Siddharth Kara fights bonded labor, forced labor, and human trafficking with what he says are the most effective weapons against them: rigorous scientific research and analysis. Read his interview below to learn why dispassionate study may be the antidote to this inherently emotional issue, and why Siddharth is optimistic about the direct...

Jason McCue takes the stage wearing a T-shirt reading "Free Yulia in Ukraine." It's a reference to the 2011 imprisonment of Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko and a hint of what's to come in his talk: a discussion of terrorism and the law. "We are at war with a new form of terrorism," he says. The traditional perception of terrorism, t...

Even though many of us likely imagine that slavery is a relic of the ancient past, the practice is alive and well. Since 2009, photographer Lisa Kristine has been documenting those caught up in the barbaric trade. Her images are shocking, powerful, in-your-face. Yet they are also dignified portraits of those with no choice. "No matter how dire, ...

It seems like a story made for the movies: the first general-purpose computer was actually programmed by a half-dozen female math whizzes. Yet for too long, their efforts have been largely unknown. Lawyer and digital-rights advocate Kathy Kleiman describes her quest to learn about them and bring them some overdue recognition. When I was a colle...

Featured image: Austrian physicist Lise Meitner, who first developed the theory explaining the process of nuclear fission. Theoretical physicist (and TED Fellow) Shohini Ghose has two great passions: physics, and advocating for gender equity in the sciences. “There are still relatively few women in physics – and the higher up the ladder in ac...

Why do so many people today experience parenthood like a kind of crisis? That's the question Jennifer Senior sets out to answer on the final day of TED2014. The parenting section of Barnes & Noble is packed with books for eco-friendly kids, gluten-free kids, science-minded kids. For Senior, those shelves don't seem helpful -- they see...

"Syrians are just looking for a quiet place where nobody hurts you," says one refugee, who survived a capsized escape craft on his dangerous journey. Clarice Holt, an illustrator in London, was moved by the simple, powerful truths she heard in Melissa Fleming’s TED Talk, "Let's help refugees thrive" -- and made these beautiful illustrations to s...

Worldwide, nearly one out of every hundred children is born with a congenital heart disease, which can vary from defective vessels and leaky valves, to holes in the heart. Dr. Franz Freudenthal (TED Talk: A new way to heal hearts without surgery) deals in the latter as a pediatric cardiologist who has developed a better, invasive surgery-free al...

Wayne McGregor bounds onto stage wearing a tracksuit. "I'm passionate about creativity," says the choreographer excitedly. "And it's something you can teach. You can find out something about your own cognitive habits and use that as a point of departure to misbehave beautifully." McGregor, who runs his own company, Random Dance, is here t...

Shanghai. New York. Tehran. Tokyo. Today, dozens of cities worldwide are each home to many millions of people. But those masses of humanity might not exist in such tight quarters if not for John Snow. (No, not that Jon Snow. This John Snow.) Snow was a 19th-century English doctor who's credited with proving that cholera, a sometimes deadly in...

We live most of our lives wired and wound up, rarely pausing to relax or unplug from the daily grind. Our speakers in this session discuss the consequences of our ever-hectic lives, and remind us of the qualities we sometimes forget to foster. They include an author discussing why modern parenthood is out of whack, a leadership expert encourag...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. A MacArthur for Rhiannon Giddens and Kate Orff. On October 11, the MacArthur Foundation released their list of 2017 Fellows. Among them are musician Rhiannon Giddens and landscape architect Kate Orff. Giddens, known for her rich reinterpretations of Ameri...

Nigerian astronomer Johnson Urama wants to promote the future of astronomy in Africa by looking deep into history. With his African Cultural Astronomy Project, he is gathering the lost ancient astronomical traditions and stories of indigenous Africa, hoping to show modern Africans that the science of the skies is relevant to their past, presen...

TED Prize winner Sarah Parcak has learned some key lessons about parenthood from her work as an archaeologist. At the same time, becoming a parent has given her new insights into what her work means. Parenthood is perhaps the most binary experience we go through -- there’s an "is not" and then there’s an "is." For a split moment during labor, y...

Time for a thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that global catastrophe struck and you needed to rebuild the world. How would you do it? This is a topic that astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell researched in depth for his recent book, The Knowledge. At TED2015, he shares some of the highlights. The are three important areas that have allowe...

