With scissors and paper, artist Béatrice Coron creates intricate worlds, cities and countries, heavens and hells. Striding onstage in a glorious cape cut from Tyvek, she describes her creative process and the way her stories develop from snips and slices.

"I love paper, and I love technology," says physicist and former sheep herder Kate Stone, who's spent the past decade working to unite the two. Her experiments combine regular paper with conductive inks and tiny circuit boards to offer a unique, magical experience. To date, applications include a newspaper embedded with audio and video, posters ...

You use paper towels to dry your hands every day, but chances are, you're doing it wrong. In this enlightening and funny short talk, Joe Smith reveals the trick to perfect paper towel technique.

Can folding a piece of paper 45 times get you to the moon? By seeing what happens when folding just one piece of paper we see the unbelievable potential of exponential growth. This lesson will leave you wanting to grab a piece of paper to see how many times you can fold it! [Lesson by Adrian Paenza, directed by TED-Ed, narrated by Adrian Paenza].

Long before sustainability was a buzzword, architect Shigeru Ban was using ecologically sound building materials such as cardboard tubes. He uses them to build remarkable temporary structures for disaster-struck nations such as Haiti, Rwanda and Japan. Yet often, these buildings remain a beloved part of the landscape long after they have served ...

Want your local politician to pay attention to an issue you care about? Send a monthly handwritten letter, says former mayor Omar Ahmad -- it's more effective than email, phone, or even writing a check. He shares four steps to writing a letter that works.

Inventor Manu Prakash turns everyday materials into powerful scientific devices, from paper microscopes to a clever new mosquito tracker. From the TED Fellows stage, he demos Paperfuge, a hand-powered centrifuge inspired by a spinning toy that costs 20 cents to make and can do the work of a $1,000 machine, no electricity required.

Most of us want to do the right thing when it comes to the environment. But things aren’t as simple as opting for the paper bag, says sustainability strategist Leyla Acaroglu. A bold call for us to let go of tightly-held green myths and think bigger in order to create systems and products that ease strain on the planet.

Choreographer Aakash Odedra is dyslexic and has always felt that his best expression comes through movement. “Murmur” is his ode to that experience, teaming up with co-creators Lewis Major and Ars Electronica Futurelab. Watch him spin his way through the center of a storm, as pages of books take flight all around him.

Origami, which literally translates to "folding paper," is a Japanese practice dating back to at least the 17th century. In origami, a single, traditionally square sheet of paper can be transformed into almost any shape, purely by folding. The same simple concepts yield everything from a paper crane with about 20 steps, to a dragon with over 1,0...

Designing electronics is generally cumbersome and expensive -- or was, until Leah Buechley and her team at MIT developed tools to treat electronics just like paper and pen. In this talk from TEDYouth 2011, Buechley shows some of her charming designs, like a paper piano you can sketch and then play.

Perhaps you’ve punched out a paper doll or folded an origami swan? TED Fellow Manu Prakash and his team have created a microscope made of paper that's just as easy to fold and use. A sparkling demo that shows how this invention could revolutionize healthcare in developing countries … and turn almost anything into a fun, hands-on science experiment.

It's time to give paper passports a digital upgrade, says entrepreneur Karoli Hindriks. Looking to Estonia's technology-driven government for inspiration, she envisions a world where immigration is no longer hindered by bureaucracy and needless repetition. Travel with her to a future beyond borders where universal digital passports replace paper...

You've filled up your cart and made it to the front of the grocery line when you're confronted with yet another choice: what kind of bag should you use? It might seem obvious that plastic is bad for the environment, and that a paper bag or a cotton tote would be the better option. But is that really true? Luka Seamus Wright and Imogen Ellen Napp...

When you think about Einstein and physics, E=mc^2 is probably the first thing that comes to mind. But one of his greatest contributions to the field actually came in the form of an odd philosophical footnote in a 1935 paper he co-wrote — which ended up being wrong. Chad Orzel details Einstein's "EPR" paper and its insights on the strange phenome...

Watch a selection of the best talks from the first season of TED Talks India: Nayi Soch. A brand new TED Talks series in Hindi hosted by Shah Rukh Khan.

Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways today's print dictionary is poised for transformation.

Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day.

Enjoy these talks on two-dimensional art that can give joy, color and surprising honesty to our three-dimensional lives.

Vik Muniz makes art from pretty much anything, be it shredded paper, wire, clouds or diamonds. Here he describes the thinking behind his work and takes us on a tour of his incredible images.

Please enjoy these talks that I hope capture your heart as they did mine. If you love them, then please see and explore more with TED Talks India.

Lakshmi Pratury remembers the lost art of letter-writing and shares a series of notes her father wrote to her before he died. Her short but heartfelt talk may inspire you to set pen to paper, too.

Why create? Artists and designers share their work, their process and their vision in these deeply personal -- and often hilarious -- talks.

Author and illustrator Maira Kalman talks about her life and work, from her covers for The New Yorker to her books for children and grown-ups. She is as wonderful, as wise and as deliciously off-kilter in person as she is on paper.

Humans rely on water for virtually all our activities, from growing food and sanitation to making materials like steel, cement and paper. But clean water sources worldwide are disappearing due to overuse, pollution and climate change, says molecular engineer Seth Darling. He shares game-changing new technologies that could help protect this prec...

TED Resident Fawn Qiu designs fun, low-cost projects that use familiar materials like paper and fabric to introduce engineering to kids. In this quick, clever talk, she shares how nontraditional workshops like hers can change the perception of technology and inspire students to participate in creating it.

At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.

Insightful talks that can help improve political debate so that we can build toward a better society.

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

As political turmoil in Yemen continues, the editor of the Yemen Times, Nadia Al-Sakkaf, talks at TEDGlobal with host Pat Mitchell. Al-Sakkaf's independent, English-language paper is vital for sharing news -- and for sharing a new vision of Yemen and of that country's women as equal partners in work and change.