Regenerative neurologist Siddharthan Chandran asks whether we can repair the damaged brain. Here’s the problem: Humanity is facing an epidemic of fast-progressing, devastating neurological disease such as Alzheimer’s, motor neuron disease, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and Huntington’s. Collectively, this is one of the biggest public health threats of our time. Over 35 million people are affected, […]
Session 7, “Regeneration,” couldn’t come at a better time; it’s the end of the second day of TEDGlobal 2013, and we could all use a little repair and restoration. In this session, four scientists and researchers look closely at the ways in which the body breaks down — and how we can rebuild them. Here […]
Tania Bruguera grew up in Cuba, where she was surrounded by the contradictions between propaganda and reality from an early age. She has channeled these tensions into creating artwork that navigates a path between the two. She starts her TED Talk with a personal story of life in 1993, when she somewhat unexpectedly found herself publishing […]
Twenty years ago, economic policy expert Juan Pardinas took a road trip through a continent that no longer exists: Latin America. He set out from Montreal on an 18-month research trip that taught him an invaluable lesson: “The past is not a fixed blueprint in the construction of the things to come; the future is […]
Dina El Wedidi is a traditional Egyptian singer — but with a global twist. While her powerful chant draws from Egyptian folk songs, her lyrics speak to a generation of young Egyptians estranged from their government and looking for connection. Meanwhile, her band members play the guitar, the accordion and even the Irish violin. At […]
Holly Morris tells the stories of women through documentary, television, print and the web. One story she certainly didn’t expect stemmed from a reporting trip to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. She just wanted to get out of the contaminated zone as quickly as possible … and then she […]
As urban areas have exploded, a dramatic stratification is taking place. While some parts of cities have become playgrounds for the privileged, others have become home to the poor and marginalized. Often these two very different ways of life exist in close proximity, says Teddy Cruz on the TEDGlobal 2013 stage. Cruz studies the Tijuana […]
A few years ago, Lesley Hazleton, self-described “accidental theologist,” found herself waking each morning with the same question: What happened to Muhammad the night he received the revelation of the Koran? An agnostic Jew, Hazleton was writing a biography of the man who stood in the desert outside of Mecca in the year 610 at […]
The founder of the Beirut Marathon, May El-Khalil tells us how personal tragedy led her to create a peaceful haven in her all-too-often war-torn country. When the former long-distance runner was hit by a truck and left unable to perform as she had before her accident, she turned her efforts to organizing races. “I needed […]
Today on the TEDGlobal stage, two days before election in Iran, political scientist Trita Parsi argues that the Israeli-Iranian conflict is resolvable because its nature is geopolitical, not ideological. To illustrate, Parsi quotes an Israeli prime minister: “Iran is Israel’s best friend, and we do not intend to change our position in relation to Tehran.” […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_dwhJVq7QY&w=560&h=315] A landscape becomes a face; a face becomes a family. Converting well-known images into something completely different, this title sequence introduces speakers from a range of fields, with a funky beat. This video comes from Milky Elephant; a New York based collective specializing in animations, games, illustrations, websites and installations. Their work has included projects […]
“It’s about discarding assumptions about the Middle East, Latin America, and the way you think the world works,” Nassim Assefi described in an interview before we all got to Edinburgh for TEDGlobal 2013. This session, which she co-curated with fellow TED Fellow Gabriella Gomez-Mont, features a host of speakers who’ll be prompting us to think […]
When humans think about sex, we tend to categorise into male and female forms, says biologist and animal sex expert Carin Bondar. But for millions of years, it used to be a fusion of bodies, a “trickle of DNA shared between two or more beings,” she says. It wasn’t until about 500 million years ago […]
Rio, here we come. Next year, TEDGlobal will be held for the first time in Latin America — in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from October 6-10, 2014, on the beach of Copacabana. The theme for the event is, appropriately, “South!” and will be a celebration of the innovation, dynamism and creativity pouring out of South […]
For decades, scientists said that the human brain contains 100 billion neurons. However, when neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel hunted for the source of this often-quoted number, she couldn’t locate one. So she set out to count herself … by making brain soup. She brings a vial of brain soup with her onto the TEDGlobal 2013 stage. This […]
“Before we came on stage, I asked him, ‘What are you going to play?’ and he replied, ‘I don’t know.’” So TED curator Chris Anderson introduces the Israeli pianist Yaron Herman, who comes onto the TEDGlobal stage to play music to soothe the slightly jangled nerves of the audience. (What with the beaver mourning the loss […]