Named a "Hero of the Environment" by Time magazine in 2008, Kim Stanley Robinson writes books that offer a twisted take on how life might be for future generations of humans (and the non-humans we will likely evolve to be). Here, read an excerpt from his novel 2312, which describes Earth of 300 years from now, long after clean tech failed to s...

What will it mean when almost anyone can read and understand the world and everything on it, in it, and above it -- in real time, at will? Andrew Blau investigates. Technology advances over the last 30 years mean that we have crossed an invisible threshold: for the first time in human history, we now live on a legible planet. What will blow o...

The world is experiencing the consequences of climate change and the urgency couldn't be more clear. In Session 3 of TEDWomen 2019, we dug deep into some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time -- exploring solutions and the many ways people across the globe are fighting for change. The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 3: Plane...

Ask photojournalists to name a peer they admire, and Sebastião Salgado's name is sure to crop up. The Brazilian is renowned for the long-term projects he undertakes, devoting years at a time to documenting the story of a particular people or the evolution of a certain place. As he describes in the talk he gave at TED2013, his attention to detail...

Polar ice doesn't care who's in the White House. It just melts. In the sixth session of TED2017, hosted by TED's Head Curator Chris Anderson, we hear blunt talk on climate change -- taking a 30,000-foot view from the clouds and examining some market-based solutions for cleaning the planet. Below, recaps of the talks from Session 6, in chronol...

One of anthropologist Margaret Mead’s most famous quotes instructs us: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” We might amend Mead’s observation to honor a group of thoughtful, committed teenagers across the world who are standing up for their lives (...

"We're on spaceship Earth," begins Will Marshall during Session 9 of TED2014. "It's fragile and finite -- and we need to take care of it." He shows a satellite image of Earth. Yes, it's beautiful, says Marshall, but it's outdated. The information is old, and he says, "We can't fix what we can't see." Satellite imaging, says Marshall, is b...

Crystal Giants by Giovanni Badino This book shows clearly how the reality of nature can go far beyond human imagination. Badino and the explorers of La Venta bring the reader on the exploration of one of the most astonishing places of the world, the Giant Crystal Cave of Naica, discovered in a silver mine in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2000. This und...

Back in 2014, Will Marshall took the TED stage to introduce us to his company, Planet, and their proposed fleet of tiny satellites. The goal: to image the planet every day, showing us how Earth changes in near-real time. In 2018, that vision has come good: Every day, a fleet of about 200 small satellites pictures every inch of the planet, ta...

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 ......

Earth has been around for over 4.5 billion years, and modern humans have inhabited it for the past 200,000. Yet in all that time, we’ve learned surprisingly little about the planet’s landscape and the animals that live on it. This is especially true of remote areas such as the Amazon’s dense jungles, the ocean’s vast coral reefs or the wide-...

For most of us, the job of taking care of the planet is very definitely the responsibility of Someone Else. We might have thoughts, we might have standards, we might even have a composting habit, but we more than likely hope and expect that the trained professionals have got this under control. One problem, of course, is that those who are train...

The Good Country Index measures how much each of 125 countries contributes to the planet. Announced at the TEDSalon in Berlin, the Index features some unexpected winners — and even more surprising losers. (Sorry, USA.) Irish people, rejoice! It turns out, your green land is the "goodest" country in the world. That's right. The "goodest." At...

Alan Stern is excited. The planetary scientist has been working on sending a probe to Pluto since 1989. During that time, he's seen his planet downgraded to "dwarf planet" status (in 2006) ... but now he's optimistic that Pluto will be reinstated with full planetary honors. Why? Because just-released close-up pictures from the New Horizons probe...

It's a fact: Dangle a cat video in front of almost anyone, and they’ll drop everything to watch it. It’s something that conservationist and entrepreneur Ashwin Naidu is counting on. He is hoping that fishing cats -- little-known, endangered, wetland-dwelling felines like the one shown above -- grab our attention and galvanize us caring about ...

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...

