Menu Main menu
TED
  • Watch
    • TED Talks
      Browse the library of TED talks and speakers
    • TED Recommends
      Get TED Talks picked just for you
    • Playlists
      100+ collections of TED Talks, for curious minds
    • TED Series
      Go deeper into fascinating topics with original video series from TED.
    • TED-Ed videos
      Watch, share and create lessons with TED-Ed
    • TEDx Talks
      Talks from independently organized local events
  • Discover
    • Topics
      Explore TED offerings by topic
    • Podcasts
      TED's original podcast initiatives
    • TED Books
      Short books to feed your craving for ideas
    • Ideas Blog
      Our daily coverage of the world of ideas
    • Newsletter
      Inspiration delivered straight to your inbox
  • Attend
    • Conferences
      Take part in our events: TED, TEDGlobal and more
    • TEDx events
      Find and attend local, independently organized events
    • TED on screen
      Experience TED from home
  • Participate
    • Nominate
      Recommend speakers, Audacious Projects, Fellows and more
    • Organize a local TEDx event
      Rules and resources to help you plan a local TEDx event
    • Translate
      Bring TED to the non-English speaking world
    • TED Fellows
      Join or support innovators from around the globe
  • About
    • Our organization
      Our mission, history, team, and more
    • Conferences
      TED Conferences, past, present, and future
    • Programs & Initiatives
      Details about TED's world-changing initiatives
    • Partner with TED
      Learn how you can partner with us
    • TED Blog
      Updates from TED and highlights from our global community
    • TED Guide to Public Speaking
      An insider’s guide to creating talks that are unforgettable
  • Membership
Sign in
Search
Cancel search

Search menu

  • All
  • Talks 29
  • People 8
  • Playlists 1
  • Blog posts 13
  • Pages 1
  • TEDx events 6
All results
1 - 30 of 58 results

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry in action

Janine Benyus has a message for inventors: When solving a design problem, look to nature first. There you'll find inspired designs for making things waterproof, aerodynamic, solar-powered and more. Here she reveals dozens of new products that take their cue from nature with spectacular results.
https://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry's surprising lessons from nature's engineers

In this inspiring talk about recent developments in biomimicry, Janine Benyus provides heartening examples of ways in which nature is already influencing the products and systems we build.
https://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_s_surprising_lessons_from_nature_s_engineers

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture

How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing energy from the sun.
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture

Hamish Jolly | TED Speaker

Hamish Jolly brings his entrepreneurial eye to the rare but viscerally terrifying issue of shark attacks.
Inventor, ocean swimmer
https://www.ted.com/speakers/hamish_jolly

Markus Fischer: A robot that flies like a bird

Plenty of robots can fly -- but none can fly like a real bird. That is, until Markus Fischer and his team at Festo built SmartBird, a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. A soaring demo fresh from TEDGlobal 2011.
https://www.ted.com/talks/markus_fischer_a_robot_that_flies_like_a_bird

Hamish Jolly: A shark-deterrent wetsuit (and it's not what you think)

Hamish Jolly, an ocean swimmer in Australia, wanted a wetsuit that would deter a curious shark from mistaking him for a potential source of nourishment. (Which, statistically, is rare, but certainly a fate worth avoiding.) Working with a team of scientists, he and his friends came up with a fresh approach — not a shark cage, not a suit of chain-...
https://www.ted.com/talks/hamish_jolly_a_shark_deterrent_wetsuit_and_it_s_not_what_you_think

Playlist: Technology designed by nature (10 talks)

These exciting innovations and breakthroughs demonstrate what's possible when humans draw inspiration from some of nature’s best work.
Curated by TED · 10 talks
https://www.ted.com/playlists/technology_designed_by_nature

Angela Belcher | TED Speaker

Angela Belcher looks to nature for inspiration on how to engineer viruses to create extraordinary new materials.
Biological engineer
https://www.ted.com/speakers/angela_belcher

Michael Hansmeyer: Building unimaginable shapes

Inspired by cell division, Michael Hansmeyer writes algorithms that design outrageously fascinating shapes and forms with millions of facets. No person could draft them by hand, but they're buildable -- and they could revolutionize the way we think of architectural form.
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_hansmeyer_building_unimaginable_shapes

