“You ain’t gangsta unless you have a garden,” says Ron Finley. In this special video for CNN, Finley shares more about the idea he posited at TED2013 for improving health in his neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles -- planting edible gardens wherever a strip of land is available. “What we do is literally put vegetable gardens in home...

In today's TED Talk, guerilla gardner Ron Finley tells the story of how he was issued a citation, and then a warrant for his arrest, all for planting delicious vegetables in the 150 x 10 foot patch of earth in front of his house in South Central, Los Angeles. It's a rousing talk -- one that will make you want to stand up and cheer ... and ma...

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...

Eco-entrepreneur Alasdair Harris is passionate about conserving marine biodiversity, and he's doing it in unusual ways. While most marine conservationists focus on what's in the water, Harris' company Blue Ventures works with people in poverty-stricken coastal communities to engage them in rebuilding tropical fisheries and in the process of ...

Barreling through the high-visibility, high-tech exhibits on the TED2019 circuit, you’d be forgiven for mistaking The Data Garden for just another chillout zone, with its oasis of potted houseplants and people lying draped, spaced out, across bean bags. Yet an arresting sound beckons from this unassuming island – a soothing patter of gently ...

Socio-environmental artist Colleen Flanigan creates large, undulating metal forms and installs them in damaged coral ecosystems to help regenerate marine life -- living sea sculptures that inspire awe and protection for our underwater world. What is the coral crisis about? We are at a critical stage in coral endangerment. Some predict that...

Ron Finley describes himself as a "renegade gardener," and he's here to tell us all about his home, in South Central, or South Los Angeles, as city planners attempted to rebrand the area. Whatever you call it, the truth is that the area comprises liquor stores, fast food and vacant lots, and it epitomizes the stark reality that 26.5 million ...

Ron Finley is motivating people across the country to pick up a shovel and “get gangsta” by planting fruits, vegetables and herbs in their neighborhood. Since appearing on the TED2013 stage to talk about why he plants edible gardens in the nooks and crannies of South Central Los Angeles, Finley has been profiled in The New York Times and appe...

For many, the summer means a different kind of work -- gardening. Whether you have twenty acres of lush meadow, a rooftop oasis in the city or a few potted plants on a balcony, when it gets hot outside it’s time to get planting. In the TED-Ed lesson above, Mary Koga explains the science behind a seed’s germination and shares how we can giv...

Planting a vegetable garden beside a road is no longer a fineable action in Los Angeles. In a major victory for TED speaker Ron Finley, otherwise known as the renegade gardener of South Central, the Los Angeles City Council voted 15-0 on Tuesday to allow the planting of vegetable gardens in unused strips of city land by roads. The council...

The "app generation" struggles with creative writing — as a new study shows, they’re turning into realists. Here’s a mini summer reading list that might inspire some wild thinking. Creative writing is part of being a kid. Writing and reading goofy stories of lost kingdoms and Mars colonies helps the imagination grow strong. But a recent study u...

"I am in love with cities,” says British designer and architect Thomas Heatherwick (TED Talk: Building the seed cathedral). “It’s just incredible that we all live together, and together we add up to something incredibly rich.” Heatherwick has already come up with some pretty bold urban designs -- including a garden-topped bridge across the R...

Astrobiologist and geologist Louisa Preston looks for analogues to possible life on Mars in the most extreme environments on Earth. Now she's also considering how humans might someday make a home on the red planet, and is raising funds on Kickstarter in support of AstroGardening – an educational exhibit designed to explore how we might somed...

It might seem strange to show a gallery of images of places the narrator can't actually see. But as architect Chris Downey explains, he picked these locations in San Francisco because they're meaningful to him, not because they're photogenic (though as it happens, they're that too). "As with any large, great city, its success is really tied to h...

How can we give in better and smarter ways? This week’s new episode of TED Radio Hour explores the effects of giving – of your money, your time and your love.  As our consciousness of philanthropy is shifting towards crowdsourcing and justice-centered discourse, people begin to self-organize around the causes they are passionate about. This epis...

