The theme of TED2018 is The Age of Amazement, and these speakers’ books are bursting with wonders of every kind: intellectual, scientific, urban, technological, economic, historical, aquatic, even extraterrestrial. TED2018, our biggest conference of the year, takes place April 10 through 14 in Vancouver. The talks from the conference will be re...

Below, just a few of the intriguing headlines involving members of the TED community this week: TED Fellow Antonio Torres is creating a"living" amphitheater in Lake Forest, Illinois. Made from netted straw, wildflowers and vines, it will bloom throughout the summer and fall while it hosts performances. (Read more about Antonio’s work.) Jac...

Let it be noted, says co-host Chris Anderson, that this year's TED started with a roaring cheer and with a scream of anguish. Our job this week is to explore what's amazing, in every sense of the word, from the jaw-droppingly wonderful to the shocking and urgent. So Chris and co-host Helen Walters have decided to kick off Session 1 with a qu...

About this event: Come mai, nonostante l’umanità si trovi a vivere in condizioni favorevoli in cui mai aveva vissuto fino ad ora, c’è tanto scetticismo quando parliamo di progresso? Eppure, non è così ingenuo credere che la vita è meglio della morte, la salute meglio della malattia, l'abbondanza meglio della mancanza, la libertà meglio della coercizione, la felic...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. Flip the switch. Sangeeta Bhatia is the senior author on a paper that makes the genome editing power of CRISPR responsive to ultraviolet light. As detailed in academic journal Angewandte Chemie, the researchers developed a system where gene editing oc...

Shakespeare coined new words when he needed -- or merely wanted -- them. Can you guess which words were invented by the Bard? English heading into the sixteenth century was a makeshift, cobbled-together thing. No fewer than eight conquering peoples had added to our vocabulary and shaped our syntax. But the Brits were doing more than just borrow...

Photo: James Duncan Davidason Author and UVA psychology professor Jonathan Haidt kicks off his TED2012 talk with a provocative question: "how many of you think of yourselves as religious?" Some people raise their hands, but not so many. Another question: "Do you think of yourselves as spiritual in any shape or form?" The majority of peopl...

This week, so much TED-related news hit the transom. Below, some of the highlights. Artist Olafur Eliasson (watch his TED Talk) muses on his latest work -- “Little Sun,” a miniature solar-powered lamp that puts five hours of sunlight in your pocket -- in this awesome video from our friends at The Creators Project. The best part: the video b...

How long have you been staring at a screen? Chances are this is not the beginning of your day on your mobile device or computer -- and it’s very unlikely to be the end of it. You reading this blog post is only a moment in your digital day, nestled among Facebook updates, Twitter posts, Tumblr reblogs, YouTube videos and, of course, more arti...

VANCOUVER, BC (April 10, 2018) – TED, the New York-based nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, opens its annual flagship conference here today under the theme The Age of Amazement. TED2018 will host 1,500 attendees from 57 countries for a five-day program of more than 100 speakers and performers, including talks from this year’s 20 new TED...

About this event: Buckle up. It's wild out there! Some days it truly feels that the world has gone mad. But behind the neck-snapping political and social shifts we're seeing, the pace of technological, biomedical and scientific progress continues to accelerate. Truly jaw-dropping demonstrations of tech power are emerging almost every day. And they are likely to p...

For anyone who has ever been inspired by a TED Talk… this is an insider’s guide to creating talks that are unforgettable. TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson, curator of TED Now in paperback Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to...

When TED Radio Hour premieres on Friday, March 1st, a new -- but familiar -- voice will be manning the mic. Guy Raz, the former host of Weekend All Things Considered and the creator of Three-Minute Fiction, is the new host of the show, which is returning for its second season after being named Best New Audio Podcast of 2012 by iTunes the first t...

TED2018, themed "The Age of Amazement," kicked off Tuesday with two eye-opening sessions of talks from this year's TED Fellows -- with tech and science demos, music, dance and comedy -- as well as the opening of exhibits and, of course, a memorable Session 1 full of bold ideas, tough truths and jaw-dropping creative visions. Here are some of ...

About this event: TEDxOjai is a one-day simulcast event of the main TED conference held in Long Beach on February 29, which is broadcasted live around the world and is also independently organized, streamed and hosted by Darina Stoyanova and Danette Wallace in the Ojai Movie Theater. Key local speakers and performers include the Futurist & Founder of the V...

By Yasheng Huang Earlier this year, economist Yasheng Huang (watch his 2011 TED Talk) sparred with Eric X. Li in the pages of Foreign Affairs on a similar topic to today's TED Talk. The TED Blog asked Huang to expand on his argument in his ongoing conversation with Li. Imagine confusing the following two statements from a cancer doctor: 1)...

  Summer: the season for cracking open a good book under the shade of a tree. Below, we’ve compiled about 70 stellar book recommendations from members of the TED community. Warning: not all of these books can be classified as beach reads. And we think that is a good thing. Picks from Elizabeth Gilbert, author  The Principles of Uncertainty ...

TED.com video exists to celebrate great speakers, thinkers, doers -- people with ideas that are passionately held and clearly put. For our speakers, putting their videos online has, in many cases, amplified their work beyond imagination, provoking new connections and directions to their careers and even their lives. As we approached the f...

Find repose by exciting the mind. Some of the world's leading thinkers offer the books that inspired them and their work. Skim the list for your favorite speakers, or get nerdy on a topic you've always wanted to know more about. Below find 52 books, recommended by TED speakers. Creativity Creative Confidence, by Tom Kelley and David Kelley Cr...

What do 24,000 ideas look like? Ecologist Eric Berlow and physicist Sean Gourley apply algorithms to the entire archive of TEDx Talks, taking us on a stimulating visual tour to show how ideas connect globally.

Why do some people do selfless things, helping other people even at risk to their own well-being? Psychology researcher Abigail Marsh studies the motivations of people who do extremely altruistic acts, like donating a kidney to a complete stranger. Are their brains just different?

Peter van Uhm is the Netherlands' chief of defense, but that does not mean he is pro-war. In this talk, he explains how his career is one shaped by a love of peace, not a desire for bloodshed -- and why we need armies if we want peace.

Worldwide, violence is on the decline, but in the crowded cities of the global south — cities like Aleppo, Bamako and Caracas — violence is actually accelerating, fueled by the drug trade, mass unemployment and civil unrest. Security researcher Robert Muggah turns our attention toward these "fragile cities," super-fast-growing places where infra...

We often think of bias and prejudice as rooted in ignorance. But as psychologist Paul Bloom seeks to show, prejudice is often natural, rational ... even moral. The key, says Bloom, is to understand how our own biases work -- so we can take control when they go wrong.

Strange landscapes, scorching heat and (sometimes) mad crocodiles await scientists seeking clues to evolution's genius. Paleontologist Paul Sereno talks about his surprising encounters with prehistory -- and a new way to help students join the adventure.

Stewart Brand is a futurist, counterculturist and visionary with a very wide-ranging mind. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Brand discusses ... just about everything: human nature, bringing back the wooly mammoth, geoengineering, rewilding and science as organized skepticism -- plus the story of an acid trip on a San Francisco ro...