The TED-Ed Lesson “The case of the missing fractals” isn’t just an introduction to the intricate and beautiful world of fractal geometry; it’s also a fully-realized film noir short complete with plot, drama and a smattering of ridiculous puns. This cinematic creation is the product of a TED-Ed dream team, with writing by veteran TED-Ed Educat...

Photos: James Duncan Davidson Brené Brown is an expert on vulnerability who starts off her talk by describing the extraordinary impact of giving a talk in 2010 at TEDxHouston: The Power of Vulnerability. For starters, she says, the day after giving the talk, she woke up in a state of depression that she'd shared details of her own breakdo...

Our electronic devices are often blamed -- at times, rightfully so -- for alienating us from our inner lives and from each other. But what if we could use them to cultivate self-compassion, not distraction? Technology expert Chris Dancy suggests how. I’m sorry to tell you, there's no app for instant inner peace. If you have depression or anxiet...

What does it mean to be “good” at stress? Does it mean you don’t get stressed out? That you stay calm under pressure and bounce back from adversity? Actually, no. The truth of stress as I’ve researched it shows two important things. Firstly, that trying to avoid it is fundamentally counterproductive. Secondly, that thinking that we can emerge...

“The Next Chapter” is already fascinating -- full of great characters, plot twists and, hopefully, it's all leading toward a happy ending. Today, we kicked off TED2014 -- our 30th-anniversary conference -- which will chew on this theme, offering intriguing ideas on where we are going next. So what happened in day one? Below, some highlights. ...

Whatever you may think of the singularity, it’s fun to think what we might do with the cloud-based brain power that Ray Kurzweil proposes in his TED talk. My guess is, as a first step, we'll use our hybrid brain power to put a namebadge on everything we forgot the name of. In his science-fiction novel Blindsight, Peter Watts uses “subtitle” a...

You’ve just watched a TED Talk, and now you have some thoughts -- about the subject, about the speaker, about life. In the world of TED ideas, those reflections and reactions are some of our most important resources. Yet, for every 1,000 views on TED.com, only 1 viewer writes a comment in the space below the video. Perhaps the other 999 v...

As a teenager, Kevin Breel almost took his own life. His story — so powerfully told in his viral TEDx Talk, “Confessions of a Depressed Comic” — gives voice to an often silent struggle and offers a message of hope. In honor of Worldwide Suicide Prevention Day, we spoke with Kevin about living with depression and speaking out about it. Below...

Five powerful poems to commemorate this moment in time, as we look toward the 2017 US Presidential inauguration ceremony. Whatever your politics, poetry can help. As President John F. Kennedy put it, “If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.” That's ...

Among many TED Conversations, below we are highlighting some of the TED.com community's most-discussed ones: Technology doesn't create loneliness, it reveals it -- Join the conversation here >> Willis Phu: "When relationships become out of balance, would technology really fill the void or is it a vapid substitution? Like Dr. Turkle s...

"The thing about the intensive care unit is that the lights never go off and the noise is constant," says photographer Giles Duley. He should know. After he stepped on an IED while on assignment in Afghanistan in 2011, he spent 46 days in intensive care in a hospital in his native United Kingdom. Forty-six days! That's a horrifying amount of tim...

Today on stage at TED2014 magician and puzzler David Kwong blew minds when he pulled an audience member onstage, asked her to color in a few animals, and then revealed he was so sure he could predict her behavior that he had her choices written into the day’s New York Times crossword. Hm: What’s a seven-letter word for boldness? Not only did...

Sam Richards, whose "Radical Experiment in Empathy" prompted a lively conversation all last week, sat in on TED Conversations today for two hours to answer questions about how to find empathy for people unlike us, and how we might prejudge someone -- even a TED speaker ... The conversation was thoughtful, honest and deeply optimistic. Thanks...

Or, asks retired colonel Chris Hadfield to the crowd at TED2014, "What's the most dangerous? And, why did you do it?" For Hadfield, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency and a commander of the International Space Station for 3 months, it was to ride a rocket ship into orbit. Watch Chris Hadfield's TED Talk >> In the early d...

“It’s easy to think that corruption happens somewhere over there, carried out by a bunch of greedy despots,” says anti-corruption activist Charmian Gooch in her blistering talk from TEDGlobal 2013. “The reality is that the engine of corruption exists far beyond the shores of countries like Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria or Turkmenistan. This e...

