TED Prize winner JR stands in the center of his Panthéon collage. Photo: Inside Out Project
Below, just a few members of the TED community who made headlines this week.
Longtime TEDster Steve Case is hitting the road this summer to find and invest in start-ups that may otherwise be overlooked. His “Rise of the Rest Road Trip” kicked off in Detroit this week and will continue on to Pittsburg, Cincinnati and Nashville, with pitch winners in each city receiving a $100,000 grant. Case hopes other investors will follow his lead. (Watch 10 TED Talks that Steve Case calls “unforgettable.”)
An important new study-of-studies about the pesticides known as “neonics” confirms Marla Spivak’s warning: neonicotinoid pesticides are harming bees, and those who love them. Dive into the Worldwide Integrated Assessment of the Impact of Systemic Pesticides on Biodiversity and Ecosystems (WIA) or read the CBC’s great wrap-up of it. (Watch Marla’s talk, “Why bees are disappearing.”)
JR’s latest work: pasting portraits of his fellow French men and women on the floor of the Panthéon, to stunning effect. See what we mean, above. (Watch JR’s TED Prize talk, “Use art to turn the world inside out.”)
In a recent New York Review of Books interview, John Searle grapples with the state of modern philosophy and discusses the philosophical implications of human rights. He closes the interview with a piece of wisdom for aspiring young philosophers: “My advice would be to take questions that genuinely worry you—that really keep you awake at night—and work on them with passion.” (Watch John’s talk, “Our shared condition—consciousness.”)
TED Fellow Paul Wick’s website, PatientsLikeMe, has launched a new service that helps pharmaceutical companies collaborate with patients as they design clinical trials. He hopes it will inspire more patients to actually sign on to be part of trials. As Wick puts it: “It’s all part of our mission to put the patient voice in the decision-making heart of healthcare.” (Read a TED Blog interview with Paul on big data in healthcare.)
Bob Mankoff has written a beautiful obituary for Charles Barsotti, who did nearly 1,400 cartoons for The New Yorker. He writes, “With the minimum number of lines, Charlie could extract the maximum number of ideas.” (Watch Mankoff’s talk, “Anatomy of a New Yorker cartoon,” or check out a gallery of his 11 favorite cartoons ever — which, of course, includes one of Barsotti’s classics.)
Elon Musk’s Solar City is acquiring a startup called Silevo for $200 million. The aim: to make solar power far cheaper than fossil fuel. (Watch Elon’s talk, “The mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity.”
Meklit, a TED Fellow, has a new music video, in which a lot of clocks get thrown off a roof. (Read much more about Meklit’s music.)
In a new interview with the MIT Technology Review, Rebecca Saxe discusses the implications of her neuroscience work on social cognition in a variety of fields, from therapies for people living with autism to socially intelligent computers. (Watch Rebecca’s talk “How we read each other’s minds.”)
And finally, TED Fellow Durreen Shahnaz makes the case for a retail impact bond in Asia to The Guardian. (Watch Durreen’s talk from TED@BCG, “How capitalism and philanthropy collaborate to solve big problems.”)
Note: Olivia Cucinotta contributed to this post.