The Encyclopaedia Britannica may have ceased printing earlier this year, ending a 244-year run. But the Encyclopedia of Life is just getting started. An ambitious initiative to catalogue all the known species on planet Earth, the Encyclopedia of Life was inaugurated by famed biologist E.O. Wilson when he won the TED Prize in 2007 and issued th...

We’ve all heard about the gender gap in tech. Women simply aren’t thriving in one of the most promising fields in the United States -- and not for lack of talent. And here’s the truth: It’s not solely a problem for women. It’s a problem for men, too. In just five years, there will be a million unfilled computer science–related jobs in the United...

Today's playlist features modern-day explorers and adventurers: tech-savvy treasure hunters who search not for gold and rubies, but for enlightenment and answers for the future. To do some exploring yourself, check out David Gallo's new Expedition Titanic: an ongoing deep-sea mission to create a 3-D map of the Titanic and preserve its wonders...

New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly shares a portfolio of her wise and funny cartoons about modern life -- and talks about how humor can empower women to change the rules. (Recorded at TEDWomen, December 2010, in Washington, DC. Duration: 6:43) Watch Liza Donnelly's talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find ot...

In the center of a black screen, a circle of white appears and slowly twirls through different colors, increasing in both brightness and size.  This mystical shape finally settles down to become the “o” in the word “Regeneration,” leaving us with an echo of thoughts and desires. This visually teasing opening to session 7 of TEDGlobal 2013...

Founder of Open Source Ecology Marcin Jakubowksi is creating open blueprints for the building blocks of civilization, starting with the Global Village Construction Set. This set of 50 low-cost machines will allow anyone to build all the infrastructure a community needs – including, at Factor E Farm, one of his own. The Global Village Constr...

Hacking has always been an important component of healthy democracies. Despite the bad connotation the word often has these days -- indicating rogue criminals breaking into computer systems, stealing identities, spying or worse -- hacking is really just any amateur innovation on an existing system. And that “system” doesn’t have to be a tech...

Whether or not you believe in it, the zodiac system is a useful way to understand Chinese culture, says writer ShaoLan Hsueh. Do you know your Chinese zodiac sign? According to tradition, it reveals more than simply your age -- it’s a window into your personality, career, love prospects, and future good (or bad) fortune. For ShaoLan Hsueh (TED ...

Don't yell at whistleblowers Whistleblower protection now covers six million private companies in the US. Margaret Heffernan explains why this is a big deal -- and why those who call time on shady activities should be treated with respect. (See also Heffernan's TED Talk, Dare to disagree.) And before you ask, yes, this book was published in ...

Sequencing an extinct genome is no longer a pipe dream, says evolutionary biologist and ancient DNA specialist Hendrik Poinar in today’s talk. It’s a modern reality, and we’re not too far from seeing a revived extinct species walking the Earth again -- maybe even a woolly mammoth. In this talk from TEDxDeExtinction, Poinar talks about how he and...

As a companion to today's TEDTalk from Alain de Botton, he sent us this FAQ, a brief introduction to the thinking behind Atheism 2.0: What do you think of the aggressive atheism we have seen in the past few years? I am an atheist, but a gentle one. I don't feel the need to mock anyone who believes. I really disagree with the hard tone of s...

Russian artist Uldus creates surreal photographic portraits of maidens, demons, heroines and gnomes Russian artist Uldus (TED Talk: Wry photos that turn stereotypes upside down) makes fantastical and intricate photographic portraits of people -- as they imagine themselves to be. In the process, she smashes stereotypes about modern Russian cultu...

Well, Met “I am delighted that digital technology can open the doors to this trove of images from our encyclopedic collection," said Thomas Campbell of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as he unleashed more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images for free (non-commercial, scholarly) use. (See Campbell’s TED Talk.) A tale of two inequalities...

Just two Tuesdays from today, Americans will head to the polls and vote for their President. But why is Tuesday the anointed day? In this hilarious TED-Ed talk, Jacob Soboroff shares that Tuesday was made the official voting day in 1845 because, back then, voters traveled to the county seat by horse and buggy. They needed a day to get there a...

A philosopher makes the case for a less than perfect union. Philosopher Yann Dall’Aglio (TED Talk: Love -- you're doing it wrong) believes that the quest to be the perfect lover is a distinctly modern delusion -- and he warns that it erodes the very relationships we seek to strengthen. “It leads to couples obsessed with performance who will bre...