A new curriculum makes design-build projects into a part of every student’s education. How can a well-designed home change someone’s life? During the 2014-2015 school year, some high school students in Berkeley, California, asked that question as they took on a big project: to build a pair of tiny houses. Affordable housing is a huge issue ...

Right here in our solar system, three small ocean-containing moons are intriguing researchers, who think they might just harbor the conditions for existence to begin. Draw a Venn diagram with two overlapping circles, label one “oceans” and the other “planetary moons,” and look at where the two spheres intersect -- that’s where our search for al...

Sarah Jane Pell is making preparations to live in the ocean. That’s right, under the sea -- but not until after a jaunt to the Arctic. Never one to be satisfied with the ordinary, Sarah Jane founded the Aquabatics Research Team Initiative to explore water choreography, technology, and human behavior as works of live art. Her future projects wi...

Special-effects designer and Mythbuster Adam Savage offers a call to action and vision map to every would-be maker and dreamer out there. “How do I get started?” Across four decades of making, I’m asked this question more than any other. At an individual project level, my answer is “Well, it depends” -- on unique concerns like the mental physic...

Terrorists make headlines by destroying ancient sites like Palmyra, in Syria. But there's an even more sinister endgame, as archaeologist and TED Prize winner Sarah Parcak explains. You’ve probably heard of blood diamonds and blood ivory. But what about blood antiquities? Over the past two decades, fundamentalist groups have discovered that ...

Crystal Giants by Giovanni Badino This book shows clearly how the reality of nature can go far beyond human imagination. Badino and the explorers of La Venta bring the reader on the exploration of one of the most astonishing places of the world, the Giant Crystal Cave of Naica, discovered in a silver mine in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2000. This und...

Musician and sound artist Jason Sweeney lives and works in Adelaide; he describes it as "a prototype for what a developed city in the western world could be like." Here, he tells Alison Prato about life in his city. As a teenager, Jason Sweeney was bullied. It was the mid-1980s, and he was one of hundreds of students at the Urrbrae Agricultur...

We are thrilled to announce the new class of Fellows for TED2015. These 21 game-changing thinkers represent 15 countries—including, for the first time in our program, Vietnam, Romania and Tunisia. They work across disciplines, at the forefront of their fields. They include a South African physicist using lasers to target HIV and cancer; a Germ...

Jason Sweeney lives and works in Adelaide, Australia, a city he describes as "a prototype for what a developed city in the western world could be like." Here, he describes his life in the city. Also, see and hear his favorite Adelaideian spots in the photoessay by Kristin Alford, accompanied by audio snippets of the same places recorded by Sween...

All over the world, land is turning into desert at an alarming rate. Biologist Allan Savory has dedicated a lifetime to figuring out what’s causing this “desertification.” Finally, after decades of work in the field, Savory discovered a radical solution—one that went against everything scientists had always thought. He used huge herds of liv...

Art so often seeks to capture the beauty of the natural world -- from cave drawings of animals, to paintings of landscapes, to sculptures of the human form in marble, bronze or wood. But in this playlist, find artists and designers who take this to the next level, making art based on the laws of nature and the invisible workings of biology i...

TED University is the raucous session before “real TED” starts when attendees get up and give their own short talks. (Some of our very favorite TED Talks came from this session, like talks on Lego, sex, and 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do.) This morning at a cheerful 9am, we met the next class of professors. A brief recap: ...

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...

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (TED Talk: Parrots, the universe and everything) This book makes me giggle out loud every time. Overshadowed by Adams’ more famous work -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series -- the Dirk Gently novels are a delightful read. They’re chock full of his trademark humorous writing and ...

Should the government act like a venture capitalist? It might seem crazy to some, but in today’s eye-opening talk, economist Mariana Mazzucato shows why it might just work -- and how it has, in fact, been working for decades. In this talk, Mazzucato flips the script on the image of a big government meddling in economic affairs, and instead s...

Ancient Peru was home to many cultures, most of them still quite mysterious to modern archaeologists. But as Sarah Parcak directs her citizen-science platform at the Peruvian landscape, the invisible past could make a comeback. A mummified macaw with orange and blue feathers. The body of an ancient priestess, whose arms and legs were covered in...

The stage is set. The lights are on. The audience of more than 600 people who have traveled from all over the world to be inspired is ready. And ready or not, the speakers are thrust onto the stage, one by one. This is the first session of TEDGlobal 2017, themed “a new map,” a phrase that suggests that in these first talks, we will catch ...

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...

It’s never easy to push against the current, to experiment with what’s never been done before, challenge uncomfortable truths. But 400 TED Fellows do it every day, all around the world. In the newly released free digital book Swimming Against the Tide: Adventures with the TED Fellows, dive into the wonder, kinship, curiosity, hope an...

Monika Bulaj’s stunning, painting-like photographs blur religious and cultural divisions, exploding stereotypes. In your photography and writing, one of your main themes is to explore the “borders of monotheism.” What does that mean? I often focus on Judaism, Christianity (mainly Eastern Christianity) and Islam, to explore areas where the ...

Meklit Hadero’s soulful songs have launched her explosive rise in the music world. Her sound draws from jazz, West Coast folk, and her Ethiopian roots. Meklit’s performances and community outreach projects -- in North America, Africa, or where the winds take her -- continue to enrich her music and be an integral part of its evolution. Are you a...

There's no doubt that the speakers we invite to TEDWomen each year have amazing stories to tell. And many of them are published authors (or about to be!) whose work is worth exploring beyond their brief moments in the TED spotlight. So, if you're looking for some inspiring, instructive and provocative books to add to your summer reading list...

Squishy, vivid, frozen, frothy – architect and artist Antonio Torres's wildly colorful and whimsical built spaces are often created using membranes filled with gases, liquids and organic materials, inviting people to crawl in, jump, touch and play. Here, we ask him about his incredible works and where his inspiration comes from. Tell m...

Since he was 11 years old, Apurv Mishra has been accelerating change. Inventor of the Glabenator, a device that helps paralysis victims communicate, Apurv is dedicated to helping pioneers connect and work more efficiently. Today, Apurv is thrilled to launch Future.ly, a platform that maps the state of innovation across the world. Interact...

Archaeology is a puzzle. For Sarah Parcak, trying to find ancient treasures is made exponentially easier by satellite imagery. Archaeologists have many tools at their disposal: shovels, trowels, satellites. If you are scratching your head at that final entry, check out how TED Prize winner Sarah Parcak uses satellite imagery to locate long-lost...

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...

TED is always looking for new voices with fresh ideas -- and earlier this winter, we opened a challenge to the world: make a one-minute audition video that makes the case for your TED Talk. More than 1,200 people applied to be a part of the Idea Search program this year, and on Wednesday night at our New York headquarters, 13 audition finali...

Like many parents, technology researcher Jordan Shapiro knew little about video games -- and what he knew, he didn't like. But that's what his kids wanted to play. Through exploration and experimentation, he found they can be used to teach valuable lessons and build togetherness. On afternoons when I have custody of my 11- and 13-year-old boys,...

Packed house, check. Excited buzz, check. It's time for TED2013 Fellows talks! Session 1 Tunde Jegede, composer Nigerian-British composer and musician Tunde Jegede opens the session with his kora, the West African 21-string bridge harp. Sitting curled around the instrument, his fingers deftly pluck the strings, making a sound like rain ...

Mentored from childhood by Gregory Hines and Savion Glover, Andrew Nemr has tap-danced his way through life. Now, with the Tap Legacy Foundation, he's using new technology to augment oral tradition, passing on the craft he learned at the knees of the old masters. Tell us about your life as a dancer. I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where...