While some world leaders resist global cooperation, city leaders are working across borders to tackle big issues like global warming, immigration and terrorism, says urban expert Robert Muggah. Amid the relentlessly grim news on climate change, there is a glimmer of hope -- and it’s coming from our cities. Even as the US is pulling out from its...

The extent of human creativity/weirdness always baffles me, but I have to say the Internet really won my heart this week. Here are some staff picks of weird, beautiful, smart stories and videos from the interwebs this week. Today was the final day to tweet #TornadoWeek to turn up the winds on interns at the Weather Channel. It seems the ...

Just a few of the intriguing headlines involving members of the TED community this week: Around the globe without a drop of fuel. What has the wingspan of a Boeing 747 but weighs only about as much as an SUV? The answer is Bertrand Piccard’s Solar Impulse 2, an airplane fueled entirely by solar energy that landed in California on April 24 aft...

Surgeon Peter Attia sees a disconcerting paradox at work when it comes to our health: while people are talking about eating healthily and exercising perhaps more than ever, we’re seeing no reduction in the rates of obesity and diabetes. As it stands, more than 8% of Americans are diabetic and an additional 26% are pre-diabetic -- which represe...

The successful dot-coms of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s had a few things in common: they all vowed to “change the world”, had crazy-high valuations, and were wildly unprofitable. Here’s a look at one company’s rapid rise and fall -- and the bubble’s lasting impact, from internet historian Brian McCullough. If you were looking for a single compa...

Session 2 of Fellows talks at TED2014 was just as unexpected as Session 1. Here, read a recap of each talk in the session. Somi, singer + cultural activist East African songstress Somi brings her smoky voice to the TED Fellows stage, with "Brown, RoundThings for Sale" from her album The Lagos Music Salon. Often called a modern-day Miriam...

Jeffrey Brown is a Baptist minister. And yet, he says, “I learned some of my most important life lessons from drug dealers and gang members and prostitutes and had some of my most profound theological conversations on a street corner.” Brown was one of the co-founders of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based group that was an inte...

In a classroom in Ontario, a class of 9th graders learned the book Siddhartha, not by listening to lectures from their teacher, but by asking questions like, “How do you know when you’ve reached enlightenment?” Meanwhile, a group of 3rd through 5th graders in rural Georgia was posed a question in Spanish, even though they speak English: “Why...

TEDsters have been busy, as always, during the last two weeks. Below, just a few of the members of our global community with news to share. Innovations poised to make a difference. Our friends over at Mashable created an excellent roundup of “14 innovations that improved the world in 2014.” It includes several innovations shared in TED Talk...

The mad rush of the holidays can stress out the sunniest soul, and yet somehow, beneath it all, we remain cheerfully optimistic.  We look ahead, make New Year's resolutions and generally believe next year will be better than this one and the year before. Why? Tali Sharot, who spoke at TED2012, says we homo sapiens are genetically predisposed...