Richard Turere, 13, grew up hating lions. In Nairobi National Park, where he lives, lions roam freely and often targeted his family’s livestock at night. And yet Turere also hated the only solution his community had come up with to stop lion attacks on cows -- killing the majestic creatures. “I had to find a way of solving this problem,” says...

Earlier this week, I had the privilege and honor to plant trees with the daughter and granddaughter of environmentalist Wangari Maathai. In recognition of her life’s work promoting “sustainable development, democracy and peace,” Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. She was a lifelong activist who founded the Green Belt Movement in 19...

When you’re anxious, one of the best things you can do is slow down and focus on your breath. But what can you do when you’re so anxious or worried that this doesn’t work or simply feels impossible to do? Below, I'll share a simple but effective trick that brings in more of your senses and helps cut through the anxiety so you can access more ...

So, you might know me. I ran the digital side of The Onion for a long time; I’m the author of How to Be Black. People call me to do things like host White House events on innovation, do the wrap-up at TED salons, join semi-secret cabals at MIT, and comment on the teevee. The underlying constant in my multi-hyphenate life is running my creative c...

These five different exercises -- all from TED speakers -- can help you add more thanks to your life. Feel free to do the challenges in any way that suits you, whether it’s in back-to-back days or spread out over weeks or months. Then, if some of them resonate with you more than others, focus on those and save the rest for another time. The...

Behold, your weekly recap of TED-related news: Yesterday, a United States federal court ruled that the NSA’s surveillance of phone records is “likely” to be unconstitutional. The New York Times’ editorial board applauded the move today. TED speakers Mikko Hypponen (who gave the talk “How the NSA betrayed the world’s trust”) and Malte Spitz (w...

Please enjoy your weekly roundup of news briefs from members of the TED community: A 21st-century break-in. Security futurist Marc Goodman knows that technology can make both life and crime easier. In a post on Boing Boing excerpted from his book Future Crimes, he tells the story of an auto trading company that installed tiny remote-controlled ...

Before TEDGlobal 2013, director Bruno Giussani reached out to the giant community of TEDx organizers around the world to ask for some comic relief. He asked them, “What are the funniest videos from your event?” And, as usual, TEDx’ers came through -- with wild enthusiasm. Below, the 5 hilarious TEDx Talks Giussani selected to show at TEDG...

Multitasking is highly overrated, says Paolo Cardini. In this talk, given at TEDGlobal 2012, he shares that he fed up with doing multiple things at once and would much prefer to “monotask.” He has created a series of 3D-printed “monotasking” smartphone covers to this end, which ensure that you can only do one thing at a time -- to truly listen...

Jarrett J. Krosoczka -- the man behind the Lunch Lady crime-fighting graphic novel series -- credits his imagination with saving his life. In today’s talk, given at TEDxHampshireCollege, Krosoczka shares the story of how he became a children’s book author and illustrator. It isn’t a story full of rainbows and kittens -- instead it stars a mom b...

On her first day as a principal in a North Philadelphia school, Linda Cliatt-Wayman was determined to lay down the law and set clear expectations. She called her students into the auditorium and told them how things would go at that school. But one voice interrupted her. "Miss," called out a girl named Ashley, "why do you keep calling this a...

“The politics of joy” is a phrase that resonates through this session of TED Fellows talks. These talks, by and large, come from people who’ve taken a hard look at the world and its problems and decided to engage joyfully, with creativity, fresh insight and heart. From a soccer project that empowers young refugees, to an SMS service for cow ...

Not every conversation with a climate denier has to lead to raised voices and hurt feelings. Here’s how to do it constructively. “Climate change has become one of the taboo topics -- like sex, politics and religion -- that doesn’t get talked about at the Thanksgiving table,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Chan...

New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin calls Maria Semple's new book, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, a "sparkling novel" full of "free-range hilarity." Maslin continues, "The tightly constructed Where’d You Go, Bernadette is written in many formats — emails, letters, FBI documents, correspondence with a psychiatrist and even an emergency-room bil...

Above: Reggie Watts demonstrates the littleBits SynthKit For the last week, the internet has been grooving to the video above of Reggie Watts making some funky noise with the newly launched SynthKit -- the latest offering from TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir’s littleBits electronic building block company, and the product of a three-way partnership b...

