In September 2016, photographer Camille Seaman joined protesters at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Here, she brings us up close with some of the many people who have been drawn there to defend the water and the earth. In September, I felt called -- not just as an indigenous person of the Shinnecock Nation but also as a photograp...

From the blog of +1 Amsterdam: Last year we designed the opening title for TEDxAmsterdam. This work came to attention of Chris Anderson, the international TED curator. He was impressed and asked us to work on the opening film for their ‘flagship conference’: TED2011 in Long Beach, California. This year’s theme is ‘The Rediscovery of Wond...

Art therapist Melissa Walker uses masks to allow service members with traumatic brain injuries to express their deepest emotions and experiences, helping them and their loved ones heal. Most people wear masks to obscure or change their identities. But through a unique art therapy program, veterans are using them to reveal truths -- often painfu...

If you've seen Pierre Thiam's TED Talk about fonio, then you saw that part when he actually handed food out to the audience, yes? For those who didn't know to sit in the front rows to receive that blessing (or couldn't be there in the first place), and don't mind rolling up their sleeves in the kitchen, Pierre has shared the recipe and cooki...

Ocean explorer Edith Widder shares the astoundingly sophisticated language of bioluminescent creatures, which can light up the depths of the seas like a “snow storm.” The most spectacular gatherings of bioluminescent creatures occur in the twilight region of the sea, between 200 and 1,000 meters down, where squid, fish, shrimp and jellyfish fin...

Architecture expos are often futurist fantasias of design -- but this year's Venice Biennale explores how humanity's first art can house (and treat) us all better. So-called "starchitecture," flashy buildings designed by high-profile architects, has been the face of the industry for decades now. But at this year's Venice Biennale of Architectur...

Photographer Tomm Christiansen has spent months documenting everyday life for inhabitants of "The Jungle" refugee camp in Calais. By September 2015, some 5,000 people were living in a sprawling encampment just outside the French port city of Calais. The camp is in essence a dead-end for migrants who have traversed continental Europe, hoping to ...

Life -- and love -- in limbo, as captured in these beautiful, poignant images from photographer Giles Duley. Photographer Giles Duley (TEDxExeter Talk: The power of a story) has dedicated himself to documenting the long-term impact of conflict on civilians with his project Legacy of War. A few years ago, in partnership with the UNHCR, the UN's ...

Synthetic biologist Tal Danino manipulates microorganisms in his lab to create eye-catching, colorful patterns. Here’s a look at the process he uses to turn “Oh, yuck” into “Oh, wow.” Synthetic biologist Tal Danino washes his hands constantly, one of the occupational hazards of working with bacteria all day at the Synthetic Biological Systems L...

Rich and poor, left and right, we all agree the world should be more equal. Dan Ariely and Michael Norton have spent the past decade analyzing the data. Now, they tackle what to do next. Picture three people splitting an 8-piece pizza. How should they divide it? The possibilities are endless, from the very unequitable -- one person eats the who...

Chances are, you don’t know much about tapirs. Don’t feel bad; neither do scientists. Even though tapirs are the largest land mammals in South America, known as “gardeners of the forest” for their habit of eating (and dispersing) large quantities of fruit and seeds, little is known about these solitary, mostly nocturnal creatures. TED Fellow and...

The work of artist Sanford Biggers walks a fine line between poetic and provocative, brilliantly sparking discussion about race, violence and fallen heroes. Sanford Biggers grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by works of the popular black artists his parents collected. His cousin is the famed African-American muralist John Biggers. But as a young...

Social geographer Danny Dorling explodes the traditional maps of the world and creates lively, ever-changing depictions of why and how we live. Channeling our twin urges to explore and understand, we geographers strive to uncover the hidden connections of human existence. These seven maps -- produced with cartographer Benjamin Hennig -- offer n...

Architect Diébédo Francis Kéré (TED Talk: How to build with clay ... and community) designs with both people and sustainability in mind. Raised in Burkina Faso, though he’s now based in Berlin, Kéré is always keen to include community-oriented spaces that invite people to sit down and engage in thoughtful conversation. The central nature of ...

Artist Shih Chieh Huang teases out the personality from everyday objects by fusing them together into colorful, clamorous creations. Where others see trash, mundane household items or random electronics components, New York City–based artist (and TED Fellow) Shih Chieh Huang sees the possibility for glowing, waving, whirring, multi-tentacled cr...

