In a time of mourning and anger over the ongoing violence inflicted on Black communities by police in the US and the lack of accountability from national leadership, what is the path forward? Sharing urgent insights into this historic moment, Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson, Dr. Bernice King and Anthony D. Romero discuss dismantling the ...

Western countries throw out nearly half of their food, not because it’s inedible -- but because it doesn’t look appealing. Tristram Stuart delves into the shocking data of wasted food, calling for a more responsible use of global resources.

Photographer and filmmaker Giles Duley talks about empathy in action. When Giles Duley arrived in Lebanon to photograph Syrian refugees who’d fled there, he saw something that he wasn’t expecting. He saw himself. Inside the makeshift city of cardboard and fabric, Duley met many individuals with whom he closely identified. As a triple amputee...

Social violence in Guatemala, Mexican and Central American migrant communities in the United States, the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, children with cerebral malaria in Uganda -- for the past decade, photographer Jon Lowenstein has been documenting the often violent and traumatic daily lives of individuals and communities living at the ...

In her talk, Ali Carr-Chellman pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves, and lays out her bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their culture into the classroom, with new rules that let boys be boys, and video games that teach as well as entertain.

In 2009, epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett published the book The Spirit Level, making a bold case that economic inequality within a society, the size of the gap between rich and poor, has corrosive effects from the bottom of society right up to the top. Wilkinson spoke about their book and research this summer at TEDGlobal ...

Musician and researcher Charles Limb wondered how the brain works during musical improvisation -- so he put jazz musicians and rappers in an fMRI to find out. What he and his team found has deep implications for our understanding of creativity of all kinds.

. Advertising impressario Rory Sutherland has given TEDTalks on the general life lessons to take from advertising, and the incredible importance of seemingly small details for producing big results. Now, he's released "Rory Sutherland: The Wiki Man," a collection of essays and interviews on the art, science, and life of advertising. TED's...

New York restaurants and grocers scramble to get their hands on fresh, local produce. So what could be better than veggies grown right in the city? On a rooftop in Brooklyn, Viraj Puri runs Gotham Greens, a hydroponic greenhouse that cultivates delicious, fresh produce -- using a fraction of the water and space needed for conventional agricult...

Environmental engineer Francis de los Reyes works with cutting-edge microbiological techniques to create solutions in the fields of environmental biotechnology and engineering. But his big passion, both professionally and personally, is finding ways to improve the plight of the world’s 2.5 billion people living without adequate sanitation. In ...

Whether you're staying put or going away, summer can be a great time to relax and try new things. So we asked TED speakers to recommend podcasts, books, TV shows, movies and more that have nourished their minds, spirits and bodies (yes, you'll find a link to a recipe for olive-cheese loaf below) in recent times. You can use the links here to ju...

"Thousands have lived without love; none without water," said Sylvia Earle as she stood on the TED stage five years ago, accepting the 2009 TED Prize. Wearing a blue blazer and an aura of resolve, Earle quoted this verse from poet W.H. Auden as she laid out a bold wish for the world: that we all wise up to the gravity of human impact on our ...

Here's a list of specific steps you can take, as recommended by members of the TED community. Educate Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's New York Times bestseller How to Be an Antiracist is one of the most important books I've ever read. (Watch Dr. Kendi speak on "how to build an antiracist world" here.) He provides an empowering lens and language to unders...

Three years ago, Jennifer Brea, then a PhD student in political science, was struck down by what appeared to be a severe flu. It turned out to be the beginning of a long illness -- including neurological dysfunction and extreme exhaustion -- that she has yet to recover from. Discovering that the medical community did not recognize her illnes...

Jessica Mayberry is the founder of Video Volunteers, which trains rural Indians to use filmmaking to drive social change in their communities. The films have fostered some remarkable improvements in the villages, but according to Jessica, some of the most impressive changes are in the filmmakers themselves. Interactive Fellows Friday Feature!...

If you think your contraception is making you anxious or depressed, you’re not imagining things. Evolutionary psychologist Sarah E. Hill explains what happens to your brain on birth control. Most women know at least one or two other women who have had a bad reaction to the pill. In fact, the question that many of us have about the pill: “Why do...

We live in contentious times. Yet behind the dismaying headlines and social-media-fueled quarrels, people around the world -- millions of them -- are working unrelentingly to solve problems big and small, dreaming up new ways to expand the possible and build a better world. At "We the Future," a day of talks at the TED World Theater prese...

Simplicity: We know it when we see it -- but what is it, exactly? In this funny, philosophical talk, George Whitesides chisels out an answer.

How did human emotions evolve to help us survive? For the last decade, cultural anthropologist Chelsea Shields Strayer has studied the indigenous healing practices of the Ashante people of Ghana, discovering that emotional pain serves useful purposes -- including the relief of physical pain. In this conversation with the TED Blog, she tells th...

The current coronavirus pandemic is a truly global one; in fact, Antarctica is the only continent with no cases (although that could change). Most nations have responded with similar measures -- stay-at-home advisories, shutdown of non-essential businesses, social distancing -- but the scope of these changes has varied and so has the human impac...

Through his organization, Baobab Health, Gerry Douglas has implemented a top-of-the-line electronic medical records system in Malawi. Many health centers in the developed world have not yet achieved what Baobab has. His secret weapons? Touch screen computers, super-high usability, and low power usage, just to name a few. Interactive Fel...

Whether your weeks ahead contain travel, vacations or just longer and lazier days than usual, our list of recommendations from TED speakers has books for all moods, activities and tastes. When you want to understand why we humans do what we do Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely (TED Talk: Our buggy...

Why build a virtual world? Philip Rosedale talks about the virtual society he founded, Second Life, and its underpinnings in human creativity. It's a place so different that anything could happen.

About this event: It started with a shady looking character wondering onto stage… he’s our stand-in MC for the day? He clears the stage for our mihi from Pahu Akuhata, our respected local Kaumatua from Ngati Ranginui and Kapahaka performance from Arataki School. The bright smiling faces and thumping feet build energy in the room and we’re all focused for the day...

After his mainstage talk on the opening night of TED, psychologist Steven Pinker sat down with Chris Anderson to dive into his new book, Enlightenment Now. The two examined some criticisms of the book and the thesis behind it, dug into the data, and then threw the floor open for questions, in a session that offered the luxury of time to real...

Facebook's "like" and "share" buttons are seen 22 billion times a day, making them some of the most-viewed design elements ever created. Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook's director of product design, outlines three rules for design at such a massive scale—one so big that the tiniest of tweaks can cause global outrage, but also so large that the ...

Our lives depend on curbing climate change, but so many priorities seem to be in competition. What's the most urgent thing humanity can do right now? Social entrepreneur James Irungu Mwangi tells us why Africa could be the ideal home for scaling the latest and most ambitious climate technologies -- including in places like Kenya's Hell's Gate Na...

Technologist and futurist Bill Joy talks about several big worries for humanity -- and several big hopes in the fields of health, education and future tech.

Your voice is indistinguishable from how other people see you, but your relationship with it is far from obvious. Rébecca Kleinberger studies how we use and understand our voices and the voices of others. She explains why you may not like the sound of your own voice on recordings, the differences between your outward, inward and inner voices -- ...

Devdutt Pattanaik takes an eye-opening look at the myths of India and of the West -- and shows how these two fundamentally different sets of beliefs about God, death and heaven help us consistently misunderstand one another.