Former Arizona State Senator Kyrsten Sinema built her political career by seeking shared values with her opposition, while looking out for the interests of families in need. Now newly elected to the US House of Representatives for Arizona’s 9th congressional district, the Democratic Congresswoman-elect, long a champion of LGBT issues, makes hi...

When James Kennicott, now 86, was young, he loved ice-skating on the river near his home in Waterloo, Iowa. One day, the ice cracked under his feet and he plunged into the water below. He didn’t have hot water at home. So he broke into his school to take a hot shower. “I think that says a lot about his childhood, that there was really no...

Today’s round-up of need-to-know stories features a rare argument in favor of Google Glass, a lyrical description of the true nature of worms and jellyfish, and a new discovery that might help explain how galaxies really work. OK, Glass. Make yourself useful Early promotion for Google Glass focused on social situations. (Wear them to parties a...

From machine intelligence to post-subsistence economies, Google's Blaise Agüera y Arcas lays out 6 (okay, 7) ways everything is set to change. How will our minds be blown in the next 30 years? Well, that's quite a long time, given the acceleration in history. Still, I'll be brave and make six hypotheses. 1. Machine Intelligence I think that...

Counting the days ’til TED2015? Yeah: we are, too. Before the conference begins on March 16, dive into a great book written by one of our speakers. Books from speakers in Session 1, “Opening Gambit” National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear, by David Rothkopf. The foreign policy specialist examines the way U.S. leaders have ...

Hundreds of thousands of people die from malaria every year. So why is it still around? In today's talk, journalist Sonia Shah takes a look at the history of malaria and outlines some of the major challenges facing the end of one of the world's deadliest diseases. It's not simply that we need to improve our science, says Shah; we also face e...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. New clues about the most mysterious star in the universe. KIC 8462852 (often called “Tabby’s star,” after the astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, who led the first study of the star) intermittently dims as much as 22% and then brightens again, for a reason n...

The venue that housed TEDxKalamata certainly had some history: held in an ancient amphitheater, this was the first TEDx event in an archaeological site. To be specific, the location was an ancient outdoor ekklesiasterion (assembly hall) in Messene, Greece, that has been used for public gatherings since 369 B.C. At TEDxKalamata, 18 speakers and...

When Salman Khan shared his vision for “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere” at TED2011, he turned the education world on its head. As he introduced Khan Academy -- a virtual classroom that uses video lessons to create an individualized, self-paced learning experience -- his alternative model fueled the nascent dialogue about online...

We're thrilled to announce the opening of registration for TED2014: The Next Chapter. It's TED's 30th anniversary, and we’ll be seeking to understand the most significant developments of the past 30 years ... and applying that knowledge to understand what’s ahead. The theme makes it easy for us to reach out to the world’s greatest minds and ...

This year, TED turns 30. It's a big, round anniversary -- the kind that brings with it a welcome moment of reflection. In this session, we look backward and see how far the world has come in the past three decades. These speakers turn back the clocks and offer bold new ways to think about recent history. Here are the speakers who appeared...

Immigration can be a deeply polarizing topic. But at heart, immigration policies and practices reflect no less than our attitude towards humanity. At TEDSalon: Border Stories, we explored the reality of life at the US-Mexico border, the history of the US immigration policy and possible solutions for reform -- and investigated what's truly at...

During day three of TED2016, we felt both wonder and terror. Below, some of the strongest messages cutting through a day of incredible talks. A swarm of autonomous robots, as magical as fireflies. When you hear the word ‘drone,’ you probably think of something either useful or scary. But could they have aesthetic value? Raffaello D'Andrea...

Grab your new backpack and sharpen your pencils. It's back to school time, and here is my playlist of six talks about the essentials. Work your way through the classic school day, as told in TEDTalks. No finals required. 1st period: Math Marcus du Sautoy: Symmetry, reality's riddle Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy takes you inside the uni...

Session 5 starts with a talk from a 93-year-old television icon. But it goes back so much further in time than that. As astronomer shares the mystery of a star's light that dimmed 1,500 years ago. A paleontologist walks us back more than 66 millions. And capping it off: the reveal of this year's TED prize wish, from a satellite archaeologist...

