When I googled "english major who taught herself calculus," Google gave me the result I wanted -- plus a most unhelpful suggestion. I wondered why. Last Thursday morning, I was following up on a book recommendation from sometime-TED-blogger Ben Lillie. A writer he knows, an English major, taught herself calculus and wrote a book about it. Don...

At the intersections where we meet and collaborate, we can pool our collective wisdom to seek solutions to the world's greatest problems. But true change begs for more than incremental steps and passive reactions -- we need to galvanize transformation to create our collective future. To celebrate the effort of bold thinkers building a bet...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson As an architect, Michael Hansmeyer asks, "What is the origin of the forms we design?" And he asks: "What kind of forms would we design if we had no bias, if we had no preconception? What kind of forms would we design if we could free ourselves from our education?" "How," he says, "Would we go about creating...

About this event: You are cordially invited to the next TEDxTheHague salon! Our April edition — themed Isms Cause Schisms — is curated by TEDxTheHague: "Dogmatism, perfectionism, sensationalism... isms have the power to take over our lives — if we let them. But what’s behind these isms? Sometimes it’s a role we play, a mask we wear, to get the approval we crav...

At TED2012, Jon Ronson wove a mind-bending tale that asks: How can we truly tell who is a psychopath? What’s the line between crazy and sane? And is it something we can truly delineate, or are we trying to discern black and white in a color-soaked world? Today’s TEDWeekends on the Huffington Post picks up this question, using Ronson’s talk as...

John Searle studies consciousness -- which, as he points out in today's talk, is a “curiously neglected subject in our scientific and philosophical culture.” Curiously -- because it is, after all, a pre-condition for anything else we think about. And yet neglected -- because consciousness is a subject that makes scientists huffy (they see it a...

Imagine a day filled with brilliant speakers, thought-provoking video and mind-blowing conversation. By organizing a TEDx event, you can create a unique gathering in your community that will unleash new ideas, inspire and inform.

About this event: The theme for this late spring event is ALIVE! Maximum Living as a Human. We will explore big questions through (in TED fashion) the eyes of science, business, arts, letters, music and more. Our events have a San Francisco flavor, in that they have a technology and startup bias, and a broad spirit of inquiry. ALIVE! will examine the human ...

Here's a crash course in 3 proven ways -- scenario planning, premortems and red-teaming -- to help you spot hidden opportunities and pitfalls (and maybe even predict the future). Writer Steven Johnson explains. In the mid-1970s, environmental activist Paul Hawken was working with a nonprofit that taught intensive gardening techniques to people ...

African American writer Rich Benjamin spent two years living in -- and writing about -- America's whitest neighborhoods. The response to his book (and TED Talk) was honest, raw -- and sometimes misunderstood his purpose. Here, he responds to the response. In 2007, I embarked on a two-year, 27,000-mile trip. My destination? The fastest-growing a...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, is an introvert. So as she gets up to present from the TED2012 stage, bag in hand, it is not a comfortable experience. But it's an important one, and that's the point. Her family grew up reading -- they would read t...

TED Blog exclusive video: Steve Rosenbaum takes us on a private tour of the 9/11 Museum, under construction now at the site of the World Trade Center towers. Below, he talks about why he joined the effort to create a memorial of the people and events of September 11, 2001. Why did you decide to document the curation and construction of the...

In 1964 Bob Dylan was near the pinnacle of his career, pouring out now-classic songs at a near-miraculous pace. But a few critics claim that he is stealing other people's songs. Could it be true? Ferguson plays "Nottamun Town," a traditional folks song, then Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," and asks us to hear the similarity -- and it's clear t...

  [embed]https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_dalio_how_to_build_a_company_where_the_best_ideas_win[/embed] The past few weeks have brimmed over with TED-related news. Below, some highlights. Exploring the ocean like never before. A school of ocean-loving TED speakers have teamed up to launch OceanX, an international initiative dedicated to di...

Featured image: Austrian physicist Lise Meitner, who first developed the theory explaining the process of nuclear fission. Theoretical physicist (and TED Fellow) Shohini Ghose has two great passions: physics, and advocating for gender equity in the sciences. “There are still relatively few women in physics – and the higher up the ladder in ac...

