Mary Roach is the kind of journalist who gets excited about the details of embalming, court cases involving ghosts and the mechanics of how exactly one uses the bathroom in space. So we are excitedly awaiting the release of her new book, Gulp, in which she explores the eccentricities of the digestive system. We have […]
Good design has the power to improve lives. Yesterday, Public Interest Design — a group dedicated to design for social good — released the Global Public Interest Design 100, a list of 100 “designers” (including some people you really might not expect) who are designing for the good of all. We love this sweeping list […]
Liu Bolin’s images invite a game akin to Where’s Waldo?. In some of the Chinese artist’s incredible photos, it’s clear where he is standing; in others, like the one above, it’s much harder to spot the outline of his body at all. It’s for this that Bolin has been called “The Invisible Man.” In today’s […]
In today’s talk, Intel engineer Maria Bezaitis brings up a fascinating point: why is the phrase “don’t talk to strangers” such a part of our cultural zeitgeist? “When we’re at our best, we reach out to people who are not like us because when we do that, we learn,” says Bezaitis, in this talk given […]
Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who’s become a YouTube sensation aboard the International Space Station, has showed us why tears won’t fall in space and the dangers of clipping one’s fingernails in zero gravity. But he has truly outdone himself with his latest video. Scheduled to leave the space station tonight at 7pm – and […]
Ron Finley is motivating people across the country to pick up a shovel and “get gangsta” by planting fruits, vegetables and herbs in their neighborhood. Since appearing on the TED2013 stage to talk about why he plants edible gardens in the nooks and crannies of South Central Los Angeles, Finley has been profiled in The […]
I’m 24 and a woman, and that makes me a target for a lot of speculation and life advice. Sheryl Sandberg wants me to lean in to become a woman leader; Anne-Marie Slaughter says my lady parts may doom me to a half-fulfilled life; Susan Patton thinks I should have spent my time at Princeton […]
A round-up of funny, interesting and strange stories on the Internet this week: Hyperbole and a Half’s Allie Brosh is back after a two-year hiatus, with part 2 of an illustrated account of overcoming depression. Dark and delightful. [Hyperbole and a Half] Even world-famous scientists have tiffs. Obviously this bet between Stephen Hawking and Neil […]
Astrobiologist and geologist Louisa Preston looks for analogues to possible life on Mars in the most extreme environments on Earth. Now she’s also considering how humans might someday make a home on the red planet, and is raising funds on Kickstarter in support of AstroGardening – an educational exhibit designed to explore how we might someday […]
Walt Cochran, a teacher in Kansas City, shared this touching video with us for Education Week about his children — one disabled, one not — who make you think about the depth of the sibling relationship. Lindsay, 10, suffers from a form of Muscular Dystrophy called Spinal Muscular Atrophy and has been in a wheelchair […]
With more colleges shifting courses to the online classroom and high school teachers and students alike expressing a strong desire to move away from rigid, mandated lesson arcs, it’s clear — classes don’t have to be exactly as they are. Educators across the globe have begun to look at ways of transforming curriculum to suit different […]
No television special exploring ideas on improving education in the United States would be complete without hearing from students themselves. And so it was essential that students be able to tell their own stories during our first television special, TED Talks Education, which premiered on PBS last night. To that end, we invited Market Road […]
Geoffrey Canada gives a very interesting analogy in today’s TED Talk: He compares the current education system in the United States to the era when banks were only open between the hours of 10am and 3pm. “Now, who can bank between 10 and 3?” asks Canada to a big laugh. “It went on for decades. […]
To an outsider, the Chinese language “seems to be as impenetrable as the Great Wall of China,” says ShaoLan Hsueh in today’s talk, given at TED2013. Hsueh’s mission over the past few years has been to break down that barrier, making reading and writing in Chinese accessible to people who didn’t grow up doing it. […]
By Patricia Harrison When I attended the taping of TED Talks Education last month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I knew I was witnessing an innovative collaboration with the potential to make a difference in the lives of many young people. This milestone collaboration between TED, WNET, PBS, and the CPB American Graduate “Let’s […]
The analog-to-digital shift that has seen e-readers booting out books, smartphones trumping landlines and tablets making desktops look fuddy-duddy is also bringing new tech tools to the classroom. Last month, I read this New York Times article about CourseSmart, an app that allows teachers to track whether students have done their reading in digital textbooks, […]