Markus Fischer | TED Speaker

Markus Fischer led the team at Festo that developed the first ultralight artificial bird capable of flying like a real bird.
Designer
https://www.ted.com/speakers/markus_fischer

Thomas Heatherwick: Building the Seed Cathedral

A future more beautiful? Architect Thomas Heatherwick shows five recent projects featuring ingenious bio-inspired designs. Some are remakes of the ordinary: a bus, a bridge, a power station ... And one is an extraordinary pavilion, the Seed Cathedral, a celebration of growth and light.
https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_heatherwick_building_the_seed_cathedral

Cheryl Hayashi | TED Speaker

Cheryl Hayashi studies the delicate but terrifically strong silk threads that make up a spider's web, finding startling applications for human use.
Spider silk scientist
https://www.ted.com/speakers/cheryl_hayashi

Nina Tandon: Caring for engineered tissue

Tissue engineer and TED Fellow Nina Tandon is growing artificial hearts and bones. To do that, she needs new ways of caring for artificially grown cells -- techniques she's developed by the simple but powerful method of copying their natural environments.
https://www.ted.com/talks/nina_tandon_caring_for_engineered_tissue

Fiorenzo Omenetto: Silk, the ancient material of the future

Fiorenzo Omenetto shares 20+ astonishing new uses for silk, one of nature's most elegant materials -- in transmitting light, improving sustainability, adding strength and making medical leaps and bounds. On stage, he shows a few intriguing items made of the versatile stuff.
https://www.ted.com/talks/fiorenzo_omenetto_silk_the_ancient_material_of_the_future

Mathieu Lehanneur: Science-inspired design

Naming science as his chief inspiration, Mathieu Lehanneur shows a selection of his ingenious designs -- an interactive noise-neutralizing ball, an antibiotic course in one layered pill, asthma treatment that reminds kids to take it, a living air filter, a living-room fish farm and more.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mathieu_lehanneur_science_inspired_design

Jaap de Roode: How butterflies self-medicate

Just like us, the monarch butterfly sometimes gets sick thanks to a nasty parasite. But biologist Jaap de Roode noticed something interesting about the butterflies he was studying — infected female butterflies would choose to lay their eggs on a specific kind of plant that helped their offspring avoid getting sick. How do they know to choose thi...
https://www.ted.com/talks/jaap_de_roode_how_butterflies_self_medicate

Heather Barnett: What humans can learn from semi-intelligent slime

Inspired by biological design and self-organizing systems, artist Heather Barnett co-creates with physarum polycephalum, a eukaryotic microorganism that lives in cool, moist areas. What can people learn from the semi-intelligent slime mold? Watch this talk to find out.
https://www.ted.com/talks/heather_barnett_what_humans_can_learn_from_semi_intelligent_slime

Robert Full: The secrets of nature's grossest creatures, channeled into robots

How can robots learn to stabilize on rough terrain, walk upside down, do gymnastic maneuvers in air and run into walls without harming themselves? Robert Full takes a look at the incredible body of the cockroach to show what it can teach robotics engineers.
https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_full_the_secrets_of_nature_s_grossest_creatures_channeled_into_robots

Deborah Gordon: What ants teach us about the brain, cancer and the Internet

Ecologist Deborah Gordon studies ants wherever she can find them -- in the desert, in the tropics, in her kitchen ... In this fascinating talk, she explains her obsession with insects most of us would happily swat away without a second thought. She argues that ant life provides a useful model for learning about many other topics, including disea...
https://www.ted.com/talks/deborah_gordon_what_ants_teach_us_about_the_brain_cancer_and_the_internet

Janine Benyus | TED Speaker

A self-proclaimed nature nerd, Janine Benyus' concept of biomimicry has galvanized scientists, architects, designers and engineers into exploring new ways in which nature's successes can inspire humanity.
Science writer, innovation consultant, conservationist
https://www.ted.com/speakers/janine_benyus

Mathieu Lehanneur | TED Speaker

Kitchen-sized fish farms, living air purifiers and devices that turn old water bottles into martini shakers all spring from the form-and-function-fusing mind of designer Mathieu Lehanneur.
Designer
https://www.ted.com/speakers/mathieu_lehanneur

