Daniel Kish expands the perceptual toolbox of both blind and sighted humans by teaching echolocation -- the ability to observe our surroundings via sound.

To determine how life might persist on Mars, Nathalie Cabrol explores one of Earth’s most extreme environments: high-elevation Andean lakes and deserts.

Riitta Ikonen is a Finnish artist whose collaborative work reinforces humanity's connection to the natural world.

Edwidge Danticat’s novels and short stories are fast becoming iconic representations of the immigrant experience -- and what it means to be Haitian-American.

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness.

With her legendary spirit and unstoppable serve, tennis legend Serena Williams has become one of the world’s most enduring athletic superstars.

Caitlin Doughty asks: What if we re-designed the funeral industry for an eco-friendly end of life?

Scott Williams thinks the modern health systems would cease to function without the crucial role played by caregivers.

Isaac Lidsky has a very eclectic resume.

Legendary skeptic James Randi devoted his life to debunking frauds and investigating paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.

Fiction writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the connection between fear and the imagination.

Biotech entrepreneur Hadyn Parry leads a science start-up that develops GM insects to fight dengue fever.

Geopolitical futurist Parag Khanna foresees a world in which megacities, supply chains and connective technologies redraw the map away from states and borders.

David Carson is the "grunge typographer" whose magazine Ray Gun helped explode the possibilities of text on a page.

Pawan Sinha researches how our brains interpret what our eyes see -- and uses that research to give blind children the gift of sight.

Pamela Meyer thinks we’re facing a pandemic of deception, but she’s arming people with tools that can help take back the truth.

More than a million people took to the streets of Paris yesterday to show solidarity against extremism and terrorism. And their eyes were on the eyes of Stéphane Charbonnier, the editor of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, who was killed in his office last week in a terrorist attack, along with 12 others. These eyes were created by the stu...

Anab Jain's design studio Superflux envisions a future where the blind are given ultraviolet vision and invasive species are engineered to combat the effects of climate change. She shares her perspective on our not-too-distant future. How would you describe the work that you do at your revolutionary design studio Superflux? We are living...

Newton Aduaka's award-winning Ezra, told through the eyes of a young boy in Sierra Leone, illuminates one of the most harrowing consequences of war: the recruitment of child soldiers.

Alison Gopnik takes us into the fascinating minds of babies and children, and shows us how much we understand before we even realize we do.

What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game to rule the Earth? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see the world from a plant's-eye view.

These investigations into the dark underbelly of society shed light on some of the world’s most pressing issues.

Karen Eber believes storytelling is one of the most impactful ways to shape culture, and engage people.

About this event: MOVE ON: To watch with a step behind, and to go forward. Today, did we ever see the world with our own eyes? Didn’t we just focus on the messages that were constantly stimulating our eyes? So many things are made, collided and faded away at this moment. Nevertheless, we only keep our eyes on the changes right in front of us and tend to think as...

Jamie Oliver’s third annual Food Revolution Day is tomorrow on Friday, May 16. This year, among the many other food-filled activities lined up, the healthy eating activist and 2010 TED Prize winner is looking to break the Guinness World Record attempt for the ‘Most participants in a cookery lesson in 24 hours.’ The current Guinness World ...

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built for you in a thoughtful sequence to illuminate ideas in context. This weekend, two new playlists are available: What doctors worry about and Can you believe your eyes? Can you believe your eyes? 7 talks filled with magic tricks, optical illusions, death-defying feats and digita...

In our era of the patient-as-data-point, Abraham Verghese believes in the old-fashioned physical exam, the bedside chat, the power of informed observation.

In 1948, Spanish ophthalmologist Jose Ignacio Barraquer Moner was fed up with glasses. He wanted a solution for blurry vision that fixed the eye itself, without relying on external aids. The surgery he eventually devised was called "keratomileusis," and his technique focused on reshaping the cornea— what we now know as LASIK. So how does laser e...

Nora Atkinson is a craft curator, a humanist and a romantic -- as she says, "I can’t believe I get to do what I do for a living."

William Ury, author of "Getting to Yes," offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations -- from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East.