“The White City.” “The City of the Monkey God.” “The Place of Cacao.” Rumors of a majestic city nestled in the remote rainforest of Honduras — referred to by all of these names — have circulated for centuries, wedging their way into Honduran national identity. They seemed to be the stuff of legend. Until a team of explorers emerged from Hond...

We can do so with careful planning, recovering the ideals of compassion, peace and equity, and standing together in the face of hate, says Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Life, down here on earth, is holy. It is also exceptionally fragile. It is hevel, a Hebrew word meaning a mere breath. Almost in his last words, Moses tells his people, “I call hea...

Philosopher and writer Jim Holt skips right past the dumb quibbling questions and right to the heart of the great existential mystery: Why something, instead of nothing? Why does the universe exist? And why are we in it? The super-ultimate why question. The greatest thinkers have obsessed over the question of existence: Wittgenstein said ...

How a letter written in 1855 gave Kyra Gaunt a whole new perspective on slavery. White Americans aren’t the only ones who don’t like to remember slavery and its history. According to the Office of Minority Health, in 2012 there were 43.1 million people who identify as African-American. I could lay money that, next year, fewer than 1 percent ...

History professor Yuval Noah Harari -- author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind -- explains why humans have dominated Earth. The reason is not what you might expect. 70,000 years ago humans were insignificant animals. The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were unimportant. Their impact on the world was very...

Painter Alexa Meade opens up about creativity, hair and what she learned from working on Ariana Grande’s “God Is a Woman.” Fifteen seconds into the video for Ariana Grande’s “God Is a Woman”, viewers are presented with a sight that stands out, even in the anything-goes world of music video. Grande sings and floats on her side while immersed in ...

When we manage a flash of mercy for someone we don’t like -- including ourselves -- we experience a great spiritual moment, says writer Anne Lamott. There are times in our lives -- scary, unsettling times -- when we know that we need help or answers but we’re not sure what kind, or even what the problem or question is. We look and look, tearing...

TED is known for its inspiring talks. And all of the previous sessions before this have been inspiring, you have no idea. Humans, however, shall not live by endorphins alone. Sometimes, we need a stern lecture. Or a biting sermon. Sometimes, we need to reflect on a somber piece of art or music. Sometimes, we need to be told the truth. Someti...

Photo: Michael Brands If watching a TEDTalk inspires insights (see this post for more) -- imagine giving one. From speakers' own blogs: Here's what Brené Brown learned >> The first lesson I learned is about vulnerability (no suprise). The folks in the picture are raising their hands in response to two questions that I asked du...

Casey Gerald’s story begins in an East Texas church on the night of December 31, 1999, as he joined his congregation to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world. Gerald had turned 12 that year, and he went to church as often as he could, making sure that the Lord hadn’t pulled a fast one and come back early. The...

Most of us have been in its grip before -- the alarm goes off, our mind starts whirring away, and before we know it, we've done a freefall into worry. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett has been there, too, and she tells us how we can stop the spiral. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piec...

Sean Caroll gives an unusual disclaimer for his new book, The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads to the Edge of a New World, out yesterday: ”You should have no trouble reading and understanding it, no matter what your physics background may be.” Carroll has long been a TED favorite because of his knack...

“This is Tanis from Indiana Jones, from Raiders of the Lost Ark?” asks Stephen Colbert, holding up a pair of photos, one that shows a barren patch of desert, and another that shows an intricate system of buildings and streets buried underneath it. “This is the city of Tanis that they find with the medallion burned into the guy’s hand, the thi...

In her luminous TEDxRainier talk, Lesley Hazleton, a writer and “accidental theologist,” described herself as “a tourist” in the Koran, and shared her discovery of the musicality, ambiguity, and depth of a text known by name to billions, but read intimately by far fewer. We met Lesley by phone and asked her to share more of her impressions o...

We've spent the past few days together thinking on big ideas, hard problems and new visions for what the world might be. What will tie it all together? This session on rebuilding -- on facing tough questions and finding the inner (and exterior) resources we need to move forward. Embrace your emotional truth. How we deal with our inner wor...

The core mystical moment of Islam took place in the year 610, or “half the world and almost half of history away,” as Lesley Hazleton, biographer of Muhammad, puts it. On a hot desert night, this previously ordinary man received the first revelation of the Koran on a mountain outside Mecca. “What struck me even more than what happened was...