October is National Bullying Prevention Month in the US, and chances are you know someone who’s been bullied -- or you’ve been bullied yourself. Here, I’ve curated a list of TED and TEDx Talks that I feel unpack different aspects of the problems, solutions and experiences we’re facing in our modern world of bullying – both on and offline....

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...

On day three of TED2017, we got an exploration of the mind, new ideas on climate change and thoughts on how our world is hyper global and at the same time hyper local. Below, some highlights. Perception is a hallucination. Surprise! In Session 4, Anil Seth made a convincing case that we’re hallucinating all the time. In a delightfully dis...

TED2015 featured more than 90 speakers, and more than 20 hours of talks. We turned our perceptions inside-out, saw some new technology, traveled to space more than once, heard astounding life stories, learned about unusual materials, rethought artistic expression and contemplated the divides of society, with an eye toward ending injustice. ...

Deepak Chopra on stage at the INK Conference. Photo: Gene Driskell, INK Conference, Lavasa, 2010 The INK Conference's second day of talks unearthed brilliant Indian innovators and placed them alongside familiar TED speakers like Adora Svitak and Tom Wujec, as well as internationally known figures like Deepak Chopra. Session 4: Thirteen-...

Icarus is a mythological character with incredible staying power. Everyone knows his story -- his dad made him wings to help him escape the minotaur’s labyrinth, and warned him not to fly too close to the sun lest his wings melt. Amazed to be flying, however, Icarus didn’t listen and tumbled into the ocean. It’s the classic tale of hubris. In...

Ghetto Life 101 changed my life. I started working on this radio documentary 25 years ago — I gave tape recorders to two kids growing up in the Ida B. Wells Homes in Chicago, one of the most notorious public housing projects in America, and asked them to document a week in their lives. LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman were 13 and 14 years old a...

Community member Mike Nelson Pedde wrote this very personal essay as a comment in response to Eleanor Longden's TED Talk, The voices in my head: "My sister lived (and died) with MPD -- multiple personality disorder, also known as DID. Technically not the same as schizophrenia, at least from a psychology perspective, my sister had about 16 peo...

In 1962, Princeton psychologist Sam Glucksberg performed an experiment based on the classic candle problem test. He presented two groups with the same task, but with different rewards: One would receive monetary rewards based on speed, while the other was told only to complete the task as quickly as possible. The results were counterintuitive. T...

The conversation around the upcoming US presidential election is full of frenzy, headache and noise. But elections are about more than divisiveness and disagreement -- they're civic events worthy of celebration, and, while it may seem unbelievable at the moment, they hold the promise of transforming governments for the better. At TEDNYC: ...

So what went down at TED on day two? Well, a lot, as it happens. As curator Chris Anderson commented rather tiredly later, "that was the most intense day of TED I can remember, ever." Here, a lightning round-up of some of the day's key moments. Edward Snowden trundles onto stage The first big surprise of the day when a small robot rolled...

Each week, we collect sharp critique, thought-provoking questions or interesting insights in response to TED Talks. This week’s haul includes thoughts on Jamila Lyiscott's spoken word essay on "Broken English," the happy memory of an excellent teacher, and a shared photo of a cockroach carcass, inspired by Ed Yong's tales of dastardly parasites....

More and more women are being incarcerated in the US -- before they’ve been found guilty of crimes. Here’s how the bail system affects women and what can be done. Robin Steinberg’s big idea -- The Bail Project, a national revolving bail fund designed to make sure people can await trial from their own homes, not from jail -- was one of the first...

The world is changing faster than ever, bringing with it brand-new problems, while our most persistent troubles -- like poverty and health -- haven't gone anywhere. One thing has become abundantly clear: our machines aren't going to save us; people are. How do we respond to problems new and old with humanity and dignity? In the moving third s...

Did you know that meerkats stay close to home, even as adults, so they can inherit territory when Mom dies? Or that North American red squirrel mothers gift real estate to their kids (complete with stockpiles of food)? Evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and writer Kathryn Bowers make the case for why parents -- animals and humans ...