
Until he was 19, Joshua Prager wanted to play professional baseball or be a doctor. After 19, he was just glad he could walk. For eight years Prager was a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he was a four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee for his long-form pieces investigating historical secrets. In his talk […]
Two years ago, a chance discussion with a group of Gulf of Mexico fishermen changed the course of Cesar Harada’s life. The TED Senior Fellow had landed his dream job at MIT in Boston, but after hearing first-hand accounts of the conditions in the Gulf following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill of 2010, Harada […]
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, […]
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 […]
At TEDxSummit, Walters Art Museum curator William Noel gave this fascinating talk on revealing the lost codex of Archimedes. The TED Blog caught up with him to talk about the digital future of a traditionally closed institution: the art museum. As with the Archimedes codex, the Walters Art Museum’s online collection operates under the Creative […]