Yesterday, two bomb blasts ripped through a snooker hall in the town of Quetta in Pakistan, killing 81 people.  We were very saddened to hear that TEDx speaker Irfan Ali, who spoke briefly at TEDxRawalLake just weeks ago, was among those killed. The organizers of the event shared their sadness with us, through Facebook. “Irfan Ali was ...

In Marco Tempest’s TED Talk, he introduces EDI the robot. EDI, one of Rodney Brooks’ Baxter robots, dances, makes jokes, does impressions of Woody Allen and even performs magic tricks. Though he was designed to aid in factory production, EDI also has a screen programmed with facial expressions, ostensibly to tell others with confused, surprised ...

Author Anne Lamott recently turned 61. So she’s compiled the following list of "every single true thing I know." A brief recap: All truth is a paradox. “Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift, and it is impossible here,” she says. Life is “filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all...

3,000 Facebook messages in three days, that ended in marriage 3 months later. From the start, Tiq and Kim Katrin Milan’s relationship was a whirlwind romance -- a unique union rooted in a deep love, respect and mutual admiration that came across warmly as they stood hand in hand on the TEDWomen stage. Tiq is a transman; Kim a queer, cis ...

Risk economist Didier Sornette makes bold claims on Wednesday morning at TEDGlobal 2013, during the session "Money Talks." According to Sornette, we have been operating under a few detrimental illusions that have landed us in our current economic state: One, we have been living in an age of never-ending growth and prosperity. Well, $30 trill...

Allan Savory isn’t afraid to own up to the “greatest blunder” of his life. In his incredible talk from TED2013, Savory shares his life’s work managing grasslands in Africa, weaving a gripping tale out of what seems like an unlikely topic.  In the 1950s, Savory helped create large national parks in Africa. But as people left this land to make way...

In 2002, Ingrid Betancourt was campaigning to become president of Colombia when she was kidnapped by guerillas. She was held in the jungle for six years. With fear her constant companion, she learned how to use it and grow. The first time I felt fear I was 41 years old. People have always said I was brave. When I was little, I'd climb the highe...

The world may want you to speak English to seem "global" or "sophisticated." Here's why you should resist. Preserve your mother tongue! Suzanne Talhouk speaks Arabic, her native tongue, and she expects her fellow Arabic speakers to respond in kind. But she lives in Lebanon, where daily conversation drifts between Arabic, English and French -- a...

We each live in the shadow of a personal apocalypse: the knowledge that -- someday, somehow -- we will die. It's a terrifying thought, and so we look for a way out. In my talk from TEDxBratislava (and in my book Immortality), I walk through four stories that people have told throughout cultures and time, as a way to manage this very real fea...

The TED community has been very busy in the start of this new year. Below, a few TEDsters with news to share. Landing a rocket on a boat: simple enough. Putting a man on the moon and a rover on Mars are exceptional feats, but that’s in the past. Elon Musk is now attempting a goal that has not even a 50 percent chance of success. On Saturday...

When Joshua Prager was young, he dreamt he would grow up to play baseball. Or be a doctor. He never imagined that at the age of 19 he would find himself paralyzed in the hospital, and that he'd have to reteach his body to move, to relearn to breathe and speak. In his new book Half-life, Prager returns to Jerusalem, where a truck hit the bus ...

Horses, parrots and mosquitos: oh my! TED2013 will commence in just nine days, and the TED Blog is gearing up for our live, minute-by-minute, coverage. One thing we can’t wait to see: which speaker will bring an animal onstage with them? (Our money is on ornithologist Kees Moeliker.) Sometimes, speakers arrive with a live animal, other times ...

When art historian and scholar of Arabic script Bahia Shehab was asked to create a piece commemorating the centenary of the first exhibition on Islamic art in Europe, little did she know that the Egyptian revolution would ultimately transform her into a street artist and activist with a powerful and subtle voice of protest. How did your work ...

When TED Radio Hour premieres on Friday, March 1st, a new -- but familiar -- voice will be manning the mic. Guy Raz, the former host of Weekend All Things Considered and the creator of Three-Minute Fiction, is the new host of the show, which is returning for its second season after being named Best New Audio Podcast of 2012 by iTunes the first t...