At TED 2006, Dan Dennett spoke out for the unbiased study of religion as a natural, biological phenomenon. His hope may come true. The Economist writes of recent headway made into understanding of religious belief — in particular a new project called Explaining Religion, the “largest-ever scientific study of the subject.” EXREL’s goal is to […]
Ben Saunders, who spoke at the 2005 TED Conference about his solo trip to the Geographic North Pole, is heading north again in an attempt to set a world speed record. From Ward Hunt Island in Canada he’ll ski against bitterly cold winds across the Arctic Ocean’s frozen, fluctuating surface. He hopes to complete the […]
Robert Full (watch his TEDTalk on gecko feet) and his team at UC Berkeley have uncovered more oddly-worth-knowing facts about geckos and how they move. It turns out that, along with their amazing sticky paws, geckos use their tails as a kind of fifth limb to help them balance while they climb walls. The team […]
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers new details on how mirror therapy addresses phantom limb pain — a topic covered by Vilayanur Ramachandran in his 2007 TEDTalk. Inspired by Dr. Ramachandran’s work, a team of researchers from military hospitals tested a group of 22 patients with amputated lower limbs, […]
The TED office is running in circles trying to get the word out about Pi Day, that special day for number nerds that only comes around once a year. We’d love to hear what TED fans are doing to celebrate — whether watching Pi, baking a pie or taking an irrational out to dinner. If […]
The Cassini mission to Saturn (see Carolyn Porco’s stunning TEDTalk on this mission) today makes its closest flyby yet of Enceladus, a geologically active moon. With its frozen surface and plumes of ice, Enceladus is a fascinating body, and the Cassini probe will be imaging the moon in several areas with many different instruments. From […]
The wonderful Jill Sobule is playing at Largo tonight in LA, then swings back to NY to play at Ethel‘s 10th birthday party on March 20, along with Rives. But honestly, we were mainly looking for an excuse to share this great photo of Jill (left), taken 10 days ago at TED@Aspen…
Pangea Day‘s Saralena Weinfield writes: With two months until May 10, planning for Pangea Day is in full swing. And we are still glowing from the wonderful reception we received at TED! We hope you’ll get involved by hosting a viewing party on Pangea Day. You’ll be in good company: People all around the world […]
Two Johns Hopkins researchers have isolated the part of the brain that is most active during improv — the part that Jennifer Lin accesses during her TEDTalk performance, and that Robin Williams used the other night during the BBC debate at TED in Monterey. Setting up six right-handed jazz pianists inside an fMRI, researchers Charles […]
You can now read journalist Andrew Mwenda‘s newspaper, The Independent, online. Based in Kampala, Uganda, the paper promises “uncensored news, views and analysis” — a promise that has already led to government threats against the paper’s printer. Mwenda spoke at TEDGlobal 2007 and was a panelist on the BBC debate hosted last week at TED […]
Photo: David Geller/whatcounts Memeticist Susan Blackmore uses the hotel-bathroom toilet-paper fold as an example of a useless meme — a meme that has spread throughout the world, even though there is no human reason for it to exist. The persistence of this meme easily disproves the comfortable notion that we humans only spread ideas that […]
Guest blogger Devlen Watkins handles IT for the Aspen Institute, but when he’s not running around solving technical problems during TED@Aspen, he’s been down at the AMD 50×15 / One Laptop per Child table, playing with the XO Laptop. He writes: OLPC, or as most of you know it One Laptop per Child, has really […]
Johnny Lee just gave a two-ovation demo at TED2008 of his amazing Wii Remote hacks — turning the Wii Remote into a whiteboard tool, a tracking device and even a multi-touch screen. Here’s a link to his site, where you can download the tools >>
This week at the Kluster lab in Monterey, TEDsters and contributors around the world brainstormed, designed and made a brand-new product in 72 hours — an educational game to raise cultural awareness (born out of inspiration of Dan Dennett’s 2006 TEDTalk). The rules: This game is linear in nature, all players start out at the […]
The big thought of the day, from the fertile mind and warm heart of Benjamin Zander: BTFI Words to live by, my friends.
From the TED stage in Monterey, explorer Robert Ballard announced that his Immersion Presents project will be running live from Monterey Bay March 2-7. Immersion Presents uses telepresence — satellite feeds and web links — to bring young kids into live research environments. In Monterey Bay, kids can explore one of the planet’s most spectacular […]