Cheryl Hayashi: The magnificence of spider silk

Cheryl Hayashi studies spider silk, one of nature's most high-performance materials. Each species of spider can make up to 7 very different kinds of silk. How do they do it? Hayashi explains at the DNA level -- then shows us how this super-strong, super-flexible material can inspire.
https://www.ted.com/talks/cheryl_hayashi_the_magnificence_of_spider_silk

Emma Teeling: The secret of the bat genome

In Western society, bats are often characterized as creepy, even evil. Zoologist Emma Teeling encourages us to rethink common attitudes toward bats, whose unique and fascinating biology gives us insight into our own genetic makeup.
https://www.ted.com/talks/emma_teeling_the_secret_of_the_bat_genome

Rupal Patel: Synthetic voices, as unique as fingerprints

Many of those with severe speech disorders use a computerized device to communicate. Yet they choose between only a few voice options. That's why Stephen Hawking has an American accent, and why many people end up with the same voice, often to incongruous effect. Speech scientist Rupal Patel wanted to do something about this, and in this wonderfu...
https://www.ted.com/talks/rupal_patel_synthetic_voices_as_unique_as_fingerprints

Hannah Fry: Is life really that complex?

Can an algorithm forecast the site of the next riot? In this accessible talk, mathematician Hannah Fry shows how complex social behavior can be analyzed and perhaps predicted through analogies to natural phenomena, like the patterns of a leopard's spots or the distribution of predators and prey in the wild.
https://www.ted.com/talks/hannah_fry_is_life_really_that_complex

Vijay Kumar: The future of flying robots

At his lab at the University of Pennsylvania, Vijay Kumar and his team have created autonomous aerial robots inspired by honeybees. Their latest breakthrough: Precision Farming, in which swarms of robots map, reconstruct and analyze every plant and piece of fruit in an orchard, providing vital information to farmers that can help improve yields ...
https://www.ted.com/talks/vijay_kumar_the_future_of_flying_robots

TEDxOmahaSalon: Biomimicry - an independently organized event

About this event: Most people are introduced to this remarkable collection of human experiences through recorded TED Talks. Through technology, we can hear stories of discovery, heartache, joy, introspection, and imagination from some of the world’s most amazing people. As a part of the global TED community, we connect locally to explore the ideas and situat...
Event details: Omaha, Nebraska, United States · November 12, 2013
https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/10467

An unusual investment company, inspired by honeybees (and TED)

Nature and investing. On the surface, these things do not sound like they have a lot to do with each other. But to TEDster Katherine Collins, the two are intrinsically linked. After 18 years at Fidelity Investments, and while enrolled at Harvard Divinity School to try to figure out what to do next, Collins found inspiration through TED to...
Posted January 27, 2015
https://blog.ted.com/2015/01/27/an-investment-company-inspired-by-honeybees-and-ted

Carl Schoonover: How to look inside the brain

There have been remarkable advances in understanding the brain, but how do you actually study the neurons inside it? Using gorgeous imagery, neuroscientist and TED Fellow Carl Schoonover shows the tools that let us see inside our brains.
https://www.ted.com/talks/carl_schoonover_how_to_look_inside_the_brain

Hadyn Parry: Re-engineering mosquitos to fight disease

In a single year, there are 200-300 million cases of malaria and 50-100 million cases of dengue fever worldwide. So: Why haven't we found a way to effectively kill mosquitos yet? Hadyn Parry presents a fascinating solution: genetically engineering male mosquitos to make them sterile, and releasing the insects into the wild, to cut down on diseas...
https://www.ted.com/talks/hadyn_parry_re_engineering_mosquitos_to_fight_disease
Previous|1|2|Next
TED

Programs & initiatives

  • TEDx
  • TED Fellows
  • TED Ed
  • TED Translators
  • TED Institute
  • The Audacious Project
  • TED@Work
  • TED Speakers Bureau
  • TED Courses

Ways to get TED

  • Podcasts
  • More ways to get TED

Follow TED

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • TED Blog

Our community

  • TED Speakers
  • TED Fellows
  • TED Translators
  • TEDx Organizers
  • TED Community

Want personalized recommendations?

Join TED Recommends and get the perfect ideas selected just for you.
Get started

Language Selector

TED.com translations are made possible by volunteer translators. Learn more about the Open Translation Project.

  • TED Talks Usage Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertising / Partnership
  • TED.com Terms of Use
  • Jobs
  • Press
  • Help
  • Membership

© TED Conferences, LLC. All rights reserved.