The word ‘translate’ means to bring words from one language to another. So you might think that the Open Translation Project -- TED’s globe-spanning initiative to bring the ideas from talks beyond the English-speaking world -- would only need volunteers who speak multiple languages. But being bilingual is not a necessity. The OTP needs single-...

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...

A funny thing happens at the end of every TED -- after the show wraps, first one brave person, and then duos and groups, rush the stage to get their picture taken with the red TED letters. So at TED2015, our tech team thought, why not bring the letters out to the conference floor and let everyone play? In a nights-and-weekends project, our e...

As computers have gotten more complex, even tech literate users have become detached from the basics of how they function. This is what Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan noticed with their computer science students in Israel. As Schocken explains in this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, the pair decided to have their students build a working computer, fro...

Corrupt officials and criminal operators are brilliant at hiding their money and actions from public view. But there’s something we can do about it, says the team at Global Witness. It starts with closing loopholes. When we think of bribes and fortunes siphoned from public funds, we tend to picture henchmen in trench coats trading suitcases ful...

Saskia Sassen thinks deeply about the world's cities, and she's on the TED stage to share some of her provocative theories about how we should think about urbanizing technology, that pervasive force that has impacted so much of the way in which we live and work. She starts by pointing out an amazing fact: there are firms that will lease y...

If we want our children to grow up to be thoughtful and engaged citizens, we should help them be part of social change now. I grew up petrified of acid rain. The name itself was terrifying, and it haunted my waking hours. Did it eat people’s faces? Would wild animals survive it? My parents were not activists, but they were good citizens, recycl...

Cocktail party trivia: Brainstorming was invented in the 1930s as a practical idea-generation technique for regular use by “creatives” within the ad agency BBDO. That all changed in 1942, when Alex Osborn — the “O” in BBDO — released a book called How to Think Up and excited the imaginations of his fellow Mad Men. Since 1942, the idea-generat...

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions -- and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite. (Recorded at TEDWomen, December 2010 in Washington, DC. Duration: 14:58) Watch Sheryl Sandberg's talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, ...

Cross-posted from the TED Fellows blog: The TED2012 Fellows and three classes of Senior Fellows have arrived in Long Beach from every corner of the planet! Happy reunions and excited introductions -- but what's really on their minds as their week begins? Watch this video to hear just a few of the Fellows on anticipation, nerves, too much cof...

US university presidents and chancellors, enough already. It’s time to end the consensual hallucination between university leadership, parents and students that in-person classes will be able to resume in the fall. The bold statements from presidents and provosts are symptomatic of the viruses that also plague American leadership and business...

The illustrious questioner Charlie Rose and Google cofounder and CEO Larry Page take their seats on the TED stage for a Q&A during Session 6: Wired. They talk about Page's latest projects, Snowden's appearance and the underlying ethos that powers Page's work. Below is an edited version of their conversation. Charlie Rose: Where is Goo...

Most of us have no problem admitting that we have more than we need. The difficulty lies in the next steps: How to get rid of it? What room to tackle first? Should we toss, regift, donate, recycle, repurpose, sell? It’s enough to drive a person to lie down and wait until the impulse to tidy passes. This gentle advice from TED speakers will tell...

For Mac Stone (TED Talk: Stunning photos of the endangered Everglades), there's no place like a swamp. A native Floridian, he's spent countless hours squelching around in mud or diving into lakes in the Everglades, the state's 1.5 million acre national park, all in the name of getting the shot. Here, he shares some of his favorite photographs fr...

An inspiring, honest talk: In 2006, Tarana Burke was consumed by a desire to do something about the sexual violence she saw in her community. She took out a piece of paper, wrote "Me Too" across the top and laid out an action plan for a movement centered on the power of empathy between survivors. More than a decade later, she reflects on what...

When we needlessly apologize, we end up making ourselves small and diminish what we’re trying to express, says sociologist Maja Jovanovic. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community. To see all the posts, go here. Think about all the times ...

During her freshman year of college, Eleanor Longden began hearing voices: a narrator describing her actions as she went about her day. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Longden began what she describes as a “psychic civil war,” fighting to stop the voices as they became antagonistic. What helped her was something unexpected: making peace with t...

It's time for TED Fellows Talks, the Rio edition! Twenty TED Fellows and Senior Fellows opened the conference in the stunning Golden Room of the Copacabana Palace Hotel. In Session 1, learn more about a grassroots marine conservation movement in Madagascar, a vending machine that dispenses food staples in Chile and a new database of African ...

Did you know that meerkats stay close to home, even as adults, so they can inherit territory when Mom dies? Or that North American red squirrel mothers gift real estate to their kids (complete with stockpiles of food)? Evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and writer Kathryn Bowers make the case for why parents -- animals and humans ...

Nilofer Merchant (TED Talk: Got a meeting? Take a walk) urges you to trade sit-down one-on-one meetings for walking meetings. But as the northern hemisphere enters the darker months, sedentary workers face a challenge: what to do when it’s cold out? Below, five ways to stay active during a winter workday. 1. Stand up. Simply standing instead o...

We entrust teachers with the world’s most important job: educating our kids, says researcher and dean Gregg Garn. So why aren’t we paying and treating them in a way that shows they’re valued? In 1892, a man named David Ross Boyd boarded a train and traveled to Oklahoma for the first time. He was showing up for work -- he’d taken the job, sight ...

Welcome to"Dear Guy," TED's advice column from psychologist Guy Winch. Twice a month, he'll answer your questions about your relationships, your job (or jobs), your family (or families), your passions, fears and more. Please send your questions to dearguy@ted.com; to read his previous columns, go here. Dear Guy, I am a married woman in her e...

Bright, vivid color really does give us more energy -- and that’s just one of the things designer Ingrid Fetell Lee discovered in her 10-year search for the sources of joy. Few people would name their favorite color as gray or beige, yet our closets and our homes are often filled with these bland, neutral tones. When I studied color and its eff...

Drew Curtis is not a politician. The curator of Fark.com, the legendary online community of news jokes and funny Photoshops, he proudly proclaims this fact on homepage of his latest website. This declaration is only surprising because, just a few inches above, the intention of the website is revealed: “Drew Curtis for Governor.” See, poli...