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...

But some jobs -- and industries -- will still require a human touch. Technology researchers Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson have a guess as to which ones. A surprising report published this spring projects that 30 percent of current jobs in the UK might be replaced by automation in the next 15 years. That number is 21 percent in Japan, 35 p...

Formula E racing, the darknet, a potential fountain of youth, and beheadings. At TEDGlobal>London — a two-session event curated and hosted by Bruno Giussani on June 16, 2015, at the Royal Institution of Great Britain -- the talks ranged from a wildly hopeful future to stern warnings about the present. Enjoy these recaps of the talks in th...

Our hosts for this session, Jean Oelwang and Chris Waddell, are life partners who've both had to overcome their inclination to be a solo superhero -- to be the best at business, school, sports. Jean spent her career climbing the corporate ladder, being tough, making her way to the top alone. Meanwhile, Chris was a skiier who, early in his ow...

Becoming an Old Person in Training allows us to choose purpose and intent over dread and denial and connects us empathically with our future selves, says author and activist Ashton Applewhite. What’s the best answer to “How old are you?” Tell your questioner the truth -- and then ask why it matters. Ask what shifted in their mind once they had ...

Photographer Angélica Dass captures some of humanity’s truest colors through her portrait project Humanae, a catalogue of human skin color displayed as a simple, captivating collage of Pantone portraits that reflects the deepest shades of brown and black, to the lighter tones of white, pink and everything in between. For Dass, Humanae is more th...

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...

On March 1 -- just two days after Elon Musk appeared on the TED2013 stage -- a SpaceX CRS-2 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on a resupply mission for the International Space Station. Two days later, after the righting of a glitch, its Dragon capsule delivered a half-ton of supplies for the astronauts on board. And four days after that, ...

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...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Wade Davis is a familiar figure on the TED stage, but he's probably best known for sharing his incredible pictures of Tibet or the Amazon or the various farflung places to which he's traveled. This time, he tells the "story of my own backyard," the sacred headwaters in British Columbia. "It's the most stunning...

There are certain perils to watching a TED Talk live from the audience – occasionally you’ll be asked a stumper of a philosophical question or made the brunt of a speaker’s joke. Then again, you might be given seven and a half extra minutes to live, so it’s really a toss-up. In these talks, pulled from a range of TED and TEDGlobals, watch for au...

Many people ask, “How are speakers selected for TEDWomen? The answer is that speakers, like ideas, come from many different sources. TED has an open recommendation process on TED.com, and we review those as well as suggestions that come in from everywhere. Sometimes people self nominate but mostly, fans of TEDTalks submit names of women and ...

A warm look at the Chinese legends and rituals of one of the most important festivals in the world, as shared by entrepreneur and Chineasy creator ShaoLan Hsueh. The Lunar New Year is a joyous, noisy winter holiday -- its days are filled with parades, bright red signs and banners with good-luck messages, and firecrackers. For people in many cou...

On March 12, TED welcomed its latest class to the TED Residency program, an in-house incubator for breakthrough ideas. These 19 Residents will spend 14 weeks in TED’s New York headquarters working and thinking together; the class includes exceptional people from all over the map, including Brazil, the Netherlands and Korea. The new Reside...

In April 2016, Rachel Dolezal spoke at an independently organized TEDx event held at a university. As you may know, Ms. Dolezal is a former president of the NAACP’s Spokane chapter who sparked a national debate and resigned after the public discovered that she was a white woman identifying herself as a black woman. Recently she announced on TV ...

TED Fellows are scientists, artists and activists and musicians. But they are also biodiversity mathematicians, culinary historians and any other combination of disciplines you can imagine. Below, read short recaps of the talks in the second session of TED Fellows talks at TED2016, each a big idea that will make you think again. Honor ...