Dave Troy (TED Talk: Social maps that reveal a city's intersections — and separations) makes "people maps," graphics that visualize cities and communities by people's interests rather than their geography. Here he looks at the divides in St. Louis, Missouri, and asks if we might use this kind of analysis to predict the next Ferguson. Looking at...

Artist Olalekan Jeyifous creates fantastical, futuristic images of Lagos, Nigeria, to get people thinking about how we live today. Olalekan Jeyifous may have trained as an architect, but these days, the Nigerian-born, Brooklyn-based artist is much more interested in sparking debate with his conceptual drawings and sculptures. Starting conversat...

TEDxYouthDay starts now! Today and tomorrow 100 TEDx events will participate in TEDxYouthDay, TEDx’s initiative to inspire curiosity, ignite new ideas, and empower leaders in the youth of today. Youth events will go on in 42 countries — including Egypt, Spain, India, Hong Kong, Brazil, Taiwan and the United State. You can also follow live upd...

One billion is certainly in the zeitgeist. V-day, the global campaign founded by four-time TED speaker Eve Ensler to end violence against women and girls, recently unveiled its One Billion Rising initiative. The name comes from the horrifying statistic that 1 in 3 women will be beaten or abused in their lifetime — on a global scale, 1 bill...

At TED2013 this spring, 34 passionate speakers made it onto the program via a worldwide, 14-city, six-continent Talent Search. The theme of the conference was “The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered,” and the speakers discovered through the Talent Search Tour gave talks that sent the conference crowd flying to their feet. See: Rose George, Ph...

In 1985, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, you could see Back to the Future in the theater for less than three bucks, and a 30-year-old Steve Jobs was being forced out of Apple. Doug Menuez was a 28-year-old photographer who had become obsessed with Jobs' story. So he asked a somewhat ridiculous question and got an equally ridicu...

A while back, we told you about a big initiative underway in the TED office: Project Cleans. Essentially, we are taking each and every one of our 1,800+ talk video files and stripping them of the text and add-ons that were originally baked in, re-encoding the video, and saving the “clean” files in a new media back-end. Cleaning up these file...

Matt Kenyon’s art doesn’t just cast a sardonic eye on the systems around us, it also infiltrates and subverts them. He walks us through some of his projects. Wickedly funny and infused with technology, the work of Matt Kenyon makes you stop, makes you think. His culture-jamming, interactive works enlighten, startle and often make shocking use o...

If Bill Nye, Jackson Pollock and Rube Goldberg ever had a hack week, the end project might resemble "Nature’s Drawings," a project from scientist/artist Fabian Oefner. Whether he’s capturing the rainbow colors of a film of oil in spectacular detail or catching oddly shaped iridescent soap bubbles just as they’re about to pop, Fabian Oefner has ...

Filmmakers Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols share candid photos and descriptions of people they met around the world -- on their quest to document the global diversity of LGBTQ experience. In 2011, Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols (TED Talk: This is what LGBT life is like around the world) traveled across Asia, Africa, South America and Australia to spea...

A membership to TED Live lets you watch the TED2013 and TEDGlobal 2013 conferences live from the comfort of your home, school or business -- and join a global community of conversation around ideas as they happen live. And the TED Live experience has a new component. Starting today, anyone who registers or renews will receive Apple’s bran...

Here are 8 insider tips to creating a great audition video for the TEDNYC Idea Search. 1. Distill your idea. In a 1-minute video, you have about 150 words to describe your proposed TED Talk. So you can't -- and you don't have to -- give every single detail of your idea. Instead, focus on the big question that your talk will answer, such a...

These precise re-creations of the world have the amazing ability to bring us up close to people and animals that are far away in space and time, says artist Aaron Delehanty. “I build time machines,” says artist Aaron Delehanty. Actually, his specific day job is constructing dioramas -- freeze-framed vignettes of animals and people in their habi...

Being announced right now in Washington, DC: A brand-new X Challenge to combat oil spills. The Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge is a $1.4 million prize to promote development of new technologies and techniques to capture spilled oil. As Peter Diamandis said at the announcement: "We are not rewarding someone for existing technology. We w...

In 2004, Jason deCaires Taylor (TED Talk: An underwater art museum, teeming with life) was 29 years old and working as a scuba diving instructor in Grenada. He’d studied sculpture in college, but never quite mustered up the guts to attempt life as a full-time artist. His 30th birthday served as a swift kick in the pants. “I realized I didn't wan...