Cities are a hot topic at the moment. As more and more of the world’s population gravitates toward living in them, people from all professions are coming together to figure out how to create infrastructures and environments to suit human needs and desires in the 21st century. These are huge issues, and you can be […]
Bill Nye the Science Guy (watch his TED-Ed lesson) will be joining the cast of “Dancing with the Stars.” New York Magazine says of Nye’s inclusion in the lineup — alongside Snooki, Valerie Harper and Jack Osbourne — that he is “the big get.” How long do we think it will be before he and […]
By Miguel Fernandez We all have an origin story, a moment that forever changes our life for the better. Reflecting on those moments in later days, you well up with gratitude, and with a desire to commemorate, to reach out, to reconnect. The idea is as far as most people go, and a quick Facebook […]
Back to school brings with it a slew of emotions. On the one hand, there’s the promise of seeing friends daily and the buying of new school supplies — new possibilities encapsulated in shrink-wrapped blank notebooks. But on the other hand, there’s the end of summer and the transition back to structured days, not to […]
Extreme swimmer Diana Nyad has completed her longest swim yet … at the age of 64. Over the weekend, Nyad attempted the swim from Havana, Cuba, to the coast of Florida for the fifth time, and this time finished the ambitious 110-mile swim. The swim took Nyad a total of 53 hours — and made […]
Adam Spencer isn’t just the host of the Australian radio program Triple J Breakfast Show. He also has a degree in pure mathematics and, in today’s talk, he ascends into “geek heaven” to explains his deep love of massive prime numbers, the largest of which was discovered earlier this year and is 17.5 million digits […]
Our office might be closed for summer vacation, but the TED Fellows are hard at work at the very first TED Fellows Retreat, happening now in Whistler, British Columbia. Because the Fellows have proliferated since the program officially launched in 2009, many of these extraordinary thinkers have never had a chance to meet and conspire. And thus, the TED […]
Time off is a beautiful thing. It’s also an essential — the thing we all need to breathe deeply, enjoy life, and come back to work refreshed. This was the point of Stefan Sagmeister’s talk, The Power of Time Off. In it, he shares that every seven years, he takes a year-long sabbatical. We in […]
[ted id=853] Malaria kills about 2,000 people every day. The mosquito-borne disease has ravaged the equatorial areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, where a combination of poverty and climate make a dangerous breeding ground for disease. There is currently no vaccine. But Nathan Myhrvold has a solution. In his talk and demonstration […]
The venue that housed TEDxKalamata certainly had some history: held in an ancient amphitheater, this was the first TEDx event in an archaeological site. To be specific, the location was an ancient outdoor ekklesiasterion (assembly hall) in Messene, Greece, that has been used for public gatherings since 369 B.C. At TEDxKalamata, 18 speakers and 50 volunteers […]
“Dream me. Build me. Make me real.” This is the driving philosophy behind TEDCity2.0, happening Friday, Sept. 20. To visually represent the event, curators Courtney Martin and John Cary turned to the design firm Kiss Me I’m Polish, who created a set of posters keyed into the idea of collective creation. See, these posters are customizable, […]
When TED began in 1984, it was simply a conference. But in the 30 years since, we’ve grown into an international organization with a constellation of departments and initiatives — TED.com, two annual classes of TED Fellows, the million dollar TED Prize, the student-friendly TED-Ed, the business-focused TED Institute. To help you keep it all […]
Over the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights. Yesterday, U.S. attorney general Eric Holder announced a major relaxing of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession. He asked prosecutors to use their discretion when charging nonviolent, low-level offenders and opt not to list the quantities of drugs involved […]
Architect Shigeru Ban uses paper tubes to build temporary, ecologically sustainable structures. These geometrically complex structures can be big and impressive — like a concave complex built for Expo 2000 in Germany — or small and functional, like the half-pipe office Ban built for himself atop the Pompadou Center in Paris. No matter their size […]
TED Talks are available in 102 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our volunteer translators. So far, more than 10,000 volunteers have created nearly 45,000 talk translations — and today, the TED Blog brings you a Q&A with one of them. Here, meet French and Urdu translator Shadia Ramsahye. 1. Where […]
[ted id=310] Hypnosis is a source of both debate and fear. It’s an intimidating thought that the subconscious mind can listen and react to outside sources. But there are still many questions to be answered: Does the subconscious work independently of the conscious mind? Is it programmed by experiences or instructions? These are questions posed […]