Like it or not, charisma matters when it comes to leadership. But we should be aware of the power that persuasion can have on us, says business school professor and researcher Jochen Menges. Winston Churchill had it -- but so did Eva Perón. Nelson Mandela had it -- as did Adolf Hitler. Charisma is a force that can rally people during difficult ...

A plate of food overrun by roaches. A blood-encrusted scab. The squish of dog poo under one’s shoe. In this talk from TEDxEast, David Pizarro explains that each of these images elicits disgust, a visceral emotion that serves a good purpose -- to keep us away from harmful substances. But disgust may in fact do much more than that. “A growing...

At TED2012, Susan Cain asked us to stop the madness. That is: the group work madness. At offices and schools around the globe, the desire for collaboration has led to an onslaught of open floor plans and group projects where individuals aren’t given much space to think on their own. And this is a big problem, Cain explained, because a third to h...

Watching more than seventy live, perspective-changing TED Talks back to back for five days straight is nothing to scoff at. Let's be honest: Your brain gets tired. That's why TED's curators program each session with short video breaks to give the mind a rest before the next set of talks. Funny, inspiring, silly, beautiful, here's all the videos ...

TED2013 kicks off in just 11 days. And, in the very first session, Robert J. Gordon and Erik Brynjolfsson will ascend the stage for a debate on the future of work. While Gordon will focus on how our current ecosystem of innovation is too focused on personal gadgetry, and thus isn’t setting us up to solve the big problems of the future, Brynjolfs...

There's a place in Switzerland where scientists travel on bicycles through tunnels filled with atom-smashing tubes, where the first webpage was born, and where a giant wooden globe watches over researchers replicating the very beginnings of our universe. That place is CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, and on May 3, it held ...

Cameron Russell wants to have a discussion about the way that we, as a society, perceive beauty. Media representations of women, she says, are replete with racist and sexist representations, encouraging women to live up to a standard that is both oppressive and unattainable. Russell’s profession offers an insider’s perspective on the topic – ...

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...

Surgeon Peter Attia sees a disconcerting paradox at work when it comes to our health: while people are talking about eating healthily and exercising perhaps more than ever, we’re seeing no reduction in the rates of obesity and diabetes. As it stands, more than 8% of Americans are diabetic and an additional 26% are pre-diabetic -- which represe...

The many-headed dragon of public anger has a mouthful of fire for parents who don't vaccinate. But such scolding misses the mark, alienating caring parents who just want their kids to be safe. When measles broke out at California’s Disneyland in 2015, sickening nearly 150 people across seven states and spreading to Mexico and Canada, the online...

Psychologist Paul Bloom studies the nature of pleasure. In this conversation with Ben Lillie, he discusses how knowing the history of an object can profoundly affect our enjoyment of it. Why is the origin of things so deeply important to us? We have a biological adaptation called "essentialism," which is a particularly clever and important a...

Yes, it’s number 1 on the list of 7 deadly sins, but pride can actually move us toward our goals -- and toward better behavior -- according to psychology professor David DeSteno. Gratitude and compassion are universally seen as positive feelings. By making our minds value the future, these two emotions make us more patient, more willing to pers...

Behold, your recap of TED-related news: Remembering Billy Graham. For more than 60 years, pastor Billy Graham inspired countless people around the world with his sermons. On Wednesday, February 21, he passed away at his home in North Carolina after struggling with numerous illnesses over the past few years. He was 99 years old. Raised on ...

Justice should be blind, right? Unfortunately, the predictive policing software used in much of the US has bias and misunderstanding programmed right into it, says data scientist Cathy O’Neil. The small city of Reading, Pennsylvania, has had a tough go of it in the postindustrial era. Nestled in the green hills 50 miles west of Philadelphia, Re...

Earlier this month, Merriam-Webster announced that 2017's word of the year is feminism. Searches for the word on the dictionary website spiked throughout the year, beginning in January around the Women's March, again after Kellyanne Conway said in an interview that she didn't consider herself a feminist, and during some of feminism's many po...