UPDATE OCTOBER 2017: The science of power poses is one of ongoing study. Please check our update on Amy Cuddy’s talk for the latest research in this area of science. There’s one very important thing that everyone should do before heading into a job interview, giving a big speech or attempting an athletic feat. According […]
Bioarchaeologist Christine Lee reconstructs lives from ancient human remains, looking for clues as to how they lived, fought and died. In the process, she gains insight about the history of disease, the evolution of culture, the violence of human nature — and her own identity. What prompted you to become a bioarchaeologist? When I was […]
[ted id=1537] Two years ago, Lebanese-Egyptian artist and historian Bahia Shehab was invited to join an exhibit commemorating 100 years of Islamic art in Europe. The catch: she had to use Arabic script in her work. “As an artist, a woman, an Arab and a human being living in the year 2010, I only had […]
One might ask Nate Silver, the data whiz behind FiveThirtyEight.com, which shot to prominence after providing eerily accurate forecasts of the 2008 election, what makes for good predictions. His answer will come as a surprise. In his new book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail But Some Don’t, Silver explains the […]
Shea Hembrey is 100 artists in one. At TED2011, he shared how he staged an international biennial containing works from 100 artists … all of whom he invented himself. The talk has spun into his first New York gallery exhibit, featuring work he made—this time as himself. The exhibit is called “Dark Matters,” and it’s […]
[ted id=1575] As a doctor, Ben Goldacre likes to have all the available facts about a prescription drug before he even thinks about prescribing it. However, when it comes to medicines, it’s nearly impossible to find all the existing data. As Goldacre described in this impassioned talk given at TEDMed 2012, there is a bias […]
Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the Internet: California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law yesterday making it legal for driverless cars to travel on public roadways. [Forbes] Watch Sebastian Thrun’s TEDTalk “Google’s driverless car” for a description of how such a thing works and Chris Gerdes’ talk “The future race car — 150mph, and […]
Many people simply listen to music. Not David Byrne, the solo artist and former frontman of the Talking Heads. Even beyond making music, Byrne thinks deeply about how music functions on a perceptual level. At TED2010, Byrne spoke about how the nature of a space effects what kind of music is played there, from a […]
Martha Payne may only be 9-years-old, but she is already a world-renowned food blogger. In a preamble to his fascinating TEDTalk about what governments can learn from open-source programming, Clay Shirky told Payne’s inspirational story. In April of 2012, Scottish schoolgirl Payne started the blog NeverSeconds.blogspot.co.uk, which documents her school dinners (otherwise known as school […]
[ted id=1546] The open-source programming world has a lot to teach democracy, says Clay Shirky. In this fascinating talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Shirky harkens back to the early days of the printing press. At the time, a group of “natural philosophers” (who would later adopt the term “scientists”) called the Invisible College realized that the […]
Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the Internet: Last week, NYU law professor Beth Noveck asked us to “demand a more open-source government” in her talk from TEDGlobal 2012. Read this article on her Peer-to-Patent approach, which allows experts outside the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to weigh in on whether an application is something […]
[ted id=1573 width=560 height=315] Read Montague is interested in the human dopamine system — or, as he puts it in this illuminating talk from TEDGlobal 2012, that which makes us “chase sex, food and salt” and therefore survive. Specifically, Montague and his team at the Roanoke Brain Study are interested in how dopamine and valuation […]
Open source hardware advocate, maker, teacher and scholar Catarina Mota (watch her TED talk) has devoted a decade to considering why we need to get our hands back on technology — so we can learn how to shape it before it shapes us. How did you come to be involved in open-source hardware? The way […]
[ted id=1566] Today’s talk is about surviving a brutal attack, and the extraordinary skill of the surgeons who saved Ed Gavagan’s life. It’s a remarkable story, but there is much more to it. Ed originally told part of the story at The Moth, a wonderful group devoted to true stories, told live on stage. In […]
[ted id=1567 width=560 height=315] Bandi Mbubi has conflicting feelings about his cell phone. On the one hand, Mbubi — who fled his native country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a student activist fearing for his safety — has seen firsthand the ability of cell phones to connect people in the formerly cut-off part […]
Yes, the classic TEDTalk involves one speaker and a deck of slides. But when two speakers take the TED stage together, the effect is layered and dynamic. From playful banter to moments of shared struggle, two-speaker talks are never short on personality. Here are eight talks where the whole is greater than the sum of […]