Last year, MIT neuroscientists Xu Liu and Steve Ramirez manipulated the memory of a mouse. In a fascinating and mildly troubling breakthrough caused by a laser and the protein channelrhodopsin, they “activated” fear memories in a mouse. The impetus, says Ramirez, was the awful feeling of a break-up, the desire, Eternal Sunshine-style, to erase the […]
Biomaterials are substances — synthetic or natural — that can be used to improve health, minimize suffering and improve or correct the way the body works. A suture? That’s a biomaterial. The pacemaker? Indeed. Contact lenses? Yeah, you get the idea. As technology and science have advanced, so too have the sophistication of such biomaterials […]
Wolves will travel to drink from a river. But could the presence of wolves lead a river to change its behavior? In his TED Talk, George Monbiot poetically explains how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park after a 70-year absence set off a “trophic cascade” that altered the movement of deer, sent trees soaring to […]
TED Fellow Lucy McRae (watch her TED Talk) is a body architect — an artist who explores how technology and the body may someday meet and merge. Her latest project is a fantastical and frothy music video for “Dream a Little Crazy” by Australian band Architecture in Helsinki. Watch the mouth-watering video above, and then read all […]
Robby Novak seems like a regular ol’ 10-year-old boy with a big laugh and a tendency to fidget, if you ignore the fact that he’s also a YouTube superstar. The dynamo elementary student started making a series of motivational videos with his older brother-in-law when he was just 9. The videos went viral, and since […]
Here’s a treat for Valentine’s Day (in addition to this playlist of TED Talks about love): Below, take a close-up look at a decellularized “ghost heart.” This heart can serve as a scaffold upon which to grow a working heart from human stem cells. Researchers at the Texas Heart Institute created it by stripping all […]
There have been reports online today that TED has “a policy against discussing abortion.” We’re happy to confirm that that is not true. We’re listening carefully to the community’s concern, and we agree that abortion and reproductive care are core issues of social justice and human rights. In one story, our colleague Kelly Stoetzel is […]
Super Cells is the new TED Book by Nina Tandon and Mitchell Joachim, who take us on an eye-popping tour of the tantalizing array of inventions already being created with nature’s elemental building block, the cell. They argue that we’re entering a new technological revolution, one in which we can create smarter technologies by making […]
At TEDWomen, I introduced the audience to VocaliD — a project aimed at designing personalized synthetic voices so that people with severe speech impairments can use a voice that fits their body and personality. This is a project that I’ve been working on for several years, along with my students and my collaborator, Dr. Tim […]
What’s the future of education? It’s a popular question right now, with answers ranging from online learning to charter schools. But Liz Coleman is focused on a more fundamental issue: what will schools teach? And what does that mean for the future of our society? In her eye-opening talk at TED2009, Coleman shared her hopes […]
The word ‘translate’ means to bring words from one language to another. So you might think that the Open Translation Project — TED’s globe-spanning initiative to bring the ideas from talks beyond the English-speaking world — would only need volunteers who speak multiple languages. But being bilingual is not a necessity. The OTP needs single-language […]
Leyla Acaroglu aims to make people think about how the choices they make on a daily basis affect the environment. And she aims to make thinking about this fun. In today’s TED Talk, Acaroglu turns her attention to four bits of “environmental folklore,” like the idea that it’s more environmentally sound to opt for the paper […]
“Borrowing” as a concept is de rigeur in the creative industries and beyond. What’s that too-often quoted aphorism? “Good artists copy; great artists steal”? Plenty of people have trotted that out as justification for acts they want us to believe are far superior to and way different from plagiarism. In this nuanced conversation, biologist and […]
Aparna Rao makes the kind of art that makes you go “awwwwww,” even if you are the kind of person who would never make such a noise. In today’s talk, this TED Fellow shows us a gallery of art that goes a little crazy when no one is looking, but snaps to attention when someone walks […]
Yesterday, our curator Chris Anderson took an hour to answer rapid-fire questions in a Reddit AMA, sandwiched between AMAs with Matt Damon and Kevin Smith no less. Redditors asked Chris about everything from his dream speakers to the charge that TED has censored speakers. Below, highlights of the conversation. Timbenz asked: What category is hardest […]
Strange as it may seem, archaeologists often look to the sky to discover sites buried deep beneath the earth. Space archaeology, as it’s called, refers to the use of high-resolution satellite imaging and lasers to map and model everything from hidden Mayan ruins in Central America to specific features on the ancient Silk Road trade […]