Homophobia and mass shootings are afflictions that won't be solved overnight -- but the problematic and outdated restrictions against gay blood donors could be. Nothing rubs salt in the wounds of tragedy like bigotry or bureaucracy -- or both. But that is just what happened last week after the shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando. Wit...

What capitalism prioritizes, the world does more of. So how can we change capitalism so that it focuses on what humans really want and need? Entrepreneur Andrew Yang has a surprising proposal. Think of the activities on the list below: Parenting or caring for loved ones Teaching or nurturing children Creating art, music, dance Working in ...

What if you could build a civilization from scratch, using tools that could also be built from scratch? In his talk "Open-sourced blueprints for civilization" at TED2011, Marcin Jakubowski introduced the Global Village Construction Set, open-source blueprints that would essentially allow anyone with a heap of scrap metal -- and a few production ...

Back in the ’90s, the golden mussel (Limnoperna fortunei) hitched a ride on ships traveling from Asia to South America. In the past decade and a half, the mussel has proliferated through South America’s river systems, destroying the native habitat and disrupting the operation of power plants and water treatment facilities. This invasive spec...

While some world leaders resist global cooperation, city leaders are working across borders to tackle big issues like global warming, immigration and terrorism, says urban expert Robert Muggah. Amid the relentlessly grim news on climate change, there is a glimmer of hope -- and it’s coming from our cities. Even as the US is pulling out from its...

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...

Historian Yuval Noah Harari offers a bracing prediction: just as mass industrialization created the working class, the AI revolution will create a new unworking class. The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms tha...

Justice should be blind, right? Unfortunately, the predictive policing software used in much of the US has bias and misunderstanding programmed right into it, says data scientist Cathy O’Neil. The small city of Reading, Pennsylvania, has had a tough go of it in the postindustrial era. Nestled in the green hills 50 miles west of Philadelphia, Re...

After hearing an idea that struck them at their core, these people were no longer satisfied to sit on the sidelines -- so they jumped in. Hearing an inspiring idea is like experiencing a great book or movie; it stays with you. For most people who watch a TED Talk, this occurs subtly, with the concept going into our minds where it serves as a ki...

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...

Let it be noted, says co-host Chris Anderson, that this year's TED started with a roaring cheer and with a scream of anguish. Our job this week is to explore what's amazing, in every sense of the word, from the jaw-droppingly wonderful to the shocking and urgent. So Chris and co-host Helen Walters have decided to kick off Session 1 with a qu...

Here's a list of specific steps you can take, as recommended by members of the TED community. Educate Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's New York Times bestseller How to Be an Antiracist is one of the most important books I've ever read. (Watch Dr. Kendi speak on "how to build an antiracist world" here.) He provides an empowering lens and language to unders...

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown. The world around us is mainly made of two things: nature and the materials that we extract from it. To fight climate change, we need to protect and regenerate n...

Innovation happens at the critical junctures between success and failure, risk and reward, truth and daring, past and future. At TEDGlobal>Geneva, in a former power plant right in the middle of the Rhone river in downtown Geneva, the conference gathered 900 attendees from nearly 80 countries. Against a stage backdrop designed by the student...

In Session 2 of the TED Fellows talks, we learn about the FBI's use of informants in counterterrorism operations, how giant pouched rats are helping to save lives, laser-delivered HIV drugs, how Silicon Valley companies are working to protect our privacy -- and that's not to mention the piano solo, percussive dance and opera! Sri Lankan o...

What if one person could change the world? What if we could harness our collective talent, insight and wisdom? And what if, together, we could spark a movement with positive impact far into the future? For a third year, UPS has partnered with TED to bring experts in business, logistics, design and technology to the stage to share ideas fr...

This compilation of reading assigned to students everywhere will expand your horizons -- and your bookshelves. In the US, most students are required to read To Kill a Mockingbird during their school years. This classic novel combines a moving coming-of-age story with big issues like racism and criminal injustice. Reading Mockingbird is such an ...

Linguist and psychologist Steven Pinker's talk at the end of TED2018 Session 1 argued enthusiastically that humanity has, as a whole, made remarkable progress toward prosperity, peace and happiness — backing up his assertions with charts that showed an optimistic trajectory. But is that the whole story? A roundtable of TED Fellows — includin...

In the final days of 2012, as Congress worked to hammer out a last-minute deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, it was difficult to turn on any American news source and not see political finger-pointing. Words like “extremist,” “angry” and “sharply divided” floated in the ether. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been interested in how...

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 by politicians. However, this book is different on so many levels and is a must-read -- whether you’re a political ...

Forget those miserly folk who hoard their best for the last -- TED believes in starting strong. Kicking off TED2018 is Session 1 of the TED Fellows, who count among their ranks artists, activists, scientists, researchers, conservationists, thinkers and changemakers of all kinds. The Fellows program now total 453 individuals from 96 countries...

To succeed in the next decade and beyond, we can't just optimize what we know. We need to keep learning, imagining, inventing. In a day of talks and performances, 16 speakers and performers explored how we can unlock our full potential -- human, technological and natural -- to accomplish things we never thought possible. The event: TED@BC...

Whether your weeks ahead contain travel, vacations or just longer and lazier days than usual, our list of recommendations from TED speakers has books for all moods, activities and tastes. When you want to understand why we humans do what we do Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely (TED Talk: Our buggy...

Much of the recent discussion about inequality has focused on the very rich (the 0.01%) or the very poor (the bottom billion or so). But what about those people who are somewhere in the middle? Through the TED-Ed network, we asked 17 public school teachers working in locations from Kildare to Kathmandu, Johannesburg to Oslo, to tell us wha...

. Advertising impressario Rory Sutherland has given TEDTalks on the general life lessons to take from advertising, and the incredible importance of seemingly small details for producing big results. Now, he's released "Rory Sutherland: The Wiki Man," a collection of essays and interviews on the art, science, and life of advertising. TED's...

Since we know TED speakers love to read, we asked them: What book could you not stop reading? Here are their eclectic picks, ready for sticking in your carry-on or for gifting. If you want to be transported to another place and time The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood This novel is set in the near future and tells a horrifying story of a...

By Paul Farmer At the end of almost a decade spent in teaching hospitals and clinics, most (we hope all) physicians have honed their clinical acumen by focusing on the care of the patient who is right in front of them. Perhaps this is as it should be: as patients, we don't want our doctors (or nurses or social workers) distracted by "outs...

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...