The Greenland ice sheet is massive, mysterious -- and melting. Using advanced technology, scientists are revealing its secrets for the first time, and what they've found is amazing: hidden under the ice sheet is a vast aquifer that holds a Lake Tahoe-sized volume of water from the summer melt. Does this water stay there, or does it find its way ...

Jean-Baptiste Michel has sold a small sculpture to the Whitney Museum of American Art. A major museum acquiring a piece—that’s a big moment for any artist. But this sculpture is the very first piece of art Michel ever created. Michel is the data researcher who showed what you can learn using Google’s Ngram Viewer at TEDxBoston in 2011, an...

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...

We're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information. And the machines ...

“Spontaneity is the most delicious part,” says Brian Henson in a master class at TED2014, hosted by Syfy. “There’s something about letting a moment happen. Your best-laid plans cannot exceed what happens spontaneously.” Henson, a master puppeteer and the chair of The Jim Henson Company, says that a love of spontaneity deeply infused his f...

Digital creator Dylan Marron has racked up millions of views for projects like "Every Single Word" and "Sitting in Bathrooms With Trans People" -- but he's found that the flip side of success online is internet hate. Over time, he's developed an unexpected coping mechanism: calling the people who leave him insensitive comments and asking a simpl...

The path to skill around the globe has been the same for thousands of years: train under an expert and take on small, easy tasks before progressing to riskier, harder ones. But right now, we're handling AI in a way that blocks that path -- and sacrificing learning in our quest for productivity, says organizational ethnographer Matt Beane. What c...

  Virtual reality is an emerging medium for artists and educators. Painting is an ancient art form; some cave paintings were made up to 40,000 years ago. In TED-Ed’s first 360° animated video, you can examine the intersection of these two ideas by exploring an ancient cave and its surroundings as educator Iseult Gillespie shares a brief h...

By creating tech that lets dolphins play computer games and request belly rubs, we can understand their intelligence and perhaps even get a preview of life on other planets, says marine mammal researcher Diana Reiss. In some ways, dolphins and humans aren’t so different. We’re both intelligent, social animals, and we both rely on complex vocal ...

Have 10 minutes to spare? Want to spend them on something inspiring? How about something jaw-dropping? Our new "Surprise Me" feature delivers. Just tell us how much time you have (15 minutes? 40?) and what you're in the mood to watch (Something funny? Fascinating? Persuasive?) and we'll generate a custom playlist that matches the moment. ...

In the opening of Miwa Matreyek’s TED performance, a pair of shadowy hands wave over a plate, and an apple halves itself. From there, goldfish swirl around the plate, before morphing into birds and flying away. For the first minute, you think you are watching video -- an intricate blend of real-life footage and animation. But soon you realize th...

A cure for those what-do-I-watch-now moments: starting today, TED is on Apple TV. In our beautifully designed new Apple TV channel, you can watch TED’s full library of talks (1900+ of them and counting) and our expanding collection of playlists (more than 200 of them, from “Architectural inspiration” to “Talks to watch when every conceivable...

“I feel like a cyborg,” Neil Harbisson declares in a fascinating talk from TEDGlobal 2012. Born color-blind, Harbisson lived in a “grayscale world,” he says -- until 2003, when he began working with computer scientist Adam Montandon on an electronic eye that renders color as sound. Always attached to him, the appliance allows Harbisson to...

It’s been a few years since the TED Talks video page was last updated, but a new design begins rolling out this week. The update aims to provide a simple, straightforward viewing experience for you while surfacing other ideas worth spreading that you might also like. A few changes to highlight … More talks to watch Today there are about...

About this event: Join us on Wednesday 27th February for our second "TEDxLive" event showing an exclusive live webcast of the TED 2013 conference in Longon Beach, California. You're welcome to bring your laptops and iPads along to work on throughout the evening while we watch the live show. VENUE: Project Space (1st floor), Loughborough University School Of...

