More than 40 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and that number is expected to increase drastically in the coming years. But no real progress has been made in the fight against the disease since its classification more than 100 years ago. Scientist Samuel Cohen shares a new breakthrough in Alzheimer's research from his lab...

Cartier believes in the power of bold ideas to empower local initiatives to have global impact. To celebrate Cartier's dedication to launching the ideas of female entrepreneurs into concrete change, TED has curated a special session of talks around the theme "Bold Alchemy" for the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards, featuring a selection of f...

Asking “so what?” can bring out your hidden beliefs and ideas, says career strategist Gail Tolstoi-Miller. Every weekday for the month of January, TED Ideas is publishing a new post in a series called “How to Be a Better Human,” containing a helpful piece of advice from a speaker in the TED community. To see all the posts in the series, click h...

A list of regrets Jane McGonigal is a gamer, so she likes to have goals and special missions. For this talk, her goal is to increase the lifespan of everyone in the audience by 7.5 minutes. Our secret mission: How will we spend these bonus minutes? (To back that up, she has math! Well, science, that she explains as she goes through. It...

Want to connect with a depressed friend but not sure how to relate to them? Comedian and storyteller Bill Bernat has a few suggestions. Learn some dos and don'ts for talking to people living with depression -- and handle your next conversation with grace and maybe a bit of humor.

You've just been injured, and you're on the way home from an hour of physical therapy. The last thing you want to do on your own is confusing exercises that take too long to show results. TED Fellow Cosmin Mihaiu demos a fun, cheap solution that turns boring physical therapy exercises into a video game with crystal-clear instructions.

Adopting a brain-healthy diet is a powerful tool in maximizing cognitive health and helping prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, says neuroscientist and nutritionist Lisa Mosconi. What’s more, it may even ward off common ailments that affect many women, from slow metabolism to insomnia and depression. Here are 8 steps to take. Based on ...

Imagine you're fast asleep and then suddenly awake. You want to move but can't, as if someone is sitting on your chest. And you can't even scream! This is sleep paralysis, a creepy but common phenomenon caused by an overlap in REM sleep and waking stages. Ami Angelowicz describes just how pervasive (but harmless) it is and introduces a cast of c...

Researchers are finding that your mental patterns could be harming your telomeres -- essential parts of the cell’s DNA -- and affecting your life and health. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Elizabeth Blackburn and health psychologist Elissa Epel explain. How can one person bask in the sunshine of good health, while another person looks old before...

At "We the Future," a day of talks from TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation at the TED World Theater in New York City, 18 speakers and performers shared daring ideas, deep analysis, cautionary tales and behavior-changing strategies aimed at meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global goals created ...

Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World by Emily Balcetis (TED Talk: Why some people find exercise harder than others) Many of us look at high achievers and envy how they seem to navigate their lives with ease. In Clearer, Closer, Better, social psychologist Emily Balcetis tells readers that success might be a matter of ...

By Paul Farmer At the end of almost a decade spent in teaching hospitals and clinics, most (we hope all) physicians have honed their clinical acumen by focusing on the care of the patient who is right in front of them. Perhaps this is as it should be: as patients, we don't want our doctors (or nurses or social workers) distracted by "outs...

By 2050, it's estimated that over 65% of the world will be living in cities. We may think of nature as being unconnected to our urban spaces, but trees have always been an essential part of successful cities. Humanity has been uncovering these arboreal benefits since the creation of our first cities thousands of years ago. So what makes trees so...

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...

Over the years, research has shown a counterintuitive fact about human nature: Sometimes, having too much choice makes us less happy. This may even be true when it comes to medical treatment. Baba Shiv shares a fascinating study that measures why choice opens the door to doubt, and suggests that ceding control -- especially on life-or-death deci...

The victory of the underdog. The last minute penalty shot that wins the tournament. The training montage. Many people love to glorify victory on the field, cheer for teams, and play sports. But should we be obsessed with sports? Are sports as good for us as we make them out to be, or are they just a fun and entertaining pastime? Leah Lagos and J...

This morning, we kick off TED2017 in the new Community Theater with a program of fresh ideas, music and dance from the TED2017 Fellows and Senior Fellows. These Fellows are change-makers from many fields -- design, tech, education, business, science and many more -- offering a peek at the future us. Stanford Thompson opens the TED Fellows...

Gratefulness isn't always something that comes easily. Below, some reading and watching to get you into a thankful headspace. Watch: "Want to be happy? Be thankful." This TED Talk from David Steindl-Rast is the perfect Thanksgiving appetizer. In it, the Benedictine monk and interfaith scholar talks about what, exactly, it means to be gratefu...

In April 2020, epidemiologist-in-training Sophie Rose volunteered to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. As a young, healthy adult, she's offering to take part in a human challenge trial, a study where participants are intentionally exposed to SARS-CoV-2 to test vaccines and gather critical data. Explaining how challenge trials coul...

Contraception. The topic has become controversial in recent years. But should it be? Melinda Gates believes that many of the world's social change issues depend on ensuring that women are able to control their rate of having kids. In this significant talk at TEDxChange, she makes the case for the world to re-examine an issue she intends to lend ...

Melissa Walker helps military service members recover from traumatic brain injury and mental illness.

A new way to practice for the SAT. The SAT, a standardized college admissions exam, is a mammoth test, and every minute of practice is invaluable. But SAT practice courses can be expensive -- which oftentimes means kids with less money, or from disadvantaged backgrounds, do worse. One year ago, Khan Academy, a free online platform for learni...

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 ...

A TED Prize wish must be ambitious and bold, with the ability to impact lives all across the globe. And yet, a TED Prize wish must also be practical -- an actionable plan that can flourish with $1 million in seeding and access to leverage the power of the TED community. With nominations open for the 2016 TED Prize -- you can nominate a visionary...

If we did, we’d all be kinder and more compassionate, both to each other and to ourselves when our hearts get broken, says psychologist Guy Winch. I have worked with scores of heartbroken people over the past twenty years, and I remember many of them vividly. This is not surprising, as the ease with which we recall events is heavily influenced ...

Take a mind-blowing trip to the lab as TED Senior Fellow Andrew Pelling shares his research on how we could use fruits, vegetables and plants to regenerate damaged human tissues -- and develop a potentially groundbreaking way to repair complex spinal cord injuries with asparagus.

Cambridge researcher Aubrey de Grey argues that aging is merely a disease -- and a curable one at that. Humans age in seven basic ways, he says, all of which can be averted.

In March 2018, activists T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison hiked the path that Harriet Tubman took to freedom nearly 170 years ago. Their journey was both painful and beautiful, demanding and transcendent. Here are some lessons from their long walk. “When Black women walk, things change.” T. Morgan Dixon, cofounder of GirlTrek, had Harrie...

Feeling like you’ve got all the time in the world is a wonderful sensation; too bad it occurs so rarely. But by developing the skill of savoring, you can maximize your moments -- and your experience of time, according to author Laura Vanderkam. People who feel like time is abundant approach the present in two ways. There’s the practical: they l...

About this event: Shine in the ray of hope Be accessible, be someone’s hero Disability is for the weaker ones Because accessibility is the brighter sun The literature explains accessibility as the process of developing services, devices, products or environment for people with disabilities. People are deemed to have a disability if they have “difficulties w...