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...

When people with developmental disabilities have the support they need to thrive, everyone benefits. In a speech at the United Nations on April 1, Steve Silberman made the case that it's past time we all learned to honor neurodiversity. An edited version of his text follows. We are living at a very exciting time -- a time of great hope for auti...

By Liz Jacobs and Ben Lillie Taking stock of our moment in history helps us better understand ourselves, our societies and the present moment itself  -- which often gets lost in the temptation to look backwards or forwards. And at TED2014: The Next Chapter we're doing plenty of both. But we're also designating this All-Stars session to th...

Bacterial infections that are resistant to treatment by our existing antibiotics are a huge threat to human health -- and an enormous challenge for medicine. Scientists are exploring one fascinating line of research: compounds modeled after those found in the blood of the fearsome Komodo dragon. Although they can’t breathe fire, Komodo dragons ...

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...

Say the word “networking,” and most of us die a little inside. However, there are a few simple steps to take to broaden and deepen your ties, says business school professor Tanya Menon. I started teaching business school 17 years ago, and I’ll often run into my students years and years later. When I run into them, I’ve noticed that a funny thin...

In July, TED Fellow Jimmy Lin and his team discovered a gene mutation that might explain 4-year-old Maya Nieder's rare developmental disease. After years of frustrating doctors and specialists’ visits, Maya's family may be close to an answer, thanks to Lin's brainchild -- the Rare Genomics Institute. Lin began RGI as place for patients wi...

Rick Smolan enlisted an unusual partner for the release of his new coffee table book, The Human Face of Big Data -- FedEx. Yes, Smolan orchestrated a meeting with the shipping giant so that 10,000 copies of the book would be delivered simultaneously today, November 20, to a large group of influential people around the world, ranging from Barack ...

What's a powerful way to change behavior? Get instant feedback that's easy to read and act on. It's a theme that runs through many TEDTalks, from Gary Wolf's talk on tweaking your personal metrics to Christopher deCharms' demo of a cutting-edge use for fMRI to manage pain. So we're intrigued by a new device to measure, display and give feedback ...

Photos: James Duncan Davidson Rafe Esquith has spent 30 years teaching public school at Hobart School. It's a difficult school, he says. The children do not speak English as a first language, and many come from poverty. Less than 40% finish high school. But in one room, the story is different. The Hobart Shakespeareans graduate at much...

Johan Rockström says humanity has already raced past four of the nine boundaries keeping our planet hospitable to modern life. Writer John Carey digs into the "planetary boundary" theory -- and why Rockström says his isn't, actually, a doomsday message.We've been lucky, we humans: For many millennia, we’ve been on a pretty stable -- and resilien...

Xaero. Stratolauncher. Atlas V. Dream Chaser. If you built a spaceship, wouldn't you name it something awesome too? These four spacecraft, and many more, are detailed in a recent report in which NASA examines the evolving landscape of spaceflight. As the authors admit, the space agency's own budgets are shrinking, so companies and individuals ar...

Not every dream is good. Sometimes dreams terrify you to your core, and you wake up in a cold sweat confused to find yourself safe in bed. In Session 8, we turn our attention to “Nightmare?,” from gun violence to the state of the climate. But it’s not all doom and gloom — the speakers in this session offer real ways forward. Recaps of the...

It’s one thing to read about segregation and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s in books. But history comes to life when you hear from the people who were on the front lines. In the United States, students are taught about the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement in school. But what can get lost in the lesson plans and textbooks is th...

Data is a valuable, powerful commodity -- but unlike oil, it is unlimited in quantity and in its capacity for harm, says technology thinker James Bridle. The phrase “data is the new oil” was apparently coined in 2006 by Clive Humby, the British mathematician and architect of the Tesco Clubcard, a supermarket reward program. Since then, it has b...

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. Transforming big systems is a huge task. Energy, transportation, industry and infrastructure all pose their own challenges. And yet that transformation is alrea...

There are moments when the world begins to shift beneath our feet. Sometimes slowly, sometimes dramatically. Now more than ever we are living and working in an era of exponential technological advancement. How we address rapid change, what collaborative relationships we create, how we find our humanity -- all this will determine the future w...

When Naheed Nenshi spoke at TEDxCalgary, he was a university professor. Now, he’s the mayor of Calgary. In May of 2010, just a month after giving a TEDx talk, Nenshi launched a successful campaign for mayor—one dubbed the “purple revolution” because of his aim to bring together conservative red and liberal blue. He won the election by a c...

Startup names may be a dime a dozen, but most founders still agonize over what to call their dream. Are they right to invest so much energy and time -- or would any random string of letters be fine? If anyone knows the answer, it’s Jonathan Nelson, who created the startup incubator Hackers/Founders (aka H/F). Based in Silicon Valley but busy ...

The mad race to hook up a billion of India's people to the internet sounds daunting -- but it may well make it better for everyone. Politicians often talk about big plans. But rarely do they deliver on even a fraction of plans as huge and ambitious as Digital India, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July 2015. The nine-pillared progra...

Kio Stark has always talked to strangers -- she believes these fleeting moments give us new ways to fall in love with the world. She shares five ways to spark a meaningful interaction with someone you’ve never met before. What does it take to say a simple hello to a stranger you pass on the street? How might that interaction continue? What are ...

The TED Fellows program is excited to announce the new group of TED2018 Fellows and Senior Fellows. Representing a wide range of disciplines and countries -- including, for the first time in the program, Syria, Thailand and Ukraine -- this year's TED Fellows are rising stars in their fields, each with a bold, original approach to address...

​Sketches that speak volumes. When illustrator Christoph Niemann wakes up after falling asleep on an airplane, he says, "I have the most terrible taste in my mouth that cannot be described with words ... But it can be drawn." Then he shows a spot-on sketch of an outstretched tongue with a dead-fish-rat-hybrid creature on it. Trying to recap ...

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the way we work -- and that includes how we interview for that work. While remote job interviews are nothing new, they’re now the ...

Some argue that we have a moral responsibility for future generations, but others ask: how do we know what they would want? Writer Charles C. Mann explores the confusing ethics of acting on global warming. Every few years the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues a set of multivolume reports that attempt to portray the state o...

Three sessions of memorable TED Talks covering life, death and the future of humanity made the penultimate day of TED2018 a remarkable space for tech breakthroughs and dispatches from the edges of culture. Here are some of the themes we heard echoing through the opening day, as well as some highlights from around the conference venue in Vanco...

Living on the Moon might just be a chance for humans to learn how to co-exist peacefully and sustainably, proposes Jorge Mañes Rubio, the European Space Agency’s first-ever resident artist. Explore his vision of a new way to settle outer space. Fifty years ago, we humans took our first steps on the Moon. Back then, many people imagined we’d be ...

Jimmy Lin's network helps patients with rare genetic disorders connect with the equally rare researcher who's working on their exact problem. Despite the medical advances we’ve witnessed over the past century or so, rare diseases are still paradoxically common. A disease is considered rare when it affects fewer than 200,000 people in the United...

Millions of women singlehandedly raise their children in the war-torn country, but their stories are rarely told in the media. Photographer Kiana Hayeri captures their struggles and strength in these photos. Malika is 28 years old. Just 14 when she was married off by her family, she lives with her five children in a small room in the Wazir Abad...

By Courtney E. Martin & John Cary Pregnancy is supposed to be about life. And yet, every day, 800 women across the globe die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In Malawi, which has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, a shocking 1 in 36 pregnant women die rather than become proud mothers. ...