Stewart Brand works on the Clock of the Long Now, a timepiece that counts down the next 10,000 years. It's a beautiful project that asks us to think about the far, far future. Here, he discusses a tricky side problem with the Clock: Where can we put it?

For all those days you've ever checked the clock and thought, "Where did the last hour go?" These talks share helpful hacks for stealing back a few seconds, minutes or even hours from your busy workday.

About this ad: Do you know what your marketing is doing? Are you sure? This hilarious spot from Adobe shows us what can go wrong when we're not paying attention to analytics.

In today's world, balancing school, work, kids and more, most of us can only hope for the recommended eight hours of sleep. Examining the science behind our body's internal clock, Jessa Gamble reveals the surprising and substantial program of rest we should be observing.

Physicist Steven Cowley is certain that nuclear fusion is the only truly sustainable solution to the fuel crisis. He explains why fusion will work -- and details the projects that he and many others have devoted their lives to, working against the clock to create a new source of energy.

Tuna are ocean athletes -- fast, far-ranging predators whose habits we're just beginning to understand. Marine biologist Barbara Block fits tuna with tracking tags (complete with transponders) that record unprecedented amounts of data about these gorgeous, threatened fish and the ocean habitats they move through.

Doesn't it seem like a lot of online news sites have moved beyond reporting the news to openly inciting your outrage (and your page views)? News analyst Sally Kohn suggests — don't engage with news that looks like it just wants to make you mad. Instead, give your precious clicks to the news sites you truly trust.

Two-thirds of the world may not have access to the latest smartphone, but local electronic shops are adept at fixing older tech using low-cost parts. Vinay Venkatraman explains his work in "technology crafts," through which a mobile phone, a lunchbox and a flashlight can become a digital projector for a village school, or an alarm clock and a m...

Jessa Gamble writes about sleep and time, showing how our internal body clock struggles against our always-on global culture.

In October 2017, astrobiologist Karen J. Meech got the call every astronomer waits for: NASA had spotted the very first visitor from another star system. The interstellar comet -- a half-mile-long object eventually named `Oumuamua, from the Hawaiian for "scout" or "messenger" -- raised intriguing questions: Was it a chunk of rocky debris from a ...

Designer Max Schmidt’s Breathing Clock is a fascinating object. It doesn’t have hands -- rather it inflates and deflates to show the progression of time. Schmidt tells PSFK that it’s an homage to the idea that time is relative. This invention reminds us of Scott Thrift, who spoke at last year’s TED@NYC about his seasonal clock. “I feel like e...

Mary Bassett is fighting what may be the greatest stumbling block to equitable health care in the US: institutional racism.

Paul Gilding is an independent writer, activist and adviser on a sustainable economy. Click through to watch the onstage debate that followed this talk.

Barbara Block studies how tuna, billfish and sharks move around (and stay warm) in the open ocean. Knowing how these large predators travel through pelagic waters will help us understand their role in the wider ocean ecosystem.

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 ...

After years of research on touch-driven computer displays, Jeff Han has created a simple, multi-touch, multi-user screen interface that just might herald the end of the point-and-click era.

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...

We spend about a third of our lives asleep -- a figure that may make all that time spent in bed seem like a waste. But according to neuroscientist Russell Foster, it is quite the opposite. In today’s talk, given at TEDGlobal 2013, Foster explores why we sleep, a question which no one has been able to definitively answer. We know that it is vi...

Jinsop Lee is here at TED to ask a very important question: Why is sex so damn good? The audience laughs, but the playful designer is making a serious point. Great sex, and great design, is about the five senses and how and when we use them. Lee tells us the story of a university challenge to create a clock. Lee's design involved a sunflo...

In talking to our readers and speakers, a fascinating fact emerged: At least two people, two different people, have tattoos inspired by a TEDTalk. The same TEDTalk: Rives' "Mockingbird" remix of TED2006. There must be more. So, a pledge: For every TED-inspired tattoo we hear about, I have promised to donate $1 to the Kickstarter campaign ...

About this event: Time is running, the clock moves faster and faster as we live in a society where both economy and technology grow in parallel lines. As long as we keep up with this concept and we adapt our lifestyles to upcoming economical management methods, it no longer looks like a defiant future… It is more like a new world of opportunities. Who says that ...

About this event: Shaping the future requires a vision that drives creative action to ensure that tomorrow is not just a mere repetition of history. This University event will feature 12 speakers who would speak for 12 minutes each. A speech for every month in the year, a speech for every hour on your clock and a speech for every zodiac sign that enlivens your s...

About this event: We all have the potential to accomplish incredible things. And a lot of us have big dreams. However, a lot of the time, we don’t reach far enough. We can’t see past our predefined stereotypes. Or our pre-existing misconceptions. Or the problems holding our society back as a whole that we refuse to address. The clock is ticking. It’s time for us...

Do you have a 5-year plan? A 10-year plan? Even if you’ve mapped out your life 20 years into the future, chances are that multidisciplinary artist Raghava KK has you beat. Giving a laugh-inducing talk at the TEDxSummit in Doha, Raghava explained that he and his wife, Nedra, have drawn up a life plan that covers the next two centuries. “Ou...

These weird-looking, isolated aquatic creatures probably won’t star in a Pixar film anytime soon, but by studying them, we can learn about our planet’s past and its future, says evolutionary biologist and ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty. During the Age of Enlightenment’s scientific revolution, naturalists went out into the world in large num...

About this event: After work - about time! New year, new goals – same struggle with time management. But what if we could look at time in a new way? Join us for an inspiring head start of 2017 at Scandic Malmen! As we can’t wait for the Salon Season to kick off for real, we’ll warm up with a more casual After Work. Similarly to the Salon events, we’ll gather a...

Australian researcher Mark Cook is testing an experimental tool that could take the fear out of epilepsy -- both for patients and for the rest of the world. Imagine never knowing when and where you might black out. Maybe it could happen when you’re on the stairs or a busy street, or while traveling, working out, bathing. For people with epileps...

Russell Foster studies sleep and its role in our lives, examining how our perception of light influences our sleep-wake rhythms.

"Time is highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will stretch to accommodate what we need or want to put into it," says author Laura Vanderkam. Vanderkam studies how very busy women spend their lives. For her recent book, I Know How She Does It, Vanderkam asked 143 women to meticulously log their days, hour by hour, for a week ...

About this event: For the second year, we will host a TEDx Open Mic at the September Salon. The TEDxGreenville Drop the Mic will give potential speakers the chance to secure a spot at the main TEDxGreenville conference in April 2018. Here is how it works. Complete the nomination form below. We will compile the nominations and select 10-12 people to present their...