I wish that you would empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company. The plan Are we alone in the universe? It’s one of the most basic questions of our existence. Since 1959, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has used the tools of astronomy to search for signs of technolog...

Deep in our solar system, a new era of exploration is unfolding. Beneath the thick ice of Europa; in the vapor plumes on Enceladus; and within the methane lakes of Titan, scientists are hunting for extraterrestrial life. These moons are 'ocean worlds'— they contain liquid oceans, which can support the formation of life. Does life exist on ocean ...

To determine how life might persist on Mars, Nathalie Cabrol explores one of Earth’s most extreme environments: high-elevation Andean lakes and deserts.

SETI researcher Seth Shostak bets that we will find extraterrestrial life in the next twenty-four years, or he'll buy you a cup of coffee. He explains why new technologies and the laws of probability make the breakthrough so likely -- and predicts how the discovery of civilizations far more advanced than ours might affect us here on Earth.

Tabetha Boyajian is best known for her research on KIC 8462852, a puzzling celestial body that has inspired otherwise sober scientists to brainstorm outlandish hypotheses.

We're in the dawn of a new space revolution, says engineer Peter Beck: the revolution of the small. In a talk packed with insights into the state of the space industry, Beck shares his work building rockets capable of delivering small payloads to space rapidly and reliably -- helping us search for extraterrestrial life, learn more about the sola...

TED Fellow Armando Azua-Bustos studies how microbial life has adapted to survive in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth.

Aomawa Shields studies the climate and habitability of planets outside of the Solar System.

SETI's Jill Tarter has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere. Winner of the 2009 TED Prize, almost all aspects of her field have been affected by her work.

Why have we not yet found proof of alien life? According to astrophysicist Avi Loeb, we simply haven't dedicated the proper resources. Diving into unidentified phenomena such as the Oumuamua asteroid, he explores his scientific search for extraterrestrial technology, envisioning a future where a higher interstellar intelligence helps us improve ...

NASA's Dragonfly -- a robotic rotorcraft-lander that's designed to hop across the surface of an extraterrestrial body -- is set to voyage deep into the solar system to explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in 2026. Planetary scientist Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle shares how studying this mysterious moon that's thought to resemble the early Earth coul...

Astrophysicist and TED Fellow Sarah Rugheimer searches for aliens -- but not the cartoony green kind. She's looking for extraterrestrial microbes by studying how these single-celled organisms emit gases, which could reveal evidence of them throughout the cosmos. Wondering if we're really alone in the universe, Rugheimer identifies two big hurdle...

Did you know that gold is extraterrestrial? Instead of arising from our planet's rocky crust, it was actually cooked up in space and is present on Earth because of cataclysmic stellar explosions called supernovae. CERN Scientist David Lunney outlines the incredible journey of gold from space to Earth. [Directed by Andrew Foerster, narrated by Ad...

The universe is incredibly old, astoundingly vast and populated by trillions of planets -- so where are all the aliens? Astronomer Stephen Webb has an explanation: we're alone in the universe. In a mind-expanding talk, he spells out the remarkable barriers a planet would need to clear in order to host an extraterrestrial civilization -- and make...

Today, Felisa Wolfe-Simon and scientists at NASA announced the discovery of a new form of bacteria that uses arsenic as part of its basic biology, something previously thought impossible. The bacteria appears to use the arsenic to replace phosphorous -- possibly even in its DNA. Phosphorous was considered to be essential for all life, and so if ...

About this event: This inspirational event will feature 12 Wayland High School and Middle School students speaking on a variety of topics ranging from race in a middle class suburb, to extroverts and introverts, micro-aggression, a transgender's perspective, extraterrestrial life, and more. The event will also feature 3 live musical performances. Members of th...

The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. A major upgrade for prosthetics. After nearly a decade in development, Dean Kamen’s prosthetic arm is finally nearing its commercial launch two years after its approval by the FDA. Developed for wounded soldiers at the behest of the United States D...

How many detectable alien civilizations are out there in our galaxy? In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake developed an equation to estimate the number. Now data journalist David McCandless, who gave the talk “The beauty of data visualization” at TEDGlobal 2010, has created an information graphic for the BBC calculating the Drake Equation -- with ...

Three years ago Jill Tarter wished that everyone would become citizen scientists, and help take part in the quest to find intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. At TED2012, astronomer Arfon Smith presented a new part of the wish. The Allen Telescope Array is looking for signals from extra terrestrial intelligence on radio frequencies, an...

Members of the TED community sure were busy this week. Below, some highlights: Legendary biologist E.O. Wilson has come out with a bold idea: that we set aside half of Planet Earth for wildlife. If we don’t, he warns, he sees us hurtling toward a “biological holocaust” that could send us the way of the dinosaurs. (Watch his TED Prize talk: ...

The theme of TED2018 is The Age of Amazement, and these speakers’ books are bursting with wonders of every kind: intellectual, scientific, urban, technological, economic, historical, aquatic, even extraterrestrial. TED2018, our biggest conference of the year, takes place April 10 through 14 in Vancouver. The talks from the conference will be re...

ReThinking with Adam Grant Sci-fi writer Andy Weir doesn't love writing April 4, 2023 [00:00:00] Adam Grant: Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to ReThinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new way...

The star attraction on the TEDx Blog this week: penguins. The site featured a post containing two moving TEDx Talks on the ooooh and ahhhh-worthy animals -- one on an epic mass rescue (above) and a second (below) on a brief but inspiring encounter. In these two talks you can see the informative and inspiring potential of a TEDx event, h...

As usual, the TED community is bursting with new projects and discoveries. Here are a few highlights. The power of representation. Writer and trans activist Tiq Milan, at left in the photo above, was interviewed for a new initiative by Netflix and GLAAD called “First Time I Saw Me.” Alongside Elliot Fletcher, Jamie Clayton, Jazz Jennings and ...

Astrophysicist and astronomer Seth Shostak made a daring bet in his 2012 TED Talk: We’ll find extraterrestrial life within 24 years or he’ll buy you a cup of coffee. This isn’t just wishful thinking -- technological advances over the past few decades have amplified the scope of space exploration monumentally, allowing us to search the stars ...

By creating tech that lets dolphins play computer games and request belly rubs, we can understand their intelligence and perhaps even get a preview of life on other planets, says marine mammal researcher Diana Reiss. In some ways, dolphins and humans aren’t so different. We’re both intelligent, social animals, and we both rely on complex vocal ...

Power drives everything. Whether it's political, economic, online -- power makes the rules and makes things move. At Session 2 of TED2019, we explore how different centers of global power are dramatically playing out across the world stage. The event: Talks and performances from TED2019, Session 2: Power, hosted by TED's Chris Anderson an...

Could there be intelligent life on other planets? This question has piqued imagination and curiosity for decades. Explore the answer with the Drake Equation -- a mathematical formula that calculates the possibility of undiscovered life. [Directed by Jeremiah Dickey, narrated by Jill Tarter].

Update: It worked! Thanks to the crowdfunding site SETIstars.org, the necessary $200,000 has been raised to get the Allan Telescope Array back online over the next few months. SETIstars.org will stay up to help contribute to ongoing costs of running the array. More details in this Nature Blog story >> [From August 2, 2011, 5:21pm] T...