With never-before-seen video, primatologist Isabel Behncke Izquierdo (a TED Fellow) shows how bonobo ape society learns from constantly playing -- solo, with friends, even as a prelude to sex. Indeed, play appears to be the bonobos' key to problem-solving and avoiding conflict. If it works for our close cousins, why not for us?

As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of his father's furious and fearful response.

From the stage to everyday life, theater educator Jo Michael Rezes studies queer identity and the spectrum of gender performance — in its success and failure. Aided by a delightful introduction of campy charm, Rezes explores the freeing potential of playing with gender to better understand ourselves, each other and the spaces we inhabit.

For more than 1,000 years, Khmer dancers in Cambodia have been seen as living bridges between heaven and earth. In this graceful dance-talk hybrid, artist Prumsodun Ok -- founder of Cambodia's first all-male and gay-identified dance company -- details the rich history of Khmer classical dance and its current revival, playing the ancient and agel...

What would happen if new companies hired, fired, and managed in the same way as football clubs? What if new employers "bought" their new hires, and paid old employers a fee, à la Cristiano Ronaldo? In this short talk, Yusuf contemplates the consequence of playing the old corporate game by new rules.

Are the simplest phones the smartest? While the rest of the world is updating statuses and playing games on smartphones, Africa is developing useful SMS-based solutions to everyday needs, says journalist Toby Shapshak. In this eye-opening talk, Shapshak explores the frontiers of mobile invention in Africa as he asks us to reconsider our preconce...

Your favorite band is great at playing music...but not so great at being organized. They keep misplacing their instruments on tour, and it's driving their manager mad. Can you solve the brain-numbing riddle their manager assigns them and make sure the band stays on their label? Yossi Elran shows how. [Directed by Artrake Studio, narrated by Addi...

Pianist Daria van den Bercken fell in love with the baroque keyboard music of George Frideric Handel. Now, she aims to ignite this passion in others. In this talk, she plays us through the emotional roller coaster of his music — while sailing with her piano through the air, driving it down the street, and of course playing on the stage.

In this far-seeing talk, Seth Priebatsch shows how game dynamics are reshaping the world -- from a classroom where students "level up" instead of being graded ,to a pervasive game called "happy hour" that you may already be playing. Get ready to meet the "game layer," a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education...

Viruses mutate and spread from person to person, a dynamic process that often leaves us playing catch-up when there's a new disease outbreak. What if vaccines worked the same way? Virologist Leor Weinberger shares a scientific breakthrough: "hijacker therapy," a type of medical treatment that could attack, modify and spread alongside a virus, po...

Daphne Bavelier studies how the brain adapts to changes in experience, either by nature or by training.

The problem with music, says Tim Exile, is that it's so perfect. For those of us who didn't grow up playing an instrument, we're often too afraid to try because it doesn't sound like the masterful music we hear. In a talk-performance hybrid, Exile demos a software instrument that he designed to allow anyone, whether they have musical training or...

Global markets let people put their money behind ideas that make society better. So why does capitalism get a lot of the blame for the world's problems? In this forward-thinking talk, Nasdaq president and CEO Adena Friedman explains how markets can level the playing field -- as long as we imagine more and new ways to balance the capitalistic fou...

Stress isn't always a bad thing; it can be handy for a burst of extra energy and focus, like when you're playing a competitive sport or have to speak in public. But when it's continuous, it actually begins to change your brain. Madhumita Murgia shows how chronic stress can affect brain size, its structure, and how it functions, right down to the...

There's nothing quite like a good night's sleep. What if technology could help us get more out of it? Dan Gartenberg is working on tech that stimulates deep sleep, the most regenerative stage which (among other wonderful things) might help us consolidate our memories and form our personalities. Find out more about how playing sounds that mirror ...

After a long day working on the particle accelerator, you and your friends head to the arcade to unwind. The lights go out for a second, and when they come back, there before you gleams a foosball table. Always game, you insert your coins. And quantum foosball begins— instead of a ball, you'll be playing with a giant electron. Matteo Fadel shows...

Monarch butterflies are dying at an alarming rate around the world -- a looming extinction that could also put human life at risk. But we have just the thing to help save these insects, says author Mary Ellen Hannibal: citizen scientists. Learn how these grassroots volunteers are playing a crucial role in measuring and rescuing the monarch's dwi...

"Copy editing for The New Yorker is like playing shortstop for a Major League Baseball team -- every little movement gets picked over by the critics," says Mary Norris, who has played the position for more than thirty years. In that time, she's gotten a reputation for sternness and for being a "comma maniac," but this is unfounded, she says. Abo...

Matthew White is a young master of the euphonium, an instrument in the brass family with an ineffably lovely tone.

By challenging long-held legal notions of “personhood”, Steven Wise seeks to grant cognitively advanced animals access to a full spectrum of fundamental rights.

Preston Reed’s hands have an otherworldly coordination. The fingers, nails, thumbs, and palms of both left and right dance, pluck, strum, and slap his guitar, which bursts with a full sound.

What makes us incessantly check our phones? Adam Alter dives into the fascinating psychology that drives our tech addictions.

Priyanka Jain heads up product for pymetrics, an NYC-based startup that uses neuroscience and AI to make hiring more diverse and effective.

Corals in the Pacific Ocean have been dying at an alarming rate, particularly from bleaching brought on by increased water temperatures. But it's not too late to act, says TED Fellow Kristen Marhaver. She points to the Caribbean -- given time, stable temperatures and strong protection, corals there have shown the ability to survive and recover f...

Ji-Hae Park spreads the joy of classical to music to those who might not otherwise hear it -- and in the process shows that you can rock out on the violin.

At TED2012, attendees got to play a fun game with genes: Swab your cheek, submit it to the techs at Genentech, and get back a "genetic symphony" based on some very interesting genetic markers. Watch and see how it happens. You can hear the whole smphony at gene.com/TED. Video: Rachel Tobias

Nora Brown sings ballads and plays traditional old-time music with a heavy interest in eastern Kentucky banjo playing.

Marian Wright Edelman fights for a level playing field for all children, so their chances to succeed don't have to depend on the lottery of birth.

Photo: Circe f. Ervina Announced onstage today at TED: JR, the street artist and the TED2011 TED Prize winner, has been working this week in Edinburgh on an Inside Out Project action in the home of TEDGlobal. Writer Celyn Bricker tells the story: That the UK uses the most CCTV surveillance in Europe is widely known, though perhaps less...

Kate Stone loves paper, and she loves technology, so she resolved to combine the two, which she shows us in a magical demonstration on the TED stage. But first, three key moments that got her to where she is today: 1. An obsession with technology: As a child, she hid switches behind the wall in her bedroom, ran wires underneath the carpet...