Here, some great finds from across the internet, for your reading pleasure: Others may dream of the beach this summer, but we secretly wish we were at Rare Book School, a five-week long camp that brings together librarians and antiquarian enthusiasts at the University of Virginia. The school has been taught by William Noel, who […]
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York is strained for cash. And so they announced last week that they would be offering advertising space on the back of MetroCards, which New Yorkers swipe (often, multiple times) to enter a train station. It’ll cost companies $25,500 to advertise on 50K cards and $450K to advertise on […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpQCUXNo5GI&w=530&h=298] . “An intellectual challenge presents itself ? I am in bliss. Instantly, it brings forth the notion of triumph,” high-wire artist Philippe Petit writes in his new TED ebook, Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist. “Even before I address a challenge, invariably a rainbow of out-of focus solutions hovers […]
“Walls don’t work,” James Stavridis declared at TEDGlobal 2012. A highly accomplished Navy Admiral, Stavridis recalls 20th-century phenomena like trench warfare and the Berlin Wall. “Instead of building walls for security, we need to build bridges.” In his brass-tacks talk, Stavridis lays down a vision of “open-source security,” which he defines as “connecting the international, […]
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/45446852 w=530&h=298] . LittleBits are Tinkertoys, gone electronic. Some circuits, some lights, some buzzers and some buttons, these brightly colored pieces snap together with magnets, allowing for creation of projects that do things, rather than just sit there. The brainchild of TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir — who explained the littleBits in a talk at […]
Mentored from childhood by Gregory Hines and Savion Glover, Andrew Nemr has tap-danced his way through life. Now, with the Tap Legacy Foundation, he’s using new technology to augment oral tradition, passing on the craft he learned at the knees of the old masters. Tell us about your life as a dancer. I grew up […]
“I feel like a cyborg,” Neil Harbisson declares in a fascinating talk from TEDGlobal 2012. Born color-blind, Harbisson lived in a “grayscale world,” he says — until 2003, when he began working with computer scientist Adam Montandon on an electronic eye that renders color as sound. Always attached to him, the appliance allows Harbisson to […]
We have all been there: standing in aisle five of the supermarket trying to decide which jar of mustard to buy. Do we go organic, or for the brand with whole mustard seeds? Or do we simply pick the one in the brightest yellow bottle? In a fascinating talk at TEDxStanford, “Sometimes it’s good to […]
It would cost you a minimum of $37,000 to enroll for a year at one of the top 10 schools in the United States, according to the U.S. News & World Report. However, anyone with a computer will now be able to take courses from half of those schools … for free. At TEDGlobal 2012, […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32PSzvYwlLE&w=530&h=298] . And … action! From artists to open-source engineers, research scientists to political activists, documentary filmmakers, inventors, social entrepreneurs and beyond, TED Fellows are an extraordinary group of innovators and iconoclasts. Today we’re launching Fellows in the Field, a series of videos that will let us look in on the world of individual Fellows, shedding light […]
When it comes to setting grand worldwide goals for development, it’s easy to imagine global leaders in suits, wheeling and dealing in the backrooms of a UN summit, without actually accomplishing much. But Jamie Drummond — the executive director of ONE, which fights poverty and disease by supporting smart policies — says that when world […]
Mina Bissell was not always the most popular person in the field of cancer research. After studying chemistry in college and getting her Ph.D. in bacteriology, the leading theory on how cancer develops — that a single cancer gene in just one of the body’s trillion cells is enough to cause the disease — simply […]
“Our modern society has a special relationship to GPS. We’re almost blindly reliant on it,” Todd Humphreys says in his TEDxTalk. “It’s built deeply into our systems and infrastructure. Some call it the invisible utility.” As GPS becomes more and more pervasive, technology is being developed to counter it — sometimes to restore privacy, but […]
What can you learn from your muscles? A lot, according to Alexander Grey, the chief technology officer of Somaxis, who has created sensors that measure muscle workload. In a talk given at TED@New York — one of 14 events that was part of the 2013 Talent Search — Grey demonstrates how people can use these sensors […]
In an interview you should ask a movie star about her movies, an author about his books, a musician about her latest album. But Randy Cohen, the original New York Times Ethicist, hopes to bypass all those boring questions on his radio show “Person Place Thing” and find out what weird passions people of note […]
Whale researcher Asha de Vos spends her days weaving a 6-meter boat through shipping lanes crowded with giant container ships, fishing boats, and marine life, collecting data crucial to the survival of the singular Sri Lankan blue whale. Tell us about the first time you saw the Sri Lankan blue whales. In 2003, I was […]