Astrobiologist and geologist Louisa Preston looks for analogues to possible life on Mars in the most extreme environments on Earth. Now she's also considering how humans might someday make a home on the red planet, and is raising funds on Kickstarter in support of AstroGardening – an educational exhibit designed to explore how we might somed...

In the early aughts, Blaise Agüera y Arcas and his team started on a not-so-small mission: "To reinvent the whole enterprise of photography for ordinary people.” He revealed the first step back at TED2007. In a viral talk dotted with ooohs and aaahs from the audience (his strategy? “I talked really fast”), Agüera y Arcas demoed Photosynth...

Click above to watch the session-opening animation. The extraordinary rise of virtual tools for collaboration and invention have given rise to a new form of creativity: making physical things. From the maker community to hobbyists to open-sourced machined blueprints, there has been a huge movement toward taking the ethos of the open, sharab...

Kitra Cahana doesn’t really live anywhere. The photojournalist has been on the road since she was young, the oldest in a family of five with parents who often traveled for months on end. Says the TED Fellow by phone (appropriately, from the road), “It engrained in me the notion that I can live anywhere, that there are no borders.” It was natu...

Over the years, many writers and storytellers have given great TED Talks. Here, we’ve assembled 12 of our favorite quotes from them.  We've also created special quote images scattered throughout this post for the occasion -- feel free to share them as quote cards (use the hashtag #TEDReads), employ them as wallpaper for your phone or other mo...

The latest TV show from TED’s creative team spins ideas from TED Talks in new directions -- en español. Soy TED, a new Spanish-language TV series about big ideas, premieres on Vme TV this Friday, September 25, at 7pm EST. Each episode of Soy TED centers on a theme — from happiness to exploration to drones — built around a few key TED Ta...

Dark, isolated and largely unexplored, caves help astronauts prepare to do extra-terrestrial science. You’re isolated, confined and enveloped in darkness. You gradually lose your sense of time. You can’t afford to lose your bearings. And then there's the risk of exposure to radioactive gas. “You have high radiation levels in the space station, ...

Taylor Wilson graduated from high school in May. And Popular Science has already dubbed him "The Boy who Played with Fusion" and Forbes has suggested that he may just be "The Bill Gates of Energy." Wilson first received attention at the age of 14, after building a nuclear fusion reactor he'd dreamed up in his parents’ garage. He spoke at ...

Since the first teaser in late 2013, we've been in countdown mode for Interstellar, Christopher Nolan's new outer-space epic that promises to blast us through space and time and wormholes. If you're as excited as we are but can't clear three hours to go see the whole movie, here's the plot we could figure out from obsessively watching trailer...

Astrophysicist and astronomer Seth Shostak made a daring bet in his 2012 TED Talk: We’ll find extraterrestrial life within 24 years or he’ll buy you a cup of coffee. This isn’t just wishful thinking -- technological advances over the past few decades have amplified the scope of space exploration monumentally, allowing us to search the stars ...

In June of 2006, we posted six talks online. Since then, our universe has grown exponentially to 1600+ talks and all the initiatives you see on the map above. Thus, we’re planning an exciting new version of TED.com, designed for deeper exploration of ideas. To find out how we’re rebuilding the site, and how you can get invited to the beta, head ...

Sarah Parcak is a space archaeologist, and has located multiple lost ancient sites. Still, she says, it’s easy to pick her greatest discovery: her husband, Greg Mumford, who she met on her very first dig in Egypt. He was her first lesson in “finding unexpected wonderful things,” she says, and a second lesson followed quickly. On that same tr...

David Lang wants to make investigating the mysteries of the ocean accessible to anyone curious and adventurous enough to dive deep. Here, the co-founder of OpenROV -- a community of citizen ocean explorers and creators of low-cost underwater robots -- recounts his blistering journey from office job to fledgling maker to inventor of a robot tha...

Welcoming a Unicorn Theatre jammed with 250 TEDsters old and new, host and TED's European director Bruno Giussani promised "possibly one of the most eclectic programs we've ever put together" on Wednesday night in London at the spring TED Salon. The Salon was hosted in collaboration with TEDGlobal partner frog. And eclectic it was, covering ...

A note from TED Prize winner Jill Tarter… At TED last February, Chris Anderson told the audience that without a White Knight stepping up to support my SETI observing program on the Allen Telescope Array, the antennas would soon be put into a safe hibernation mode in preparation for shutting down the array. That’s because our University of Cal...

