Marconi Pereira, who blogs in Portuguese at BLOG OM — Orientação Mediúnica, has captioned James Nachtwey’s TEDTalk in Portuguese. This TEDTalk includes the full XDR-TB slideshow, as well as inspiring excerpts from James’ original TED Prize acceptance speech, where he talks about what drives him to make change through photography. Many, many thanks, Marconi! To […]
Spurred by James Nachtwey’s powerful photographs and RESULTS.org, the two major US presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, released statements yesterday detailing their plans for fighting TB. From John McCain’s statement: As President, I will ensure that treatment and prevention programs are funded at levels befitting a wealthy and great nation. I will have […]
Here’s a persuasive op-ed in today’s Boston Globe co-authored by regular TED speaker Juan Enriquez … uttering a word neither candidate dare utter: WITHIN THE billions of sentences about the financial bailout there is one word notably absent, austerity. All talk is of payments, supports, subsidies, incurring more debt, stimulus packages. The thesis seems to […]
Wade Davis recently spent time in the Northern Territory of Australia, working on a film with the Aboriginees on Dreamtime and the Songlines. He reports from his time there: I must tell you of the Dreaming. Spent a month in the Northern Territory. Here’s a copy of the note that I sent back in week […]
Photographer James Nachtwey will be breaking a big story on October 3 — using his powerful photographs to share a vital story that the world needs to know about. You can be part of the breaking news by adding a badge to your site. Let your readers know that — starting October 3 — these […]
Conveniently timed for last week’s premiere of Jonathan Haidt’s TEDTalk, “The Real Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives,” this report in Science suggests that libs and cons may sport a physiological difference, in their bodies’ reponses to unexpected stimuli. From the abstract: … In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs, individuals with […]
The General Assembly of the United Nations convenes this week. In this session, they’ll be reviewing the Millenium Development Goals set in 2000 — and to underscore the UN’s commitment, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has declared that the “bottom billion” of the earth’s poorest people are the focus of development efforts for 2008. But economist Paul […]
Filmmaker and animator David O’Reilly (who came up with the concept for iHologram) has noticed an interesting property in this animated GIF: He writes: While working in 3D last year, I discovered this optical illusion: A large grid seen rotating at a certain speed will appear to group itself into smaller grids, spinning independently. See […]
When author Amy Tan spoke at TED2008 this spring, she was putting the final touches on a brand-new project: the libretto for an opera based on her novel The Bonesetter’s Daughter. The opera, with music by Stewart Wallace, opened this weekend in San Francisco. You can hear excerpts from The Bonesetter’s Daughter on the New […]
Dr. Stephen Hawking has made a $100 bet that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which throws its first beam tomorrow, will not find the elusive particle knows as the Higgs boson. What makes the Higgs the most highly sought-after particle in physics? In his TEDTalk, Brian Cox describes the Higgs particle “in language a […]
If all goes according to plan this week, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva will circulate its first beam on Sept. 10 — a step that’s been compared to “switching on” the machine, but that is, as you’d expect, much more complicated than that. Once the first beam is established, the next steps, […]
As part of its new Education Issue, GOOD Magazine is holding an open call for new projects that answer the question: How can you help local public-school children? You can browse some project ideas on GOOD’s website, and submit your own great idea for helping local schools. Then take the next step with your project […]
We all know we should be replacing our energy-sucking incandescent light bulbs with CFLs — but, ugh. As part of its green design program, frog design has conceptualized this lovely light bulb around a high-output LED. The frogLight bulb fits in a standard socket and can be dimmed — an important ability for both energy-saving […]
On the eve of his inauguration as president of the Rhode Island School of Design, John Maeda gave a wide-ranging interview to Dominique Browning in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Among the Maeda-isms: “I want to reform technology. All the tools are the same; people make the same things with them. Everyone asks me, ‘Are you […]
Via Treehugger: The Members Project, from American Express, is a contest to support worthy projects from a $2.5 million fund. 2006 TED Prize winner Cameron Sinclair, of Architecture for Humanity, has submitted a project to help build sustainable livelihoods for artisans in Southeast Asia: a locally driven social venture that creates an alliance of textile […]
Inspired by James Nachtwey’s TED Prize wish, designer Bas Groenendaal shares this prototype camera with TED. The Scope camera has a fresh look and a singular purpose, he says: to be used as a therapeutic instrument for underprivileged children, e.g. children living in (former) warzones. Children can take photographs and self-portraits in order to rediscover […]