A war zone can pass for a mostly peaceful place when no one is watching, says investigative journalist and TED Fellow Anjan Sundaram. In this short, incisive talk, he takes us inside the conflict in the Central African Republic, where he saw the methodical preparation for ethnic cleansing, and shares a lesson about why it's important to bear wit...

As an experienced police investigator, Rabiaa El Garani has been deployed to many regions around the globe to investigate sexual and gender-based violence.

Zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa. For three centuries, African people were enslaved and brought to the Caribbean Islands. There, a religion known as vodou developed, along with the belief that a person's soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less zombie. Christopher M. Moreman unco...

On the morning of TED2017's first day, our TED Fellows continue to blow minds in session 2 of the TED Fellows Talks -- including a science demo featuring carnivorous plants, some gorgeous cultural mashups, and an introduction to the fish who won evolution. Do plants have brains? Well, no, but they’re certainly not dumb. And, in the case o...

Severine Autesserre studies the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is in the middle of the deadliest conflict since World War II; it's been called "the largest ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world.” The conflict seems hopelessly, unsolvably large. But her insight from decades of listening and engaging: The conflicts are often locally based....

The security of Western democracies depends on our welcoming displaced people, not deporting or demonizing them, says refugee advocate David Miliband. Crisis is an overused word, but the massive forced displacement we see today, the sheer number of people driven from their homes by war or oppression, deserves that description. This is a global ...

Freeman Hrabowski was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama, when he heard a dynamic, impassioned speaker at church -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time, King was organizing a march for children, and Hrabowski begged his parents to let him be a part of it. Hrabowski won their blessing to march in the Children’s Crusade, a pivotal moment i...

TED Fellow Saeed Taji Farouky's first feature film, The Runner, documents the life of an activist and runner from Western Sahara, shedding light on the little-known conflict in the region. As the film makes its world premiere July 13 at the Galway Film Festival, Taji Farouky tells us how this documentary came to be, and speaks of his vision f...

Charmian Gooch, co-founder of anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, tracks money to expose deep-rooted global corruption. In yesterday's talk, Gooch demonstrates that dirty money goes all the way to the top, and more sinister is that these cases of corruption are well-known to leaders and corporate elites. Nobody -- banks, big oil, government ...

Books can entertain, sucking you like a tornado into incredible new worlds. Books can teach, giving you a richer understanding of time periods, people and ideas you’ve never been exposed to. But books can do so much more. In today’s talk, TED's own Lisa Bu introduces us to the concept of “comparative reading,” the practice of reading book...

The world needs clean power, but decarbonization calls for a massive increase in the mining and extraction of minerals like lithium, graphite and cobalt. Environmental peacemaking expert Olivia Lazard sheds light on the scramble for these precious mineral resources -- and how the countries that control their supply chains (including China and Ru...

"We are living in a world that is tantalizingly close to ensuring that no one need die of hunger or malaria or diarrhea," says economist Michael Green. To help spur progress, back in 2015 the United Nations drew up a set of 17 goals around important factors like health, education and equality. In this data-packed talk, Green shares his analysis ...

Can we end hunger and poverty, halt climate change and achieve gender equality in the next 15 years? The governments of the world think we can. Meeting at the UN in September 2015, they agreed to a new set of Global Goals for the development of the world to 2030. Social progress expert Michael Green invites us to imagine how these goals and thei...

At TEDxCambridge, Michael Norton shares fascinating research on how money can indeed buy happiness -- when you don't spend it on yourself. Listen for surprising data on the many ways pro-social spending can benefit you, your work, and (of course) other people.

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, physicist Neil Turok speaks out for talented young Africans starved of opportunity: by unlocking and nurturing the continent's creative potential, we can create a change in Africa's future.

When the son of the president of a desperately poor country starts buying mansions and sportscars on an official monthly salary of $7,000, Charmian Gooch suggests, corruption is probably somewhere in the picture. In a blistering, eye-opening talk (with several specific examples), she details how global corruption trackers follow the money -- to ...

Your teeth carry secrets: centuries of history about your ancestors, from where they lived to what they ate and where they traveled. Bioarchaeologist Carolyn Freiwald traces the story of human migration across the Americas -- from Mayan royalty and Belizean buccaneers to rural Appalachian farmers -- to illustrate what ancient teeth can reveal ab...

Concerned about the war Ukraine? You're not alone. Historian Yuval Noah Harari provides important context on the Russian invasion, including Ukraine's long history of resistance, the specter of nuclear war and his view of why, even if Putin wins all the military battles, he's already lost the war. (This conversation, hosted by TED global curator...