Today, Nov. 19, 1-5pm Eastern: TEDYouth's speaker lineup includes a MythBuster, an oceanographer turned viral video star, the "Science Babe," and a roboticist who studies flying geckos -- plus poets, musicmakers, geeks and writers -- all giving short TED-style talks for young people. And you can watch it live for free online -- in English...

For the penultimate session of TED2020, an exploration of amazing forces shaping the future -- from cancer-fighting venom to spacecraft powered by lasers and much more. Below, a recap of the night's talks and performances. Amanda Gorman, poet Big idea: We all have the power to end the devastation of climate change. Let's get to work. ...

Writer Elaine Morgan has died at age 92. Perhaps best known for her book The Descent of Woman, at TEDGlobal 2009 she made her case for the "aquatic ape hypothesis" -- an admittedly non-standard idea about human origins. Earlier this year, in The Guardian, Erika Milam offered a compelling new take on Morgan's place in scientific discourse -- ...

"Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus sailed across a vast ocean and opened a new chapter in human history, for better or worse," says Stephen Petranek. "I believe we are on the verge of a much greater age of discovery. We’re going to become a two-planet species." The TED audience did not leave this statement unchallenged. For man...

Just announced: TEDYouth's speaker lineup (so far) includes a MythBuster, an oceanographer turned viral video star, the "Science Babe," and a roboticist who studies flying geckos -- plus poets, musicmakers, geeks and writers -- among the 20+ speakers who'll join us November 19, 2011, at the Times Center in New York City. The theme for TED...

A monumental part of what brings the TED conference to life is the speakers and the amazing ideas they share on the TED stage. But here’s a riddle: What also shares the spotlight with each person who spends their 3 to 18 minutes speaking on the red dot? The magnificent session art, of course! TED has collaborated with design firm Colours &amp...

Clusters of fabric blossoms wave in response to movement, delicately laser-cut wood panels expand and contract in moisture or heat. Elaine Ng Yan Ling's textile and furnishing designs weave the magical movements of nature with manmade technologies, creating functional art that harmonizes urban spaces with the elements. How would you describe ...

The second day of the INK Conference in Jaipur, India was another eclectic mix of musicians, inventors, designers and visionaries.   The conference's narrative theme, The Power of the Journey, continued as each session attempted to capture the most important moments of every life. Talks are being held from Thursday December 8 to Sunday December ...

By Cynthia Betubiza, Ella Dawson and Kate Torgovnick May Session 1 of TEDYouth 2014 brought us to many worlds imagined. From a look at other planets that could be like Earth, to an introduction to a mysterious dinosaur bigger than T. rex, to a beet-tastic vision for the future of food, this morning's speakers brought wonder, passion and a...

Designer Emily Pilloton believes that education not only enriches the mind but the heart as well. And, in the best cases, it can also enhance a community. With that goal in mind, Pilloton and her partner Matthew Miller started Studio H, a program to bring design-based instruction and learning into the high school classroom, with students cre...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. Surface-level brain stimulation. The delivery of an electric current to the part of the brain involved in movement control, known as deep brain stimulation, is sometimes used to treat people with Parkinson’s disease, depression, epilepsy and obsessive...

How do you walk 500 miles? Extreme hiker Sarah Marquis explains how pain gives way to pleasure during an epic trek through the wilderness. Sarah Marquis will call her parents to let her know she’s coming to visit -- and she’ll be there in a week. That’s because her preferred mode of transport is on foot, and from her house in the Swiss Alps to ...

Time is a global preoccupation -- we never feel like we have enough of it to accomplish all we want to accomplish in the world. Do we control time, or does time control us? In the opening session of TEDWomen 2016 at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, seven speakers explored how time and attention shape our lives, in talks ra...

Glacier caves are noteworthy for many reasons, not least the fact that they're made from ice and snow instead of rock. Formed by glacier water that carves out caves in the ice, they're also impermanent. As a glacier slowly shifts, so too do the caves and tunnels inside it. Explorer Brent McGregor, 62, has documented three glacier caves he and ra...

In 1812, four men met for a “philosophical breakfast” at Cambridge University: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell. Over food and drinks, they debated the state of knowledge –- imagining a world in which thinkers drew conclusions based on data, where research was done for the good of humanity rather than for fin...