Sir Ken Robinson‘s new book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, is published today in the United States and on Feb. 12 everywhere. It’s the book he mentions in his TEDTalk … He sends this message to the TED community: “At TED 2006, I talked about creativity and education and the urgent need […]
Steep yourself in the delightful tones of this homebrew theremin, built with a mug of tea: Theremug from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo. The latest in TEDBlog’s chronicle of the evolution of untouchable music, it joins this cool Wii remote hack. Thanks for the tip via Posterous, reflectionof.me
Edge.org’s annual question for 2009 is: “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” With thoughtful answers from 151 thinkers and doers, including TED’s Chris Anderson and an array of TEDTalks stars, this is a document to savor as we start the new year. Helen Fisher writes: Hidden Persuaders ’09: […]
Today’s TEDTalk, from Kary Mullis, touches on a powerful topic — how modern science is funded, and how the availability of money can drive scientific inquiry just as powerfully as curiosity or necessity can. Several other TEDTalks discuss this often-hidden driver of scientific research. Alan Russell offers a searing vision of how current research is […]
28 hours in Colombia with One Laptop per Child
Each Friday recently, we’ve been featuring a TEDTalk that was posted early on in the TED.com experiment. Today’s hidden gem is from architect Thom Mayne, who says early on in his TEDTalk: “No matter what I’ve done, what I’ve tried to do, everybody says it can’t be done.” Mayne talks about the job of an […]
There’s a fascinating conversation going on right now around Dan Gilbert’s latest TEDTalk, “Exploring the frontiers of happiness,” posted yesterday. In the talk, Gilbert goes into detail on his research into choice, satisfaction and happiness. Several commenters are suggesting the headline is inaccurate, because the talk isn’t about happiness, per se, as much as about […]
The latest edition of Edge.org is a fascinating discussion on the role scientists might play in difficult financial times. The issue features a few TED speakers, including George Dyson and Michael Shermer. Try this snippet: In all of this work economists, accountants and financial mathematicians should join forces with complexity theorists and other scientists with […]
Perforations, firstly, make stamps easy to tear off. Architects and engineers employ them to create lighter and more breathable structures. Now, graphic designers at Dutch creative agency SPRANQ re-introduce us to the cute doodads as a novel way to save ink. Ecofont, a free sans-serif typeface, is bejeweled with circular gaps along its spines, stems, […]
Each Friday recently, we’ve been featuring a TEDTalk that was posted early on in the TED.com experiment. Today’s hidden gem is from rock star and activist Peter Gabriel, talking about WITNESS.org, a project that uses powerful user-created video and online media to fight for human rights. He starts with a deeply moving personal story that […]
Via boingboing: Director Jesse Dylan made the beautiful video for Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion (as well as a little something called “Yes We Can.” Now he has created an elegant 2-minute clip for Science Commons, explaining why this is a Good Thing. Watch and learn:
This week, the great CBC radio show Quirks & Quarks convened nine Canadian scientists and one science fiction writer to speculate on 10 ways the world could end. You be the judge: Is their list scarier than Stephen Petranek’s (watch his TEDTalk)?
The Washington Post has a fascinating story of a US interrogator, pseudonymed “Matthew Alexander,” who refused to use aggressive interrogation tactics sanctioned by the military — because, as he puts it: These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse. This is the same idea Philip Zimbardo shares in […]
In an ingenious geek-out that’s almost too perfectly suited for TED, designer Ken Moore presents a much-anticipated hack of the Nintendo Wii Remote: a theremin. It seems to be a nearly serendipitous merger of TEDTalks by thereminist Pamelia Kurstin and Wii hacker Johnny Lee. Has anyone seen other hybridized Ideas Worth Spreading (coincidental or not)? […]
Via the Great Beyond, an amazing undersea rescue that hits so many TED sweet spots: robots! energy! underwater astonishment! Watch what happens when a big, beautiful fish gets stuck in an undersea oil platform:
From design blog Brand New comes word of Women of Design, a new book that celebrates female designers: In publications, conferences and other public realms, women designers tend to be outnumbered by their male counterparts whose appearances, work and achievements are constantly in the spotlight. Luckily, it’s a reversing trend … [The book attempts to] […]