The ancient al-Qarawiyyin Library in Fez isn’t just the oldest library in Africa. Founded in 859, it’s the oldest working library in the world, holding ancient manuscripts that date as far back as 12 centuries. But modern life had taken a toll on the library, with its buildings falling into disrepair. That’s why in 2012, the Moroccan Ministry of...

In this talk from TEDxJerusalem, TED Fellow Adital Ela shares her journey in sustainability. While traveling in India, she came across a chai vendor who sold his tea in small, clay cups that patrons could use and then simply toss on the ground when they were done. These cups didn’t create any waste, because it was earth returning to earth. Th...

  Sometimes technology isn’t the answer to every problem. Even at the TED conference. At TED2016, TED partnered with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to run a blue-sky workshop session on creating a new healthy school from scratch, imagining new solutions to problems that plague educators, students, schools, and the communities that ...

As part of this TED profile, we asked Jason Sweeney to make audio recordings at his favorite places in his home city of Adelaide, Australia. Here, hear the sounds of the city -- and enjoy the accompanying photographs, shot by Kristin Alford, with commentary by Sweeney. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/112426817" params="" w...

Stories of NSA spying have been rippling through the press in the past week or so, and Carnegie Mellon professor Alessandro Acquisti is here to tell us just how blurry the boundary between private and public has become in recent years. He begins by reminding us of the story of Adam and Eve, banished from the Garden of Eden after eating that ...

It's time to nominate someone for the 2015 TED Prize, a $1 million award to a visionary with a great big idea for creating change in the world. Through Monday, March 31, you can nominate a mentor, a hero, a co-worker, even yourself. TED is looking for someone who has not only a great wish, but a track record that suggests they could accompli...

Christchurch-based Danny Squires is director of Space Craft Systems and co-founder of WikiHouse/NZ, a global project aiming to make it possible for anyone to design, download and "print" houses. Squires was going about his daily business in Christchurch on February 22, 2011, when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake ripped through the city, causing horrif...

Community member Rachael Williams left this thoughtful comment on Andrew Solomon's recent TED Talk, How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are: "Forgive my honesty here but a lot of the time when watching motivational speeches I think, 'Yeah, that's all good and fine, but this is what you do for a living.' The 'hell yeah-ness' (I s...

"I read poetry all the time, I write about poetry frequently, and I take poems apart to see how they work," says Stephen Burt as he takes the TEDGlobal stage. "I'm a word person. I understand the world best and most fully through words, rather than pictures or numbers. When I have a new experience, I'm frustrated until I can try to put that ...

Biologist and TED Fellow Juliana Machado Ferreira grew up just outside of São Paulo, and went to both university and graduate school in the megalopolis. [Read a profile of her life and work.] She prefers a more natural environment, but after a brief stint in the Amazon, she is back in the city, looking for an apartment. Despite the stress and th...

It’s alive. The new Apple iPad ad, titled “Alive,” debuted last night and features a gorgeous glimpse of the recently updated TED mobile app. The spot also highlights TED speaker Mathieu Lehanneur, a designer who looks to science and nature for inspiration for problem-solving objects. Lehanneur is the man behind the living air purifier And...

A crumbling former asylum, a massive brick power station, and an alternative community built by hand by a river. In the hours before TEDBerlin Salon kicked off, three TED Fellows led conference attendees on a treasure hunt through the sprawling streets of sunny Berlin to these locations. Guided by the mobility app Moovel -- which recommends the ...

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. New month. New day. New leaf. So you’ve woken up and decided you’re finally going to take on the big, big problem that’s been weighing on you -- perhaps it’s shorin...

Here's a crash course in 3 proven ways -- scenario planning, premortems and red-teaming -- to help you spot hidden opportunities and pitfalls (and maybe even predict the future). Writer Steven Johnson explains. In the mid-1970s, environmental activist Paul Hawken was working with a nonprofit that taught intensive gardening techniques to people ...

Counting down the days to TED2014? So are we! Most of the TED staff is on location in Vancouver and we are very excited for attendees to arrive on Monday. Some might be wondering: what should you do if you get to spend a little extra time in the city? Well, we’ve got you covered. Below, an insider’s guide to the great city of Vancouver, incl...