Aris Venetikidis is fascinated by the maps we draw in our minds as we move around a city -- less like street maps, more like schematics or wiring diagrams, abstract images of relationships between places. How can we learn from these mental maps to make better real ones? As a test case, he remakes the notorious Dublin bus map.

It's the age of Big Data. But what, exactly, do we do with all this information? These talks explore practical, ethical -- and spectacularly visual -- ways to understand near-infinite data.

Physicist Brian Greene explains superstring theory, the idea that minscule strands of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions create every particle and force in the universe.

Physicists are used to the idea that subatomic particles behave according to the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics, completely different to human-scale objects. In a breakthrough experiment, Aaron O'Connell has blurred that distinction by creating an object that is visible to the unaided eye, but provably in two places at the same time. In this...

"Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it." In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance -- and limitations -- of your "working memory," that part of the brain that allows us to make sense of what's happ...

TED Talks that make sense of this brave, new, virtual world.

Good design looks great, yes -- but why shouldn't it also feel great, smell great and sound great? Designer Jinsop Lee (a TED Talent Search winner) shares his theory of 5-sense design, with a handy graph and a few examples. His hope: to inspire you to notice great multisensory experiences.

Artist and TED Fellow Aparna Rao re-imagines the familiar in surprising, often humorous ways. With her collaborator Soren Pors, Rao creates high-tech art installations -- a typewriter that sends emails, a camera that tracks you through the room only to make you invisible on screen -- that put a playful spin on ordinary objects and interactions.

How can we make AI that people actually want to interact with? Raphael Arar suggests we start by making art. He shares interactive projects that help AI explore complex ideas like nostalgia, intuition and conversation -- all working towards the goal of making our future technology just as much human as it is artificial.

Fun doesn’t stop at adulthood. Reconnect with your sense of wonder and imagination in these playful talks.

Our hyper-connected lives have been rewired for the digital age. These talks explore how the Internet and social media are shaping our relationships, personal lives and sense of self.

Abha Dawesar writes to make sense of the world -- herself included.

Do your kidneys have a sense of smell? Turns out, the same tiny scent detectors found in your nose are also found in some pretty unexpected places -- like your muscles, kidneys and even your lungs. In this quick talk (filled with weird facts), physiologist Jennifer Pluznick explains why they're there and what they do.

With his team at SENSEable City Lab, MIT's Carlo Ratti makes cool things by sensing the data we create. He pulls from passive data sets -- like the calls we make, the garbage we throw away -- to create surprising visualizations of city life. And he and his team create dazzling interactive environments from moving water and flying light, powered ...

How exactly does the brain -- a 3-pound snarl of nervous tissue -- create inspired inventions, the feeling of hunger, the experience of beauty, the sense of self? Researchers at the edge of science explain ...

Travel across the universe (or is it universes?) to see stunning images of Saturn's rings, hear haunting sounds from distant black holes and catch an infectious sense of wonder about galaxies far, far away.

South African investment banker Euvin Naidoo explains why investing in Africa can make great business sense.

As Dave Eggers says, "The best TED Talks make sense of complicated ideas and trends, and have an elegant simplicity to them. It’s plenty of time to get across a clear and bold idea.” Below, his notes on 4 great talks.

Most people are irritated by the buzzing of a fly's wings. But biologist Michael Dickinson views the sound with a deep sense of wonder.

Humanity's fine-tuned sense of fear served us well as a young species, giving us laser focus to avoid being eaten by competing beasts. But it's less wonderful when that same visceral, body-hijacking sense of fear kicks in in front of 20 folk-music fans at a Tuesday night open-mic. Palms sweat, hands shake, vision blurs, and the brain says RUN: i...

Every morning we wake up and regain consciousness -- that is a marvelous fact -- but what exactly is it that we regain? Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio uses this simple question to give us a glimpse into how our brains create our sense of self.

Katherine Kuchenbecker works on incorporating the sense of touch directly into virtual objects. Imagine being able to feel textures on your digital screens.

As humans, we can perceive less than a ten-trillionth of all light waves. "Our experience of reality," says neuroscientist David Eagleman, "is constrained by our biology." He wants to change that. His research into our brain processes has led him to create new interfaces -- such as a sensory vest -- to take in previously unseen information about...

Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web. With deep compassion for the human condition, his projects troll the Internet to find out what we're all feeling and looking for.

Dina Katabi investigates how AI can make wireless devices sense human motion and vital signs.

Jinsop Lee is an industrial designer who believes that great design appeals to all five senses.

With a rich voice and an equally rich sense of history, Rhiannon Giddens animates American folk tradition with her electrifying song interpretations.

Felice Belle consumes and creates stories to make sense of the world and her place in it. She spends her free time solving fictional crimes.

Fascinating and perspective-shifting, these talks demonstrate the ways the 5 senses are being used to build new windows into how we see the world and interact with our surroundings.

Armed with a sense of humor and laypeople's terms, Nobel winner Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge on TEDsters about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones?