Our newest Twitter feed, @TEDTranslations, tracks the latest TEDTalks available for our worldwide volunteer translator corps -- plus news of interest to language fans. TED's Open Translation Project has created more than 17,500 translations in 81 languages. Find talks in your language to work on, and browse talks that have already been translate...

Esther Perel begins today’s talk with an intriguing question: “Why does good sex so often fade even for couples who continue to love each other as much as ever?” It’s a question that’s highly appropriate to think about on Valentine’s Day. Perel, the author of the book Mating in Captivity, offers a compelling theory for why desire is so hard t...

It's because infants understand what other humans are drawn to, and they copy their behavior and learn from it. Even as adults, our actions continue to be driven -- often unconsciously -- by others. Shortly before my daughter Livia turned one, a friend came to visit. Enthusiastically, he told me about the doljanchi celebration he had attended. ...

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Here, some staff picks of smart, funny, bizarre and cool stuff on the interwebs this week, with a light Valentine's Day theme: Suleika Jaouad, who writes about being young with cancer, talks about the embarrassing but very real prospect of being a sexually active cancer patient. [The NYTimes Well Blog] For other unconventional responses to...

Some people go over-the-top for Valentine’s Day, showering their loved ones with candy and roses. Others bemoan Valentine’s Day as the ultimate Hallmark holiday. Wherever you stand on this spectrum -- as Cupid pulls back his bow this week -- it’s hard not to think about your own relationship or lack thereof. It’s a question deeply embedded in al...

Design icon David Kelley shares 5 everyday objects he loves. IDEO and d.school founder David Kelley exudes warmth, empathy -- and the deep conviction that all people can uncover more creative potential and meaningful joy in their own lives. (TED Talk: How to build your creative confidence). To begin to unlock more of your own creative potenti...

Anyone who has appreciated a meditative mental drift while knitting or mowing a lawn knows that there is something calming about engaging in a familiar, low-impact activity that requires minimal thought and bestows a clear sense of progress. That goes at least some of the way toward explaining the immense appeal of adult coloring books, which no...

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, who won the 2016 Oscar for Best Documentary Short, explains why she feels it's her duty to focus on topics others shy away from ... like honor killings. Film has a way of revealing the soul of each person you see onscreen, giving a human face to issues that might otherwise only be expressed as a headline or a statistic. I...

We think of modern marriage as an institution of love -- but when love ends, we cling to old-fashioned stories about divorce. Astro Teller and Danielle Teller suggest we take a more humane, empathetic look at the end of a marriage. When Gwyneth Paltrow announced her split from her husband using the term “conscious uncoupling,” the media and blo...

“Dear Peter Parker, There are a few things I’d like to thank you for. First and foremost thank you for making a mask to cover your face. Thank you for making a suit to cover every inch of your skin. Because of this, I too can be Spider-Man without having to be the Asian Spider-Man or the Indian Spider-Man.” We all have heroes to thank. But no...

Design icon John Maeda shares the everyday objects (well, non-objects) he can't live without. When most people think of design, they think of objects. Lights, chairs, cars … tangible things that we can ooh and aah over. That’s why it’s surprising to hear designer John Maeda (TED Talk: How art, technology and design inform creative leaders) de...

One mathematician’s spirited answer to bored, frustrated and reluctant math students. Eduardo Sáenz de Cabezón suspects that when people ask him what's the use of math, they’re really asking a more pointed question. “They're asking you, ‘Why did I have to study that bullshit I never used in my life again?’” he says. Sáenz de Cabezón (TED Talk: ...

For the past week, Amy Webb has been inspiring people to calculate their own algorithm for love. Her laugh-out-loud TED Talk, about reverse engineering her online dating profile and, essentially, data-ing her way into her perfect relationship has gotten a lot of attention, including on The Frisky and Pop Sugar. As Webb’s talk continues to ta...

Designer Ayse Birsel shares the everyday objects she loves. Since 2002, product designer Ayse Birsel has worked side-by-side with her husband Bibi Seck. Together they have refined a design process they call “Deconstruction:Reconstruction.” The process of deconstructing a product into the human needs it must fill  -- before leaping to design s...

