A collection of our most inspired talks and performances highlighting the passion, importance and brilliance of theater.

The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys is made up of 11-year-old banjo sensation Jonny Mizzone and his brothers Robbie, 14, on fiddle, and Tommy, 15, on guitar.

As the surreal reality of COVID-19 unfolded around the world, musician Damian Kulash and OK Go started working on a song, looking to art as a way to access something past the immediate anxiety of the moment while sheltering in place. Inspired by the ritual of raising a cheer for frontline workers every evening and some incongruous bouts of hope,...

Fresh food free of chemicals and pesticides is hard to come by in China: in 2016, the Chinese government revealed half a million food safety violations in just nine months. In the absence of safe, sustainable food sources, TED Fellow Matilda Ho launched China's first online farmers market, instituting a zero-tolerance test towards pesticides, an...

Where does OK Go come up with ideas like dancing in zero gravity, performing in ultra slow motion or constructing a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine for their music videos? In between live performances of "This Too Shall Pass" and "The One Moment," lead singer and director Damian Kulash takes us inside the band's creative process, showing u...

Al Seckel explored how eye tricks can reveal the way the brain processes visual information -- or fails to do so. Among his other accomplishments: He co-created the Darwin Fish.

Why do great thoughts and stories resonate so strongly with so many people, and how do we communicate them? Using fMRI experiments, Uri Hasson is looking for the answers.

Every year, tens of thousands of people have brain surgery without a single incision: there's no scalpel, no operating table, and the patient loses no blood. Instead, this procedure uses a machine that emits invisible beams of light at a precise target inside the brain. So how exactly does this treatment work? And what does it do to the tumors i...

Keller Rinaudo is CEO and co-founder of Zipline, building drone delivery for global public health customers. (He's also co-founder of Romotive, makers of the tiny robot, Romo.)

Lauren Hodge won the 2011 Google Science Fair in the age 13-14 category.

Naomi Shah won the 2011 Google Science Fair in the age 15-16 category.

Twice the world yo-yo champion, BLACK mixes dance, sport and performance to create unforgettable yo-yo moments.

Ashton Applewhite asks us to look at ageism -- the assumption that older people are alike and that aging impoverishes us.

During World War I, scientists were trying to develop an antidote to the poisonous yellow cloud known as mustard gas. They discovered the gas was irrevocably damaging the bone marrow of affected soldiers. This gave the scientists an idea: cancer cells and bone marrow both replicate rapidly. Could mustard gas be used to fight cancer? Hyunsoo No d...

iO Tillett Wright has photographed 2,000 people who consider themselves somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum -- and asked many of them: Can you assign a percentage to how gay or straight you are? Most people, it turns out, consider themselves to exist in the gray areas of sexuality, not 100% gay or straight. Which presents a real problem when it come...

"Puppets always have to try to be alive," says Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, a gloriously ambitious troupe of human and wooden actors. Beginning with the tale of a hyena's subtle paw, puppeteers Kohler and Basil Jones build to the story of their latest astonishment: the wonderfully life-like Joey, the War Horse, who trots (and ...

From the stage to everyday life, theater educator Jo Michael Rezes studies queer identity and the spectrum of gender performance — in its success and failure. Aided by a delightful introduction of campy charm, Rezes explores the freeing potential of playing with gender to better understand ourselves, each other and the spaces we inhabit.

Nobel laureate James Watson took part in one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century: the discovery of the structure of DNA. More than 50 years later, he continues to investigate biology's deepest secrets.

Lucy Farey-Jones is obsessed with what makes people embrace or reject new things.

Scientists and entrepreneurs have been cooking up innovative ways to put food on our tables. What are they serving up next?

Jonathan Williams likes to tell stories and throw parties, so he started a church that allowed him to do both.

Nilay Kulkarni is the co-founder and chief technical officer of Ashioto Analytics, a real-time crowd flow analysis platform.

At Sightsavers, an international NGO, Caroline Harper leads efforts to eliminate avoidable blindness around the world and fight for equal rights.

Designer Isaac Mizrahi dashed off these stylish, breezy notes on why these 6 TEDTalks are a source of inspiration for him.

Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe wants to make meditation accessible to everybody: for a happier, healthier you.

Simona Francese is a chemist by training who is passionate about forensics.

Carol Fishman Cohen documents successful transitions back into the workforce after career breaks.

Eric Berridge is an entrepreneurial humanist who believes our society is overly obsessed with STEM.

TED Connects is a live conversation series featuring experts whose ideas can help us reflect and work through this uncertain time with a sense of responsibility, compassion and wisdom. View the TED Connects archive

Chip Colwell is an archaeologist who tries to answer the tangled question: Who owns the past?