Via the TED Prize blog, over on TEDPrize.org: If you’d like to lead an incredible drive to build math and science academies all over Africa — and help find the next Einstein — take a look at this want ad: The Next Einstein Initiative (NEI) is building a network of postgraduate centres of excellence for […]
Each year I donate a percentage of my income to Lightsaber Research and I encourage all my peers to do the same. A similarly futuristic technology, albeit one of marginally lesser interest to anyone with anger management issues, is the Jetpack. Today, a couple stories surfaced in the blogs and the papers about the unveiling […]
Via Gizmodo: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a preview of Microsoft’s prototype spherical multi-touch screen, Surface Sphere. It’s an exploration of ideas (not a real product) (yet), but it’s sure fun to watch:
The New York Times has a thoughtful piece today on Model T hacking — which kicked off the modern sport of customizing, bending, modding and otherwise repurposing a commercial item for unintended-by-the-manufacturer uses. As Steve Lohr writes: The early Model T hackers were really pioneers in a realm of creative activity that academics call “user […]
Via LiveScience.com: Researchers at MIT have found valuable insight into body armor by studying the African fish Polypterus senegalus. A living fossil, the fish is largely unchanged since the Cretaceous period — when its ancestors faced an ocean full of large, toothy predators. In its defense, it developed a bite-resistant “armored” skin, whose scales are […]
Nonpartisan science advice in the US Congress? A newly opened online archive shows that it was possible — and stimulates a call to re-open the Office of Technology Assessment as an advisor to Congress. The OTA’s archive of 700+ scientific reports on topics ranging from addiction to terrorism to “personal rapid transit” spans the lifetime […]
As Jacqueline Novogratz says in her 2005 TEDTalk: “You can’t talk about poverty today without talking about malaria bednets.” Yesterday, the Guardian UK reported on a massive new study of malaria prevention — which found several alarming gaps in the global drive to wipe out this disease, especially in the poorest countries. Read the study’s […]
Linking two TEDTalks fascinations — language and fish — is this report from today’s Science. While studying midshipman fish that grunt and hum, two neurobiologists have found the basic brain wiring that, they think, evolved into human speech. It points to a common ancestor among all of us vertebrates who vocalize. From Science Now: Andrew […]
Stew‘s brilliant musical Passing Strange closes this weekend on Broadway — and Spike Lee will film the final Saturday shows. On July 19, cameras will follow the matinee and evening performance; the show will also be filmed later without an audience. Read Stew’s thoughts about this — and the whole Broadway/Tony Awards/The View experience — […]
Today, Edge 250 publishes a new short story by science historian George Dyson. A born storyteller (watch his TEDTalks on Project Orion and the earliest digital computers), he uses the short story as a persuasive tool — or so Stewart Brand suggests in his foreword: How does one come to a new understanding? The standard […]
If you were inspired by Neil Gershenfeld’s TEDTalk on the FabLab — where you can build just about anything you can dream of — read on: Larry Sass, from MIT’s department of architecture, is leading a team that’s building a digitally fabricated house in a vacant lot next to the Museum of Modern Art in […]
To reach Edward O. Wilson’s office on the Harvard campus, one must first push through a door with a sign warning the public not to enter. Then, enter a creaky old elevator and press two buttons simultaneously. This counterintuitive procedure transports one into a strange realm. It is a space that holds the world’s largest […]
Listen to a 22-minute audio interview with TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong, as she talks with Joan Brown Campbell: As part of her recent TED Prize, she is in the midst of writing a Charter of Compassion in a collaborative effort; this document, based on the principle of The Golden Rule, will be written and […]
From the TED Prize blog: More AIMS Student Talks: Be inspired by the stories of current and former AIMS students — young Africans whose lives have been changed through access to a top-notch scientific education at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Every two weeks, the TED Prize team uploads three talks from the May […]
The TED2008 Gift Bag was the first product from a brand-new company, Rickshaw Bagworks. Made in San Francisco with sustainable fabrics and thoughtful details, the TED bags became a bit of a cult item — not least because they weren’t available for retail sale at the time of the ’08 conference. This week Rickshaw opens […]
The “happiest man in the world,” Matthieu Ricard balances his Buddhist contemplation of happiness (watch his TEDTalk on the habits of happiness) with an active life as a humanitarian in the Himalayas. Learn more about his projects — and get involved — at the new website for his Karuna-Shechen foundation. Karuna-Shechen brings medical help and […]