Psychologist Paul Bloom studies the nature of pleasure. In this conversation with Ben Lillie, he discusses how knowing the history of an object can profoundly affect our enjoyment of it. Why is the origin of things so deeply important to us? We have a biological adaptation called "essentialism," which is a particularly clever and important a...

It seems like a story made for the movies: the first general-purpose computer was actually programmed by a half-dozen female math whizzes. Yet for too long, their efforts have been largely unknown. Lawyer and digital-rights advocate Kathy Kleiman describes her quest to learn about them and bring them some overdue recognition. When I was a colle...

Time is precious, we know. Here, compiled from past reading lists, are suggestions for two dozen short but mighty books to pick up. fiction & literature The Summer Book by Tove Jansson The quintessential celebration of summer in Scandinavia -- 22 vignettes of a girl and a grandmother on an island. Jansson is best known as the creator of M...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Steven Pinker  is a linguist and psychologist. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a philosopher and novelist. The pair are also married, and they have taken to the TED stage, in front of a dinner table with several luminaries, to have a very public argument, or, in their rather more academic terms, a Socratic dial...

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 America, as well as out of the...

“How can I come from a nation? How can a human being come from a concept?” With these questions the majestic Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go, closes talks for Day 1 of TEDGlobal 2014. Having just come back from a tour, Selasi is irked and perplexed by the consistently inconsistent way she was introduced at each event: by a biography...

The tables in bookstores can be overwhelming: Every book cover looks appealing, every blurb glows with praise. Sometimes, you just need a recommendation from a human, someone you trust. Below, 10 members of the TED community -- with very different points of view -- share the books they think you’ll enjoy this summer. Their selections are won...

Books can entertain, sucking you like a tornado into incredible new worlds. Books can teach, giving you a richer understanding of time periods, people and ideas you’ve never been exposed to. But books can do so much more. In today’s talk, TED's own Lisa Bu introduces us to the concept of “comparative reading,” the practice of reading book...

After two days of TEDWomen 2015,  the jaw-dropping, standing-O moments are still hanging in the air -- smart, sad and funny insights on things we don't often say out loud ... "I am a bad feminist and a good woman. I am trying to become better in how I think and say and do — without abandoning what makes me human." —Roxane Gay "Bobby Ri...

What’s the best way to find something lost on the ground, like a historical site from a civilization lost to time? For archaeologist Sarah Parcak, the answer’s obvious -- from way up above, using satellites, of course. As a space archaeologist, she’s mapped the lost city of Tanis (of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark fame) and identified th...

Watch James Flynn's TED Talk: "Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents' Jim Flynn is an expert in intelligence famous for his research on the Flynn effect, the phenomenon that humanity's IQ has been dramatically increasing since the 1930s. He opens Session 11 today on the last day of TED2013 to help answer the question, "Who ar...

In October 2016, a group gathered in San Francisco for the TEDWomen 2016 conference, this year themed around the idea of time. One talk was given by Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger, who took the stage to share a story that took place in 1996, when Stranger raped Elva, then his girlfriend. The talk had a powerful effect on the audience in the room,...

“Cookies” and “activism” -- those words don’t usually go together. But self-taught baker Jasmine Cho has managed to turn her cookies into canvases to tell deliciously compelling true stories about Asian-American changemakers. The child of Korean immigrant parents, Cho says she grew up in Los Angeles feeling part of a demographic that was “invis...

This session, delicately titled "Indelicate conversation," took a look at some topics not meant for the dinner table with talks by speakers not afraid to ask: What's really on your mind? The speakers who appeared in this session. Click on their name to read a recap of their talk: Rose George “talks shit” to raise awareness about the lack of ...

You can start referring to TED Fellow Kyrsten Sinema as Congresswoman. In a race that took nearly a week to call, Sinema has been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona’s 9th congressional district, which wraps around Phoenix. Though the race remained close through midday Monday, Sinema -- a Democrat -- was declared the victor ...