About this event: Welcome to the TEDxNewYork community! TEDxNewYork is a salon format TEDx event. We spend an hour each week watching a TED talk on a large screen, and discussing it in a dynamic group of New Yorkers. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDxNewYork brings together a community of people from diverse professions and backgrounds weekly to spark r...

Harry Marks' career happened at the intersection of typography, technology and television. His vision has influenced the look of modern video -- picture those fluidly moving, 3D letters that fly over the TV screen to introduce a news broadcast or pop a sports score onto the screen. His influence on this field is absolutely foundational; it's ...

J.J. Abrams’ talk has perhaps the best title of all time: “The mystery box.” In it, the Star Trek director and Lost co-creator reveals how, years ago, he purchased a box at a magic shop that promised $50 of magic for $15. Only, he has never had the heart to open it because “it represents infinite potential.” In his fast-paced talk, Abrams re...

Edward Snowden appeared on the TED stage earlier today via a telepresence robot, which he was able to control remotely. So after giving the talk, "Here's how we take back the internet" -- which is now live on TED.com now (after our production team edited it in record time) -- Snowden didn't sign off. He decided to have a little fun and roam ...

Once you've watched John Bohannon's talk and dance performance from TEDxBrussels (watch it on TED.com), you may have the same question the TED Blog had: How in the world did you do that? So we asked, and here's what he sent us in reply: A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Artists of the United States of America From Being a Burden to Th...

1905 was a big year for Albert Einstein. He was 26 years old and working in the Swiss Patent Office when, in the span of seven months, he published four papers that would eventually be hugely influential. In these papers, he proposed that light could be a particle, proved that atoms existed, laid out his theory of special relativity and offer...

Four years ago, TED Senior Fellow Ayah Bdeir founded littleBits “so everyone could unleash their inner inventor — without having to be an engineer.” Since then, many people have used littleBits' electronic building blocks to do just that — and two of them happened to speak at TEDWomen 2015. Want to find out how how guitarist Kaki King cre...

You probably watch TED Talks on an assortment of small screens. But next week, you’re invited to experience them on the big screen. As the TED2017 conference takes place in Vancouver, Canada, special sessions will be broadcast live in movie theaters across the United States and world. On April 24, the Opening Event will bring surprising l...

The term “fiscal cliff” has gained traction in the U.S. news in the past few months, at least in part because it paints a vivid metaphorical picture. Popularized by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the term refers to the ill economic consequences that could occur if Congress does not change its course on several policies by January 1, ...

“Movies have proved to be the ultimate medium for magic,” says Don Levy in today’s talk. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and former senior vice president of marketing and communications at Sony Pictures, Levy has always been fascinated by the sleights of hand that filmmakers use to create illusions. And he knows he i...

Calling all self-proclaimed tech nerds! TED has long been known for demos that set everyone in the theatre a-buzz. Here's a look back at some memorable tech demos from TED and TEDGlobals past, to get you excited for those coming at TED2015. Hugh Herr: The new bionics that let us run, climb and dance On stage at: TED2014 Hugh Herr's ...

By not giving ourselves the minutes -- or hours -- free of devices and distractions, we risk losing our ability to know who we are and what’s important to us, says physicist and writer Alan Lightman. In 2016, the Harvard biologist emeritus and naturalist E.O. Wilson (TED Talk: Advice to a young scientist) published Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Figh...

TEDxYouth Weekend was a series of TEDxYouth events that took place around the world on November 19 and 20, 2016, around the theme of What Now? These events are designed to empower and inspire young people. More about TEDxYouth events

Making this TED-Ed video required (a) a lot of knitting and (b) a ton of boxes of Nerds. When it came time to animate the lesson “How do cancer cells behave differently from healthy ones?” from educator George Zaidan, our TED-Ed animators had a crazy idea for how to make cell division come alive -- using seeds and beans to animate what hea...

About this event: Welcome to the TEDxNewYork community! TEDxNewYork is a salon format TEDx event. We spend an hour each week watching a TED talk on a large screen, and discussing it in a dynamic group of New Yorkers. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDxNewYork brings together a community of people from diverse professions and backgrounds weekly to spark r...