Every day, we are bombarded by attention grabbing headlines that promise miracle cures to all of our ailments -- often backed up by a "scientific study." But what are these studies, and how do we know if they are reliable? David H. Schwartz dissects two types of studies that scientists use, illuminating why you should always approach the claims ...

Health headlines are published every day, sometimes making opposite claims from each other. There can be a disconnect between broad, attention-grabbing headlines and the often specific, incremental results of the medical research they cover. So how can you avoid being misled by grabby headlines? Jeff Leek and Lucy McGowan explain how to read pas...

It's 1954. Vietnamese nationalists are on the verge of securing an independent Vietnam under communist leader Ho Chi Minh. U.S. President Eisenhower claims that by virtue of the "falling domino principle," communist control of Vietnam would lead to the global spread of authoritarian communist regimes. Can you spot the problem with this argument?...

It's 1950. Anti-communist sentiment in the United States is at an all-time high. Senator Joseph McCarthy claims he has a list of communists who are influencing government policy. He makes his first accusation without providing any legitimate evidence, yet the senate committee still schedules a hearing. Can you spot the problem with this hearing?...

In 1901, David Hänig published research that led to what we know today as the taste map: an illustration that divides the tongue into four separate areas. It has since been published in textbooks and newspapers. There is just one problem: the map is wrong. So how do misconceptions like this spread, and what makes a fake fact so easy to believe? ...

Your town is holding a mayoral election and the stakes have never been higher. You suspect one of the candidates will begin pushing false information to swing the election. As the cybersecurity expert, your job is to inoculate the townspeople against false information. First, you must learn the strategies of disinformation trolls. Claire Wardle ...

"To see and understand the countryside is a crucial part of moving towards a more livable future for everyone," says coder, artist and organizer Xiaowei R. Wang. They've observed that some of the most careful, thoughtful innovation is happening in the world's rural communities, like Chinese chicken farmers using biometrics tracking and blockchai...

Writer, artist and designer, theorist and community builder, Howard Rheingold is one of the driving minds behind our net-enabled, open, collaborative life.

Jackson Katz asks a very important question that gets at the root of why sexual abuse, rape and domestic abuse remain a problem: What's going on with men?

"The free, online, mainstream pornography that teenagers are most likely to see is a completely terrible form of sex education," says public health researcher Emily F. Rothman. She shares how her mission to end dating and sexual violence led her to create a pornography literacy program that helps teens learn about consent and respect -- and invi...

Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll overcame poverty, illiteracy, incarceration and a lack of outside support to become a stock investor, creator and teacher of his own financial literacy philosophy.

Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of nearly twenty books, including the internationally acclaimed "The Ministry for the Future."

Apiorkor Seyiram Ashong-Abbey is a Ghanaian poet, writer, literary critic, media practitioner, activist and versatile creative of Ga-Daŋme and Ewe ancestry.

In some parts of the world, half of the women lack basic reading and writing skills. The reasons vary, but in many cases, literacy isn't valued by fathers, husbands, even mothers. Photographer and TED Fellow Laura Boushnak traveled to countries including Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia to highlight brave women -- schoolgirls, political activists, 60-ye...

Shameem Akhtar is a teacher working to empower girls in Sindh, a province in the southeast of Pakistan.

Many young people turn to pornography for information and advice. With this reality comes an opportunity: We can utilize it to start important conversations with them about sex and relationships, says public health researcher Emily Rothman. With pornography and teenagers, conventional wisdom suggests the two be kept as far apart as possible. Bu...

Former hippie, former jailbird, former aficionado of crack cocaine, Felix Dennis built one of the most successful privately owned magazine empires in the world.

After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.” In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask ki...

Howard Rheingold talks about the coming world of collaboration, participatory media and collective action -- and how Wikipedia is really an outgrowth of our natural human instinct to work as a group.

Each week, we collect sharp critique, thought-provoking questions or interesting insights in response to TED Talks. This week's haul includes thoughts on the late Rita Pierson's call to educational arms, a response to Peter Saul's thoughtful talk about dying, and personal feedback to Stella Young's argument that just because she's in a wheelchai...

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut -- and it may just change the way we see the world.

Andrew Marantz writes narrative journalism about politics, the internet and the way we understand our world.

Enough with online hate speech, sexual harassment and threats of violence against women and marginalized groups. It's time to take the global crisis of online abuse seriously. In this searching, powerful talk, Ashley Judd recounts her ongoing experience of being terrorized on social media for her unwavering activism and calls on citizens of the ...

In all of its formats, in all the ways we listen and watch, the media is extremely powerful in how it represents -- or underrepresents or misrepresents -- women. Unless we're prepared to change the way women are portrayed in the stories we tell, we're not prepared for real change. In Session 4 of TEDWomen 2016 at the Yerba Buena Center fo...

For anyone who has ever been inspired by a TED Talk… this is an insider’s guide to creating talks that are unforgettable. TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson, curator of TED Now in paperback Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to...

How is it possible that we landed on the moon before we figured out the anatomy of the clitoris? This is one of many questions artist Sophia Wallace poses in this thought-provoking talk about the complexity and misrepresentation of women's bodies and sexuality. Using her mixed-media installation "Cliteracy" as an example, she demonstrates how ar...

This week in the U.S., almost every flickering device will try to spoon-feed you some distressing news footage — and then help you wash it down with a double-liter of fizzy partisan punditry. What's the impact on your health and mindset? 3 ideas behind the week’s headlines. Source: “What to do when the news gets you down,” Wisconsin Public Ra...

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Visualizing Data, TED speakers shake up statistics with elegant, dynamic representations that make mountains of data comprehensible — and even exciting. Learn how to v...

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Cyber-Influence and Power, activists, academics and statesmen come together at TED to delve into new ideas about how power and influence come about in the digital age....

Is the world getting worse every day in every way, as some news media would have you believe? No. In fact, the most reliable data shows that in meaningful ways -- such as child mortality rate, literacy rate, human lifespan -- the world is actually, slowly and measurably, getting better. Hans Rosling dedicated the latter part of his distin...