Fairness matters ... to both people and primates. Sharing priceless footage of capuchin monkeys responding to perceived injustice, primatologist Sarah Brosnan explores why humans and monkeys evolved to care about equality -- and emphasizes the connection between a healthy, cooperative society and everyone getting their fair share.
Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.
The Monkey King, a legendary troublemaker hatched from stone and schooled in divine magic, had stolen the Dragon Lord's most treasured weapon: a magical staff. Returning to his kingdom to show off his treasure to his tribe of warrior monkeys, he finds himself caught in the clutches of two soul collectors, dragging him to his death. Shunan Teng d...
Rockstar designer Stefan Sagmeister delivers a short, witty talk on life lessons, expressed through surprising modes of design (including ... inflatable monkeys?).
Have we lost the practical wisdom of what happens as people die? With lessons from a career witnessing thousands of people's final breaths, palliative care expert Kathryn Mannix urges us to demystify the experience of death, sharing how a better understanding of what actually happens can reduce fear in the final days, for you and your loved ones.
Plants behave in some oddly intelligent ways: fighting predators, maximizing food opportunities ... But can we think of them as actually having a form of intelligence of their own? Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso presents intriguing evidence.
Painter Alyssa Monks finds beauty and inspiration in the unknown, the unpredictable and even the awful. In a poetic, intimate talk, she describes the interaction of life, paint and canvas through her development as an artist, and as a human.
A unique ecosystem of plants, birds and monkeys thrives in the treetops of the rainforest. Nalini Nadkarni explores these canopy worlds -- and shares her findings with the world below, through dance, art and bold partnerships.
Laurie Santos studies primate psychology and monkeynomics -- testing problems in human psychology on primates, who (not so surprisingly) have many of the same predictable irrationalities we do.
What happens when two monkeys are paid unequally? Fairness, reciprocity, empathy, cooperation -- caring about the well-being of others seems like a very human trait. But Frans de Waal shares some surprising videos of behavioral tests, on primates and other mammals, that show how many of these moral traits all of us share.
To protect against a possible resurgence of smallpox, the US government is funding research to improve treatments and vaccines. And since it's unethical to expose people to a highly lethal virus, labs are using monkeys as research subjects. But is it right to harm these animals to protect humanity from a potential threat? Rebecca L. Walker takes...
Behind those funny animal videos, sometimes, are oddly human-like problems. Laurel Braitman studies non-human animals who exhibit signs of mental health issues -- from compulsive bears to self-destructive rats to monkeys with unlikely friends. Braitman asks what we as humans can learn from watching animals cope with depression, sadness and other...
You may remember neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis — he built the brain-controlled exoskeleton that allowed a paralyzed man to kick the first ball of the 2014 World Cup. What’s he working on now? Building ways for two minds (rats and monkeys, for now) to send messages brain to brain. Watch to the end for an experiment that, as he says, will go to ...
Did humans evolve from monkeys or from fish? In this enlightening talk, ichthyologist and TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty dispels some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging us to remember that we're a small part of a complex, four-billion-year process -- and not the end of the line. "We're not the goal of evolution," Chakrabarty says. "Th...
Death is hard, and suffering from the subsequent loss is even harder. These talks focus on the journey to finding closure and reaching the end of difficult chapters in life.
Stefano Mancuso is a founder of the study of plant neurobiology, which explores signaling and communication at all levels of biological organization, from genetics to molecules, cells and ecological communities.
We know other primates are a lot like us. But how close are they, and what can we learn about ourselves from them? Lauren Brent is a primatologist and evolutionary biologist who has spent years studying social bonds -- particularly friendship -- with an eye to learning how and why those behaviors evolved. We talked to her just after she rehe...
Raise your hand if you’ve ever sung to your pets or turned on Spotify for them. Well, cellist David Teie has carried that impulse a few steps -- OK, many steps -- further and written music for specific species of animals.
David Teie is on a mission to bring music to the masses -- not just to all of humanity but to the animal kingdom, too. When ...
Miguel Nicolelis begins today’s talk by showing you what a brainstorm looks and sounds like.
“This is 100 brain cells firing,” says Nicolelis. “Everything that defines what human nature is comes from these storms that roll over the hills and valleys of our brains and define our memories, our beliefs, our feelings, our plans for the future...
When it comes to aging well, having “good genes” (or rather, mutant ones) is key, says Cynthia Kenyon. She unlocked the genetic secret of longevity in roundworms — and now she’s working to do the same for humans.