According to our best estimates, TED has surpassed a billion video views! Our most recent metrics show that TED Talks are being viewed at a rate of 1.5 million times a day -- which means that a new viewing commences 17 times a second. We in the TED office cannot thank you enough for helping us reach this milestone of 1,000,000,000 views -- n...

On the TED stage, illusionist Marco Tempest has explored the nature of truth and lies, brought a stick figure to life, charted the meaning of magic and told the sad tale of inventor Nikola Tesla. In his latest performance, given this summer at TEDGlobal, Tempest turns his eye to a magician’s classic: a deck of cards. With his augmented-real...

Yesterday, TED2012 speaker Sherry Turkle held a 1-hour Live Conversation around her new TEDTalk "Connected but alone?" She asked the TED.com community this question: "How has digital technology changed the kind of communications you have with your friends, family and coworkers?" Here are some highlights of the back-and-forth: Vanessa Borg ...

In 2006, Jake Barton of the interactive media design firm Local Projects received a challenge unlike any other: to create the installations for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, which will open in 2014, with Thinc Design. September 11 is not a historical event made safe and sterile by the passage of decades and centuries. Today is just the 12th anni...

An advocate for educational video games realizes that our kids might actually learn more from Civilization, Minecraft, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Everything changed at a lunch with the legendary game designer Sid Meier. For years, I'd been making the case that we should borrow from the games kids love to create new kinds of educatio...

As this calendar year draws to a close, many of us are making resolutions about personal growth and change. It's a great time, too, for making changes in our working lives. Most of us spend a good portion of our days doing some kind of work -- learning or teaching, making or planning, following or leading -- and it's worth thinking deeply on how...

Late in January, Robin Ince tweeted: balls, 7 months too late I've just realised what i should have done my TED talk on So the TED Blog asked: What? And here is what he wrote: Every year I attempt to say yes to things that are out of my comfort zone. These are never physical things such as parachute jumps or mountain climbs -- I...

Perhaps you are looking forward to a new and hopeful 2014; perhaps you see late December as the perfect time for reflection and resolution. I'm pleased to let you off the hook. This is the time when you should look back at your year and focus on the question: What TED Talks did I miss? Lucky for you, the 2013 edition of "Why the eff didn't you w...

If you watch my TED Talk from 2010, you might see a confident 12-year-old, cracking jokes and striding around the stage in glasses that keep sliding down her nose. You won’t see me going home and crying, or starting every page in my journal with four words: “I feel sad today.” I divided my life into two parts: my tear-stained journal vers...

It doesn’t require a total overhaul of your life, but following a few simple steps can help you start consuming less, says Lucía González Schuett. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. A few years ago,...

One morning when she woke up, Jill Bolte Taylor felt pain behind her left eye similar to what she’d felt biting into an ice cream cone. Soon, her own appearance -- from her hands to her reflection -- felt utterly bizarre to her. Next she lost her balance and then her internal chatter simply stopped -- years of thinking dissolving into silenc...

How do you pick the 10 thinkers in the world whose ideas are making the biggest ripples? It's a task sort of akin to asking: which are the 10 most beautiful flowers in a meadow? Luckily, we don't have to answer this intimidating question. Because CNN is all over it. Today, CNN Tech published "The CNN 10: Thinkers," a look at the 10 science an...

In August, the first lab-grown beefburger was cooked and tasted in London. The verdict? "[It tasted] like an animal protein cake, said Josh Schonwald, author of The Taste of Tomorrow and one of the "lucky" few to taste the $330,000 morsel of petri dish meat. The future of slaughter-less meat is not far off. In fact, scientists project it ...

As TED’s social media editor, I have seen a lot of nasty comments. I’ve seen grown men and women deride a 14-year-old girl for her choice of dress. I’ve seen them say they're revolted by a beautiful transgender woman. On every talk about race, I’ve seen a slew of racist comments. But none have ever been as bad as the comments we got when we publ...

Raj Panjabi was your typical science- and soccer-loving 4th grader in Monrovia, Liberia. But when a brutal civil war erupted in the country, normal life was upended. On the TED2017 stage, Panjabi recalls his mother knocking on his door, telling him to pack his things. They had to flee. One image from that day has stayed etched in his memo...