Biomineralogist Damian Palin (watch his TED Talk) collaborates with bacteria to mine valuable minerals from desalination brine, the toxic byproduct of desalinating seawater — creating wealth from waste while protecting the environment. You work in the field of geomicrobiology. What is it, and why is it becoming increasingly important? Geomicrobiology is a field of science […]
At TEDMED 2012, Rebecca Onie stunned the audience with her blockbuster talk on a new vision for health care. She is the founder of Health Leads, an organization that brings an elite, competitive team of college volunteers into hospitals and clinics — a team that connects patients to services that help provide food, housing, insurance […]
What’s next for Joshua Klein, the man who built a vending machine for crows? The versatile hacker is the new host of the National Geographic show The Link, in which he travels the world to research and reveal the origins of some of history’s most important technological innovations, like Greek fire and the Chinese long […]
Prize-winning novelist and MD Uzodinma Iweala traveled to Nigeria to talk to everyday people, doctors, government officials, activists, sex workers, even Femi Kuti — Fela Kuti’s son — about HIV/AIDS. Our Kind of People is his highly personal account of the AIDS epidemic and its transformative effect on love, relationships and humanity. Healing requires more […]
Guest blogger Deirdre Barrett is a psychologist who researches dreams and sleep — and explores how dreams can be used to unlock waking-world problems. In this post, she looks at the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, which recently featured a cartoon involving what might be a TED speaker’s worst nightmare … It started when, over […]
At TEDxSummit, Walters Art Museum curator William Noel gave this fascinating talk on revealing the lost codex of Archimedes. The TED Blog caught up with him to talk about the digital future of a traditionally closed institution: the art museum. As with the Archimedes codex, the Walters Art Museum’s online collection operates under the Creative […]
We love this time of year, when the graduation addresses start hitting YouTube. This year’s included some wonders — and TED-Ed is busy turning them into flipped lessons! Check out these three: Neil Gaiman at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Speaking at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, writer Neil Gaiman tells the graduating […]
CERN particle physicist Bilge Demirköz investigates everything from dark matter to the possibility of antigalaxies, trying to understand what we — and the universe — are made of. What is it about space and the investigation of dark matter and antimatter that captures your imagination? Well to me, the question is, Why are we here? […]
We’ve heard the statistics. Obesity has more than doubled worldwide since 1980. For the first time in history, being overweight is killing more people than being underweight. At least 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. Where do we begin to tackle such an immense problem? There is […]
Explore these TEDTalks that discuss income inequality — what causes it, the brutal effects, and how we might fight it. Start with this talk from Richard Wilkinson, whose 2009 book The Spirit Level gathers decades of research to draw this conclusion: Societies with more income inequality suffer — in utterly predictable ways — more than […]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJVBqv3L5iY Whose talk keeps you glued to your chair? Your hairdresser’s. Which makes these talented folks a perfect vector for spreading big ideas. TEDxBuenosAires invited 60 hairdressers and stylists to their latest TEDx event — and filmed what happened next. Watch the charming results … and watch to the end for a sneak preview of […]
When artist and scientist Angelo Vermeulen (watch his TED Talk) first started weaving together biological and technological systems in his artwork, little did he know he’d someday be asked to consider how to create living ecosystems for future space habitation… Do you consider yourself an artist or scientist first? I usually describe myself as an […]
From the Atlantic, this fascinating essay on Google Translate at an interesting point in its growth: Last week Google Translate announced that it now has more than 200 million monthly users. As Alexis Madrigal noted, this means that Google is now translating as much in a day as all professional human translators combined complete in […]
Gabriella Gomez-Mont founded cultural salon Tóxico Cultura to build bridges between the arts within Mexico City. Today, she’s transforming Tóxico into an international platform for synthesizing art with a wider range of disciplines, creating new “blueprints for reality.” You’ve said that being a TED Fellow messed with your mind. Why? Tóxico Cultura — the independent […]
Watch as four student reporters hand Sir Ken Robinson a “blank check” and say: Design a learning place of your dreams. It’s a three-part video series — and definitely do watch through to Part 3, where things get a little bit silly.
Artist David Gurman’s installations use live data feeds from conflict zones to trigger lights, tolling bells, shadows and more, connecting us to the rhythms and intensity of far-away violence in real time. How did you start thinking about conflict in art? I was interested in resonance and wave patterns and energetic exchanges as early as […]