Immerse yourself in the weirdly wonderful world of art made from unconventional materials.

Ink that conducts electricity; a window that turns from clear to opaque at the flip of a switch; a jelly that makes music. All this stuff exists, and Catarina Mota says: It's time to play with it. Mota leads us on a tour of surprising and cool new materials, and suggests that the way we'll figure out what they're good for is to experiment, tinke...

The Inventables guys, Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht, demo some amazing new materials and how we might use them. Look for squishy magnets, odor-detecting ink, "dry" liquid and a very surprising 10-foot pole.

The elements in the periodic table were created over billions of years and are rarely supplemented with new elements. Not for long. Sadasivan Shankar reveals that thanks to increasing computing power researchers are designing entirely new materials, one atom at a time, to have the specific properties needed for an infinite number of applications.

What would it take to reimagine the limits of architecture? Débora Mesa Molina offers some answers in this breathtaking, visual tour of her work, showing how structures can be made with overlooked materials and unconventional methods -- or even extracted from the guts of the earth. "The world around us is an infinite source of inspiration if we ...

The energy grid of the future demands a massive amount of materials: billions of solar panels, millions of wind turbines and more. Climate strategist Marielle Remillard reveals why there may be critical shortages ahead — and breaks down how this could also be the biggest business opportunity since the Industrial Revolution.

Fiorenzo Omenetto shares 20+ astonishing new uses for silk, one of nature's most elegant materials -- in transmitting light, improving sustainability, adding strength and making medical leaps and bounds. On stage, he shows a few intriguing items made of the versatile stuff.

What if we could use biology to restore our balance with nature without giving up modern creature comforts? Advocating for a new kind of environmentalism, scientist and entrepreneur Emily Leproust rethinks modern sustainability at the molecular level, using synthetic biology to create green alternatives. From lab-developed insulin and disease-re...

What if we could harness the power and value of all that we discard? Circular economy builder Garry Cooper presents a compelling vision for transforming cities into sustainable, circular economies, citing real-world examples of how repurposing materials from buildings to office furniture can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create ...

The coldest materials in the world aren't in Antarctica or at the top of Mount Everest. They're in physics labs: clouds of gases held just fractions of a degree above absolute zero. Lina Marieth Hoyos explains how temperatures this low give scientists a window into the inner workings of matter, and allow engineers to build incredibly sensitive i...

What do you get when you combine the strongest materials from the plant world with the most elastic ones from the insect kingdom? Super-performing materials that might transform ... everything. Nanobiotechnologist Oded Shoseyov walks us through examples of amazing materials found throughout nature, in everything from cat fleas to sequoia trees, ...

Kevin Surace suggests we rethink basic construction materials -- such as the familiar wallboard -- to reduce the huge carbon footprint generated by the manufacturing and construction of our buildings. He introduces EcoRock, a clean, recyclable and energy-efficient drywall created by his team at Serious Materials.

The founder of the Tinkering School, Gever Tulley likes to build things with kids.

These crafty talks will ignite passions, pique interests and introduce kids to the excitement of hands-on learning.

Your closet is likely full of all kinds of materials -- leather, cotton, nylon and polyester, to name a few -- that contribute to fashion's sustainability crisis. Biomaterials investigator Dan Widmaier explains how we could look to nature for sustainable replacements for these much-used materials and introduces a leather alternative made from mu...

TED Fellow Suzanne Lee is a fashion designer turned biofabrication pioneer who is nurturing a global community of innovators growing materials.

From the micro scale to the building scale, Neri Oxman imagines and creates structures and objects that are inspired, informed and engineered by, for and with nature.

Bastian Schaefer and a team of designers at Airbus have been imagining the high-concept future of the jet airlplane -- in a future with less fuel and more passengers.

"There are a lot of resources given by nature for free -- all we need is our sensitivity to see them and our creativity to use them," says architect Anna Heringer. Heringer uses low-tech materials like mud and bamboo to create structures from China to Switzerland, Bangladesh and beyond. Visit an awe-inspiring school, an elegant office and cozy s...

The world around us is mainly made of two things: nature and the materials that we extract from it. To fight climate change, we need to protect and regenerate nature and transform materials into low- or zero-carbon alternatives. Session 4 of the Countdown Global Launch, hosted by Prajakta Koli and Hannah Stocking, features Thomas Crowther, Ernes...

A serial entrepreneur and investor, Keith Schacht co-founded Inventables, a hothouse for innovation, and Mystery Science, the most widely used science curriculum in America.

Magda Sayeg uses handmade, eye-catching yarn bombs to shake up the way we see the world and make us notice things we hadn't seen before.

A fascination with clean lines, modern materials and tiny houses made Christopher C. Deam the perfect designer to rethink the Airstream trailer right down to its aluminum skin.

Most people look at cardboard tubes and see something fit for the recycling bin. But architect Shigeru Ban turns them into beautiful buildings.

Tom Shannon shows off his gravity-defying, otherworldly sculpture -- made of simple, earthly materials -- that floats and spins like planets on magnets and suspension wire. It's science-inspired art at its most heavenly.

Inventor Saul Griffith looks for elegant ways to make real things, from low-cost eyeglasses to a kite that tows boats. His latest projects include open-source inventions and elegant new ways to generate power.

What feels so good about getting your hands dirty and making something? The following talks speak to the art of craft.

A leading expert on sustainable materials, Andrew Dent has played an important part in creating a new generation of more sustainable products.

Siamak Hariri holds deep respect for the transformative potential of architecture, specializing in creating works of enduring value.

What would happen if we could generate power from our windowpanes? In this moving talk, entrepreneur Justin Hall-Tipping shows the materials that could make that possible, and how questioning our notion of 'normal' can lead to extraordinary breakthroughs.