Willie Smits works at the complicated intersection of humankind, the animal world and our green planet. In his early work as a forester in Indonesia, he came to a deep understanding of that triple relationship, as he watched the growing population of Sulawesi move into (or burn for fuel) forests that are home to the […]
From a New Scientist photo gallery: Andrew Hicks used computer algorithms to generate the mirror’s bizarre surface, which curves and bends in different directions. The curves direct rays from an object across the mirror’s face before sending them back to the viewer, flipping the conventional mirror image. (Via Philebrity. Image by Andrew Hicks.)
Brenda Laurel spoke at TED in early 1998 — at a watershed moment. In 1997, she launched Purple Moon to make smart computer games aimed at girls. By 1999, the company had come to a much-publicized end. But between start and finish, Purple Moon marked a sea change in the girl-game market. The TED Blog […]
Today, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams’ talk from TED2009 was posted and we all began to tweet, creating a labyrinth of self-reference. Here are a few choice selections from the day’s activity: Twitter State of the Union, courtesy of TED.com. Definitely an idea worth spreading. — tapdraw Watching @ev present at TED on video about Twitter […]
TED2009 favorite Eric Lewis is playing this Sunday at Joe’s Pub. This amazing improvisatory pianist (whom many people saw for the first time at TED) wowed the audience in two onstage sets and some legendary late-night gigs in Long Beach. Come see what the fuss was about, in New York this Sunday night. Tickets are […]
Three weeks ago, while Evan Williams was onstage at TED2009 talking about Twitter, his audience became an army of #TED tweeters, hunched over their mobile devices, simultaneously listening and creating a written narrative of @Ev’s 8 minutes onstage. Chris Anderson and Evan talked about this in their Q&A: the idea that while a speaker is […]
As published today in the journal Science, a dig near Ileret, Kenya, has uncovered early human footprints in a streambed — quite possibly, evidence of the first hominids who walked on two legs as a matter of course. In the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s well-reported story, “Footprints offer clue on path to modern man,” TED2009 speaker Nina […]
To say that Richard Pyle is a multifaceted personality is an understatement. He is a world-renowned diver, evolutionary biologist, dive technology pioneer, database developer and author. But all his talents have grown to facilitate one love — fish. His 2004 TEDTalk shows how he pushes the boundaries of diving in his endeavor to document new species. In […]
David Merrill is a grad student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab. He and his fellow students in this group work on new technologies that give us more and better abilities to do things we want to do. At TED2009 he gave a demo of his main project, Siftables. Today the TED […]
It’s no secret that the world is on the alert for plans toward political and economic solvency. Strategic planner Thomas Barnett has released Great Powers: America and the World After Bush to address many of our most significant global crises. In a recent interview with Dan Hare, Barnett elaborated on the book, saying the US […]
Two years ago, software engineer and tinkerer Gever Tulley told us five dangerous things you should let your kids do. He returned in 2009 to give us an update about Tinkering School, his part-lab-part-summer-camp where kids use power tools to create amazing things … like roller coasters! We’ll be posting Gever’s new talk soon — […]
The newest edition of UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger totes up 6,000 world languages — and counts 2,500 as endangered and 200 as completely lost. The interactive atlas, released today, ranks the 2,500 endangered languages by five levels of vitality: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct. This free, browsable […]
Writing on Darwin’s 200th birthday last week, Lise Buyer offered this commentary about today’s TEDTalk, Juan Enriquez’ “How Mind-Boggling Science Will Outlast the Crisis.” From the story: … In his talk at TED, Enriquez said the fact that we are the only living species of humans is an anomaly — or at least out of […]
We’ve transcribed Bill Gates’ talk on mosquitoes, malaria and education and posted the full text below the fold. Here’s a snippet: But we have to be careful because malaria — the parasite evolves and the mosquito evolves. So every tool that we’ve ever had in the past has eventually become ineffective. And so you end […]
Inspired by today’s archive talk from Milton Glaser, we share these fresh motivational posters from ReadyMade. Taking a cue from the poster art of the last Great Depression, the magazine asked five artists to make a simple image that would inspire us to do good things. You can view and download all five — or […]
We had two great editorial photographers at TED2009 in Long Beach — the brilliant Asa Mathat and James Duncan Davidson. As luck would have it, Duncan was the shooter who happened to be in the right place to catch Bill Gates’ now-famous mosquito release. Read how Duncan got the shot. In the enlargement above, it’s […]