In January of 2013, TED Fellow Cesar Harada, inventor of an open-source sailing robot, set sail on a four-month, 14-country round-the-world journey with Unreasonable at Sea, a global innovation accelerator on board a boat. Here, he tells us about how this extraordinary voyage helped crystallize his vision for how his open source sailing robo...

"It takes courage to uncover the truth," says Chris Anderson, opening the first session of TED2015, Opening Gambit. "The speakers this week -- their courage and brilliance are going to rewire your brain. This dare thing is not just for them -- it's for all of us." These six speakers set the tone for Truth & Dare: The mega-challenge of...

Stephen Petranek makes the case that humans will live on Mars in the not-too-distant future. He explains how and when this might happen -- and what risks those who head there first might face. Nearly a decade of anticipation has come down to this moment: the spacecraft inches to the surface as the blast effect of braking rockets kicks up red du...

Just like you, we at TED get inundated with email. And just like you, many of us think of an overflowing inbox as a guilt-inducing, anxiety-laden reminder of things left undone. As TED’s User Experience Architect, I like my inbox the same way I like my designs: simple, orderly, and communicating clearly what to do next. Many people have n...

In her TEDWomen talk, Deborah Rhodes, a physician and researcher at the Mayo Clinic, describes a new technique for screening women for breast tumors, and how innovation can proceed by tailoring the test to individual characteristics — in the case of Rhodes’ MBI, based on the tissue density — and also about the politics that gets in the way o...

The speakers and performers who’ll be a part of TEDWomen 2015 know a bit about “Momentum.” Each of them has pushed forward fascinating research, created something out of a bold idea or moved the needle on a cause that’s central to them. The 34 speakers on our lineup — soon to be joined by a few more — range from former presidents (yes, plural...

When TED Radio Hour premieres on Friday, March 1st, a new -- but familiar -- voice will be manning the mic. Guy Raz, the former host of Weekend All Things Considered and the creator of Three-Minute Fiction, is the new host of the show, which is returning for its second season after being named Best New Audio Podcast of 2012 by iTunes the first t...

And Brexit wouldn't have happened. At least that’s according to the Global Vote, an initiative which lets people vote in other country’s elections. Creator Simon Anholt tells us about the lessons learned from this real-life experiment in democracy. The results of the November 2016 election in America were as follows: Hillary Clinton, the Democr...

By Liz Jacobs and Kate Torgovnick Are we on the brink of a resource crisis? All signs point to yes. As the human population grows, the planet is buckling under the pressure of our needs. In this inaugural All-Stars session, 11 classic TED speakers return to the stage to share their deep concern for preserving the magic of Planet Earth ......

In January 2011, Fred Villagomez, the head mechanical technician at a Mountain View-based satellite imaging startup, drove east, looping down and around the San Francisco Bay toward Fremont. His destination: an auto plant called NUMMI, a failed joint venture between General Motors and Toyota, whose assets were about to be auctioned off. Vill...

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 the Internet era, conflict is constant, invisible and deadlier than ever. No longer is the country with the biggest army or most missiles the most powerful -- instead, those wielding the best algorithm can dominate, says foreign policy strategist David Rothkopf. Today, new technology has ushered in an era of a new kind of conflict. It’s a wa...

TED2018, themed "The Age of Amazement," kicked off Tuesday with two eye-opening sessions of talks from this year's TED Fellows -- with tech and science demos, music, dance and comedy -- as well as the opening of exhibits and, of course, a memorable Session 1 full of bold ideas, tough truths and jaw-dropping creative visions. Here are some of ...

Photo: Ryan Lash At the Lyceum Theatre today, the TEDGlobal 2012 Fellows brought audiences to their feet with two sessions of astonishing and moving talks before TEDGlobal 2012 mainstage sessions began. Here's the rundown: Usman Riaz, musician & artist Usman plays guitar like an introverted genius alien from another planet who lande...

Some among my readers may recall a dreadful incident, created by a dark genius of political theater, in September of 2001. This dismal act involved aircraft and skyscrapers. It so transfixed the public imagination that some feared skyscrapers would no longer be built. Over a dozen years later, and we can see: quite the opposite came to pass. ...

The neutrino has been called "the ghost particle," due to its otherworldly ability to pass through solid objects, including you and me. Researchers in Antarctica are trying to catch them, hoping they might reveal the most energetic areas of the universe. Neutrinos: you can’t feel them, you can’t see them, but they’re everywhere. They’re constan...

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...

Among the winners of the 71st annual Peabody Awards: TED.com! The judges wrote: An outgrowth of a 1984 conference that brought together leaders in technology, entertainment and design (TED), the site makes creative thinkers and their ideas available everywhere, anytime. We're thrilled and honored to be among this company of Peabody awa...

By Kate Torgovnick, Morton Bast, Thu-Huong Ha The future. When it comes down to it, it's not about flying cars, flashy robots, jetpacks, or awesome sunglasses. It's about the little things we can do to advance healthcare, better education, create opportunities, improve connections between each other, and make lives just a little bit easie...

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...

In 2009, political scientist P.W. Singer gave a TED Talk in which he predicted that the growing use of robots in war would change the realities of combat. Four years, and thousands of US drone strikes later, he talks to journalist Matthew Power; an edited version of their conversation follows. Matthew Power: In a recent article you discussed ...

Alicia Eggert makes kinetic sculptures that investigate the nature of language and time. Meanwhile, Ryan Holladay is a musical artist who creates sound-specific installations and GPS compositions as part of the duo BLUEBRAIN. Just a week before TED2013, Eggert and Holladay made contact for the very first time. See, Holloday is a curator o...

Millions of people, many of them children, suffer from "orphan" diseases -- illnesses so rare that no infrastructure exists to investigate or treat them. Now C Jimmy Lin's Rare Genomics Institute puts hope and empowerment back in patients' hands by connecting them with researchers, doctors and community support, and a crowdsourced funding pl...

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 ...

Yes, it has free love, vegan food, Wi-Fi and a low carbon footprint. But it also has unchallenged assumptions, ramshackle housing and a questionable belief system, finds social media analyst Jamie Bartlett. As the sun rises over the Portuguese countryside, I find myself standing in a circle on top of a hill with a group of strangers, grasping h...

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 ...

Three stellar main stage sessions of talks -- including the launch of the Audacious Project -- plus workshops, exhibits and TED Unplugged, a session of talks given by audience members, made for a jam-packed day 2 at TED2018. Here are some of the themes we heard echoing through the opening day, as well as some highlights from around the co...

When artist and scientist Angelo Vermeulen (watch his TED Talk) first started weaving together biological and technological systems in his artwork, little did he know he’d someday be asked to consider how to create living ecosystems for future space habitation… Do you consider yourself an artist or scientist first? I usually describe mysel...

Marc Goodman studies how to prevent future crimes -- not in the Minority Report sense, but by thinking about the ways that current and imagined technologies could be used to commit crimes. At TEDGlobal 2012 he gave a talk on some of the ways this could play out -- showing examples of how drug cartels and terrorists could (and already do) use...

Compiled from past TED book lists, here's a curated selection of fiction and non-fiction titles to check out now. Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Change by Stacey Abrams (TED talk: 3 questions to ask yourself about everything you do) I work in government affairs, and the last thing I enjoy reading for pleasure are books ...