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...

Science writer Sonia Shah explains why it's really not your fault you're attracted to that terrible person. While the precise architecture of romance remains decidedly mysterious, evolutionary biology suggests a few general rules. One is that people should be attracted to mates who will be good coparents and help them produce viable children. T...

They devour crops and cattle feed and nab other birds’ nesting sites. Still, starlings can actually show us how we can adjust our relationship to the natural world, says writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Starlings are among the most despised birds in all of North America, and with good reason.  They are a ubiquitous, nonnative, invasive species. There ...

Being lucky in love isn't like being struck by lightning -- it’s a lot less random (and painful). Psychologist Barry Schwartz and biological anthropologist Helen Fisher share their opinions on the subject. “A lucky relationship is created, not discovered,” Barry Schwartz said when Barnaby and I called him one morning. A longtime professor at...

By Clayton Cameron As a 5-year-old kid, I barely knew what the word rhythm meant. At least no one told me what banging on inanimate objects and creating my own little beats might be called. It was like rhythm chose me and I really had no say in the matter. My favorite elementary school pastime was tabletop drum battles with my friends. I’d pl...

The founder of Zimbabwe's first graphic arts college shares some teaching resources he loves. Ten years after writing the book on Africa's graphic design heritage, Saki Mafundikwa is now at work on a new text -- about the long, rich history of African art and innovation (TED Talk: Ingenuity and elegance in ancient African alphabets). Mafundik...

With her outrageously pink and glittery mixed-media installation pieces and paintings, artist, writer and activist Zena el Khalil takes aim at violence, injustice, and gender and religious stereotypes. Her weapons of choice: pop culture, humor and love. You express yourself through nearly every artistic medium – painting, performance, writing...

Elizabeth Gilbert has written a memoir so famous that strangers think she's the author of the book ... based on the movie. It sounds like a problem any writer would love to have, but to Gilbert, writing post-Eat Pray Love, seemed an impossible task. Says Gilbert in the final Wednesday session at TED2014, "How in the world would I ever write ...

We've been asking people in the crowd to share a TED moment, and this lovely video is the result ... Editing: Mindy Ellliott

If a meet-cute is going to happen at TED2015, it will likely happen downstairs on the first level at the Harmonograph Swingset. This modern-day, hand-crafted timber swing, a take on a 19th-century invention, records harmonic frequencies as visual art. The swingset is made of two seats, set at right angles and connected to two poles on uni...

I was on the phone with my mom this weekend, and she asked about an email she sent me last week, and I had to admit to her, I haven't checked my personal email account all week because I forgot the password to it. Again. Don't judge, but I'm about to admit that it's a free Yahoo! Mail account. To regain some cred, I set this account up the fi...

Community member Michael Karassowitsch wrote this in response to Sebastian Junger's TED Talk, Why veterans miss war: "The issue of this talk is, for me, strangely, of soldiers as much as of the malaise of our cultures. Of course the pain and damage to the one in battle is the deep concern. But the warrior goes into the war that the hatred and...

More than 40 years after the Stonewall Riots, even as Caitlyn Jenner dominates pop culture, coming out as gay or transgender remains deeply difficult. In some cases, it’s downright dangerous; in others, it's enough to tear families apart. But as you'll discover in these six StoryCorps interviews, love — of each other, and of oneself — can triump...

"I sell dreams, and I peddle love to millions of people," says Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood's biggest star and the host of the upcoming TED Talks India: Nayi Soch. In a charming, funny, insightful and self-aware talk, Khan traces the movements of his life -- and leaves us with hard-earned wisdom. "I've been made to understand there are lots ...

If you could sit down and interview your mom, what would you ask her? Would you ask about your childhood? Her childhood? Would you re-tell old funny stories? Try to dig up some of her secrets? As an adult, the idea of interviewing your mom can seem pretty scary. Kids, on the other hand, are fearless interviewers, especially when Mom is the in...