The TED community has been doing some big things over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. Let’s interview our elders. This Thanksgiving, high school students across the United States will have an important assignment: Interview a grandparent or elder using the StoryCorps app. The Great Thanksgiving Listen -- a partnership of...

  Scientific research is generating far more data than the average researcher can get through. Meanwhile, modern computing has yet to catch up with the superior discernment of the human eye. The solution? Enlist the help of citizen scientists. British astronomer and web developer Robert Simpson is part of the online platform Zooniverse, w...

Aomawa Shields is a woman of "contradictions." An astronomer and astrobiologist, she searches for exoplanets where life might exist by using computer models to calculate the kind of atmosphere they'd need to support it. And she's also a classically trained actor, who -- through her organization Rising Stargirls -- teaches astronomy to middle...

Some interesting things are going on down here … that might just affect how we see what’s going on out there. Two recent reports from two Science and Technology Definition Teams from NASA’s astrophysics division have detailed proposals to detect extrasolar planets orbiting nearby stars. One report studied a concept based on a telescope with a...

Members of the TED community sure were busy this week. Below, some highlights: Legendary biologist E.O. Wilson has come out with a bold idea: that we set aside half of Planet Earth for wildlife. If we don’t, he warns, he sees us hurtling toward a “biological holocaust” that could send us the way of the dinosaurs. (Watch his TED Prize talk: ...

"The universe is teeming with planets," and Jeremy Kasdin, an astronomer at Princeton University, wants to see them. Not in the way they've been detected so far, but directly. He wants to build a space telescope that will image a planet around another star and tell if it harbors life. There is probably one per star in the galaxy, and maybe 1...

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built for you in a thoughtful sequence to illuminate ideas in context. This weekend, three new playlists are available: "Ancient clues," "Planes, trains and automobiles" and "Are we alone in the universe?" Ancient clues Five fascinating talks by archaeologists and evolutionary biologists...

“Are we alone? Is there life out there?” asks Sara Seager on the stage in Session 4 of TED2015. “These questions have been around for thousands of years since the days of the Greek philosophers. I'm here to tell you just how close we are getting.” Seager is a professor at MIT who has been referred to as “an astronomical Indiana Jones.” De...

Exploring space generates tons of data -- so much data that most of it is studied using algorithms, not human eyes. But algorithms are not very good at being creative. What happens when we let humans look at data? Sometimes, even amateurs find things that are surprising, remarkable and weird. Astronomer Tabetha Boyajian came to TED2016 with ...

"When our ancestors looked up at the night sky, they saw tools for navigation. They saw myths, and they saw the heavens," says June Cohen, the host of Session 4 of TED2015. "But technology has given us so many new clues. ... Space exploration has never been as fascinating and relevant as it is today." Here's a recap of the talks in this s...

Kate Marvel is a climate scientist -- but she hates weather. She doesn’t want to experience clouds, let alone study them, but they seem to follow her wherever she goes. Clouds are one of the great challenges for climate science: we don't know how they'll react as the planet heats up, and hidden in that uncertainty is the chance of a mirac...

In December 1968, the crew of the Apollo 8 space mission captured a historic photo: "Earthrise," an image of our home planet as seen from lunar orbit. Astronaut Jim Lovell was on that mission, and here's what he said: “Everything that you've ever known, your loved ones, your business, the problems of the Earth itself … is all behind your thu...

Since Johannes Kepler used Mars to explain the organization of the cosmos back in the 17th century, people have been royally obsessed with the Red Planet. And with the announcement that there’s running water on the planet, it seems we’re not getting over the fascination any time soon. Here, two confessed super-fans, Andy Weir, author of the book...

By Cynthia Betubiza, Ella Dawson and Kate Torgovnick May Session 1 of TEDYouth 2014 brought us to many worlds imagined. From a look at other planets that could be like Earth, to an introduction to a mysterious dinosaur bigger than T. rex, to a beet-tastic vision for the future of food, this morning's speakers brought wonder, passion and a...