My needle phobia goes back to when I was 5 years old. I was at the doctor’s office with my younger sister, Lizz, when our doctor had a brilliant idea: “Why don’t we give Kate her shot first so Lizz can see how easy it is?” I was fine being asked to play the part […]
When 12-year-old Peyton Robertson sees a problem, he is going to fix it. So when the young scientist noticed a perennial problem in his hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Florida –flooding during the region’s nasty hurricane season – he set to work building a better sandbag. Peyton’s sandbag contains an expandable polymer that’s lightweight and easy […]
Environmental engineer Francis de los Reyes works with cutting-edge microbiological techniques to create solutions in the fields of environmental biotechnology and engineering. But his big passion, both professionally and personally, is finding ways to improve the plight of the world’s 2.5 billion people living without adequate sanitation. In this conversation, he tells the TED Blog […]
By the second week of January, that resolution that once seemed so reasonable — go to the gym every other day, read a book a week, only drink alcohol on weekends — is starting to seem very … hard. As you are teetering on the edge of abandoning it all together, Kelly McGonigal is here to help. […]
By the organizers of TEDxBeirut Archaeologists believe that Phoenician traders, who set out from the shores of Lebanon, spread their alphabet across the ancient Mediterranean world, unleashing a chain reaction that they couldn’t have conceived of even in their wildest dreams. Today, we are honored to spread that word again as Suzanne Talhouk’s talk from […]
17-year-old Beth Reekles had a really good year. She published two books; appeared on national TV; sold the film rights for her first book, The Kissing Booth; graduated from high school and started college; and earned a spot on TIME’s list of the most influential teens of 2013, alongside household names like Malia Obama and […]
By Asha de Vos, with photos by Jon Lowenstein Monterey Bay is a marine biologist’s dream. It is arguably one of the most dynamic coastlines in the world and, for someone from the tropics like me, it opens up a whole new world for learning and adventure. In recent months, Monterey Bay — located along […]
In 2007, Mayor Mick Cornett put Oklahoma City on a diet, after the city made a less-than-flattering appearance on a list of the most obese cities in the United States. In today’s talk, Cornett shares the aha moments that led him to create This City Is Going on a Diet, a somewhat unusual mayoral initiative. […]
In a major setback last week for the LGBT community, an Indian Supreme Court ruling upheld Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code — a 153-year-old law criminalizing gay sex. This act overturned a 2009 Delhi High Court ruling that this should not apply to consensual acts and, essentially, recriminalized homosexuality. While the Indian government […]
How does being rich affect the way we behave? In today’s talk, social psychologist Paul Piff provides a convincing case for the answer: not well. “As a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases,” he says in […]
DNA. It’s what encodes the genetic material of every living thing. And it also makes a yummy cocktail. This video, which stars TED Fellow synthetic biologist Oliver Medvedik, shows you how to make a delicious adult beverage out of frozen strawberries, pineapple juice and Bacardi 151. Follow the adorably animated instructions, and you’ll be able […]
If you’ve ever had the ending of your favorite TV show ruined by a spoiler-filled tweet, Jennie Lamere feels your pain. The 18-year-old tech whiz won the grand prize at Boston’s TVNext Hack event in April for inventing Twivo, a clever app that blocks all mentions of a show you’re waiting to watch until you’re […]
In 2013, TED published more than 250 talks, each with an idea worth spreading. And yet, certain ideas seemed to resonate throughout the year, as if speakers at different events were singing parts of the same choral symphony. As 2013 draws to a close, here is a look at some of the big ideas we […]
Listen to too much talk about innovation, and before long you’re bound to hear someone utter the “cross” word. It might be followed by “fertilization,” maybe “pollination,” perhaps even “disciplinary,” but the sharing of ideas with unlike-minded people is a hot topic, the holy grail of wannabe world-changers. After all, the thinking goes, working with […]
It’s not often that you see a designer throw their creation on the ground and break it to smithereens. But that’s exactly what TED Fellow Skylar Tibbits does in the video above. Why? Because he works in the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT. When the pieces break apart, they quickly re-assemble themselves, as if the film […]
In the developing world, would-be entrepreneurs are easily able to get microloans. But getting access to formal financial institutions — the kind that give large-scale loans — well, that’s much more difficult. Because 70% of those who start small businesses simply don’t have a financial identity. TED Fellow Shivani Siroya has created a tool to […]