A friend recently told me this story: The first time he took his daughter, age 4, on the New York City subway at 9 o’clock in the morning, she anxiously tugged on his sleeve and motioned for him to bend down. She whispered: “Are these people all mad at each other?” New York strap-hangers know […]
It’s not your imagination, says James Hansen’s latest paper — his analysis suggests heat waves are more common than they used to be. [The Economist] Watch Hansen’s TEDTalk: “Why I Must Speak Up About Climate Change.” Janet Echelman has been named an Architectural Digest innovator for her giant billowing sculptures. [Architectural Digest] Watch her gorgeous […]
In today’s TEDTalk, director Kirby Ferguson outlines a bold vision of creativity — that it’s not about dreaming up a new song, a new piece of art or a new form of technology in a vacuum, but instead about remixing what has come before. In his fast-paced talk, Kirby reveals that many of our most […]
[ted id=1535] Art cannot be created or destroyed — only remixed. In a convincing talk from TEDGlobal 2012, director Kirby Ferguson explores the challenges of originality and freshness in a world where creativity takes root in what has come before. Without previous inventions we would not have the iPhone, the Model T Ford, Star Wars, […]
Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the internet: What can the healthcare system learn from chain restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory, Pizza Hut and Red Lobster? Atul Gawande explores. [New Yorker] Watch Atul’s brilliant talk from TED2012, “How do we heal medicine?” . In 2009, American students ranked 23rd in the world in science and […]
An endangered species of butterfly has found an unusual set of champions — the inmates of the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Washington. While the number of Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies has dwindled in Washington in recent years, the Mission Creek inmates are working hard to help the species rebound, reports the Nature magazine […]
[ted id=1538 width=560 height=315] If you walk into the cemetery in Todmorden — a small town in northern England — you will find vegetables and herbs defiantly growing. Ditto if you examine the strips of land in the middle of the town’s roads, the area in front of its elder-care home, or the landscaping around […]
Did you know that you — as in, anyone — can nominate a visionary leader for this year’s TED Prize? Do you have a mentor with an incredible track record? A former teacher with a big idea for change? A colleague doing incredible work that could reach new heights if given more resources? A friend […]
In yesterday’s TEDTalk, Max Little explained how a 30-second phone call could soon be a diagnostic test for Parkinson’s disease, thanks to 7,500 people who’ve placed calls from around the world to ensure the technology’s accuracy. (See how you can get involved at ParkinsonsVoice.org.) This brings up an interesting question — what other medical tests […]
Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the internet: In this podcast about the spread of Argentine ants — which hitchhike between continents and fight any ant not a part of their clan — evolutionary biologist Neil Tsutsui makes the interesting statement that his work is like a Rorschach test. He explains, “We’ve had people say, […]
[ted id=1534] In today’s TEDTalk, Max Little tells you about a test — now in trials — that could help diagnose Parkinson’s disease with a 30-second phone call. But the first challenge: He and his team needed to record 10,000 voices from across the world to make sure that the technique is accurate and scientifically […]
New York’s Times Square regularly fills up for great public events, the crowd chanting and cheering. Rarely, however, do they chant, “Science! Science! Science!” as they did last night. An extraordinary number of people came out at 1:31am to watch the landing of Curiosity, NASA’s new Mars rover. The TED Blog decided it would be […]
It’s hard to get one’s brain started on a Monday (especially if you stayed up to watch Curiosity last night). To get synapses firing, here are three killer spoken-word performances from last month’s TEDxBoston. Kemi Alabi: Unlovelies in the Key of C Major Boston University student and slam poet Kemi Alabi takes us to the world […]
Rob Manning did everything in his power to screw up the Curiosity rover’s landing on Mars last night. Manning not only cut radio signals to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s control room, but also simulated a hole being poked in the rover’s fuel system and solar flares flying toward the spacecraft. Why would he do this? […]
Tonight at 10:31:30 pm PDT, the rover Curiosity will land on Mars. And if you haven’t yet watched the astonishing way it’ll get down to the surface, just watch this: Why go to Mars? In 2008, Charles Elachi, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, asked that question at the Serious Play conference — and answered […]
Marc Goodman studies how to prevent future crimes — not in the Minority Report sense, but by thinking about the ways that current and imagined technologies could be used to commit crimes. At TEDGlobal 2012 he gave a talk on some of the ways this could play out — showing examples of how drug cartels […]