Edward Burtynsky finds the eerie beauty in the man-made landscapes that dot our Earth's surface. As a photographer who focuses on the relationship between humans and nature, he travels to the hidden corners of the Earth to document the way people are ravaging our planet. Below, 13 of his haunting images of altered nature. All images shown co...

This image of a mysterious person emerging from the ocean looks like a shot from a James Bond movie. But as journalist Andrew Blum explains in today’s fascinating talk from TEDGlobal 2012, the photo actually reveals how the World Wide Web can stretch across continents—through a series of cables running for thousands of miles under oceans. ...

Twice, Robin Chase has stood on the TED stage and offered powerful visions for a green, and shared, transportation future. At TED2007, the Zipcar founder suggested that car sharing could be the solution to global warming, while also helping drivers without cars. She also posited an even bigger idea: a mesh network of cars that transport cell...

In this video, an ever-growing ream of paper tells the story of change on our planet. Maria Nogueira, the creator of this introduction to session 9 of TEDGlobal 2013, said that “each layer can be seen as one thought -- a single unit or seed in a chain of events that leads to unimaginable results.” Each new sheet of paper brings a new graphic...

TED Live doesn’t require finding a good seat in the auditorium. With a TED Live membership, you can watch TED2013 and TEDGlobal 2013 from the comfort of your home, share it with your classmates or screen it with your co-workers in the office. In other words, there is no one way to watch. You can grab some friends and gather around a lap...

Edward Burtynsky finds the eerie beauty in the man-made landscapes that dot our Earth's surface. As a photographer who focuses on the relationship between humans and nature, he travels to the hidden corners of the Earth to document the way people are ravaging our planet. Below, 13 of his haunting images of altered nature. All images shown courte...

Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the internet: A great profile on TED Fellow Sanga Moses, who quit his job as an accountant in Uganda and set out to develop an eco-friendly cooking fuel. Why? So that girls in his country -- for example, his young sister -- wouldn’t have to spend all their time collecting wood and could attend sc...

“What makes you think that you have 80 or 90 years to live?” Laura Rozo posed this serious and almost morbid question to the audience at TEDxUNC in February 2013. She walked onto the stage confidently and calmly, soaking in the applause as the final, surprise speaker of the day. She wore a red turtleneck with a patterned scarf, and her head w...

In today’s thought-provoking talk, author Pico Iyer looks at the complex nature of the simple question: "Where are you from?" Because while his family comes from India, he grew up in the United Kingdom. As soon as he left school, however, he moved to the United States -- where he was required to carry a card declaring him a “permanent alien”...

Over and over, you keep asking us: What's the best way to give a TED Talk? It’s not just that you’re interested in sharing your ideas at a TED or local TEDx event. Short presentations have become a bread-and-butter staple at schools and offices around the world, and you want more guidance on how to give them well. And so, our curator Chri...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Known as the "startup whisperer", Reid Hoffman has invested in storied Internet companies including Flickr, Facebook and Zynga, companies that have helped deliver us from the "information" age to the "network" age. Interested in the social side of the Internet revolution, he is also the co-founder of LinkedIn,...

The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. Wellesley has a new president. Dr. Paula Johnson, a longtime champion of women’s health and health policy, is Wellesley College’s 14th president. The celebrations surrounding her inauguration focused on the theme of Intersections; in her inaugurati...

"What has the War on Drugs done in the world?" asks Ethan Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance. He namechecks just a few of its results: cartel violence in Central America, a ballooning global black market, packed prisons throughout the United States. "It's like it's my country's history with alcohol prohibition and Al Capone t...

Inspired by JD Schramm’s powerful TEDTalk on surviving a suicide attempt, this list of resources has been updated to help you widen your understanding of mental health, depression, suicide and suicide prevention. Whether you’re an attempt survivor, a concerned family member or friend, or struggling with suicidal thoughts yourself, this list offe...

Yes, it has free love, vegan food, Wi-Fi and a low carbon footprint. But it also has unchallenged assumptions, ramshackle housing and a questionable belief system, finds social media analyst Jamie Bartlett. As the sun rises over the Portuguese countryside, I find myself standing in a circle on top of a hill with a group of strangers, grasping h...

Artist Janet Echelman constructs massive fiber art pieces to encourage people to stop, look up and wonder. Standing beneath one of Janet Echelman’s giant, airy, uplifting pieces, you might just think a group of groovy extraterrestrial spiders have come to pay us a visit. The pieces, woven from strong, light fibers and tinted in rainbow color...

The stories we tell define us. In the Thursday-night session of TED2017, a singer, an artist, a poet, an author, two podcasters and Bollywood's biggest star showed us what our stories mean today -- and gave a preview of what they'll look like in the future. Below, recaps of the talks from Session 10, in chronological order. A little bi...

Designers solve problems and bring beauty to the world. At TEDNYC Design Lab, a night of talks at TED HQ in New York City hosted by design curator Chee Pearlman with content producer Cloe Shasha, six speakers pulled back the curtain to reveal the hard work and creative process behind great design. Speakers covered a range of topics, includin...

When we talk about corruption, certain types of individuals come to mind, says Charmian Gooch, co-founder of watchdog NGO Global Witness. She gives some familiar examples of the type. There's the (former) Soviet megalomaniac -- such as Saparmurat Niyazov, the all-powerful leader of Turkmenistan, whose indulgences included erecting a 40-foot-...

How do you design a sacred space that invites people in regardless of who they are and what they believe (or don’t)? Architect Siamak Hariri takes us into the planning and poetry behind building the luminous Bahá'i Temple in South America. The architectural specifications for a new Bahá'i Temple of South America were minimal: to design a domed,...

Polar explorer Ben Saunders took the stage at the TEDSalon in London on November 7 to ask the question: "If everything is being done somewhere by someone and we can participate virtually, then why bother leaving the house?" A journalist had posed this question to him weeks earlier. He addressed it onstage through both his own experience of skiin...

Charmian Gooch, co-founder of anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, tracks money to expose deep-rooted global corruption. In yesterday's talk, Gooch demonstrates that dirty money goes all the way to the top, and more sinister is that these cases of corruption are well-known to leaders and corporate elites. Nobody -- banks, big oil, government ...

We see the familiar symbol everywhere -- in text messages, signs, cakes, clothing, and more. But we also know the real heart looks nothing like it. Historian Marilyn Yalom tells us how the anatomical organ became the symbol that we all know today. In 2011, I went to the British Museum in London to see a collection of 15th-century artifacts, whi...

After examining dozens of Ice Age cave sites across Europe, paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger discovered our ancestors repeatedly used 32 signs. Why? She walks us through her eye-opening discoveries -- and their implications. The title for the world’s oldest dated cave art is currently held by an unassuming red disk, at least 41,000 ye...

Formula E racing, the darknet, a potential fountain of youth, and beheadings. At TEDGlobal>London — a two-session event curated and hosted by Bruno Giussani on June 16, 2015, at the Royal Institution of Great Britain -- the talks ranged from a wildly hopeful future to stern warnings about the present. Enjoy these recaps of the talks in th...

Enthusiastic recommendations for uplifting reads, as suggested by TED speakers and TED-Ed educators. If you’re searching for some calm The Peace of Wild Things: And Other Poems by Wendell Berry This little book of poetry is my current morning dose of calm, and I use it like a meditation if I’m feeling stressed about the day ahead. The most f...