In 1936 Jesse Owens broke the world record for the 100-meter dash in a mind-boggling 10.3 seconds. Yet had he raced in the 2013 World Championships, he would have had another 4 meters to go when Usain Bolt won in 9.58 seconds. That tremendous difference in performance is apparent across the sports world -- cycling, gymnastics, the NBA -- so what...

Will the societal shocks of 2016 lead to a bumper crop of art in 2017 and beyond? These TED Fellows channel the energy of activism into creative work that can change hearts and minds. There is a debate going on in artistic circles: Will the unsettling political era ahead push people to create more exciting art and music? But the real answer is:...

Founder of Malaysia’s most popular independent online news source, Premesh Chandran continues to connect and empower citizens despite the personal risks. Join the conversation by answering Fellows’ weekly questions via TED Conversations. This week, Prem  asks: We're coming up with easy tools to build exciting online maps -- wha...

On Monday on the TED Fellows stage, Safwat Saleem made the crowd roar and squirm with his art – satirical and profane posters and animated shorts skewering racism, the absurdity of politics, petty dishonesty and general stupidity. In a word, bullshit. Here at TED2013, he's launching a new project, called "Pardon Me, but WTF?" – a call to the...

As we perused the Time 100 today, the magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people of the year, we couldn't help but notice many familiar faces. Among those included for 2015: investment expert Mellody Hobson, public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson, novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, political scientist Samantha Power, economist Tho...

“This intellectual forum started in 1984, bringing together people from three different industries, hence its 3-letter name.” This was the Final Jeopardy! prompt on January 1, 2014 -- on the very first episode of the new year. The answer, of course: What is TED. Taryn Simon (watch her two TED Talks) has a new exhibit, “Birds of the West Indie...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Possibly the most meta speaker on the TED stage is Lior Zoref. He had a dream: to speak at TED. He shows a video of himself saying to his friend that he wanted to do that, and his best friend telling him it was impossible. But his Facebook and twitter friends encouraged him. He wanted to give a talk on the wis...

Kimberley Motley is an impossible woman: The former Mrs. Wisconsin, whose father is African-American and mother is a North Korean refugee, is the first foreigner to litigate in the courts of Afghanistan. Today she closes the penultimate session at TEDGlobal 2014 to send a message to the world: Our laws can protect us, as long as we know how ...

“We still live in a world where the color of our skin not only gives a first impression, but a lasting one,” says artist Angélica Dass. Dass is from Brazil, and her family is “full of colors.” She describes her father’s skin as “deep chocolate.” He was adopted by her grandmother, whose skin is “porcelain,” and her grandfather, whose skin ...

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris describes a scenario that is both terrifying and likely to occur. It’s not, he says, a good combination. I'm going to describe how the gains we make in artificial intelligence could ultimately destroy us. And, in fact, I think it's very difficult to see how they won't destroy us or inspire us to destroy...

In an early morning session hosted by podcaster and TED2017 speaker Manoush Zomorodi, six speakers -- Lucy Cooke, Ayanna Howard, Nivruti Rai, Monique W. Morris, Karissa Sanbonmatsu and Amanda Williams -- brought us insights from the worlds of AI, robotics, epigenetics, education, and the wonderfully slow world of the sloth. Sustainability...

Counting the days until TED2013 starts on February 25? In the meantime, curl up with a book by one of the talented, scholarly, funny and wise speakers who will grace the stage in Long Beach, California. These books are organized below by session. And make sure to tune in to the TED Blog starting on the 25th for exclusive -- and extensive -- live...

A powerful bitter sweet As race continues to dominate the news, it seems like perfect timing for artist Kara Walker’s latest piece, her first large-scale installation, housed in the shell of the old Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Shown above, the piece has a grand title: At the behest of Creative Time Kara E. Walker has conf...

Take a trip back to the future with this week's TED Radio Hour, as six TED speakers share their prophecies for what lies ahead. From curing cancer to self-driving cars, these TEDsters offer exciting visions for the future, but not without cautionary warnings. The episode starts with a walk down memory lane with Nicholas Negroponte, who made s...