Smuggling yourself aboard the rogue submarine was the easy part. Hacking into the nuclear missile launch override — a little harder. And you've got a problem: you don't have the override code. You know you need the same numbers that were used to authorize the launch, but one wrong answer will lock you out. Can you figure out what numbers to ente...

John Delaney leads the team that is building a cabled network of deep-ocean sensors that will study, over time and space, the way the ocean's complex processes interact. By networking the ocean to gather data, he's helping to revolutionize ocean science.

For his new book, "Tubes," Andrew Blum visited the places where the internet exists in physical form: the cables and switches and servers that virtually connect us.

Filmmaker Mounia Akl's work explores our relationship to home in a world that can feel toxic and unsafe.

In 2019, Victor Vescovo could become the first person to have climbed to the highest point of all the world's continents as well as descended to the deepest reaches of all its oceans, including the Challenger Deep.

Forget aerial drones. Underwater drones are where the action's at, at least according to OpenROV founder and TED Fellow David Lang. Imagine climbing into the cockpit of your own personal submarine, zooming and diving through the depths of the ocean and exploring otherwise-unreachable underwater worlds -- all without needing to know how to swim....

Dr. Laura Robinson's scientific mission is to document and understand the processes that govern climate.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Admiral James Stavridis is the Supreme Commander of NATO. He is a proponent of what he calls open-source security. He is looking at 21st century security in a very different way than we've looked at security before. From walls to bridges Looking back to the security paradigm of the recent past, he shows ...

Watching more than seventy live, perspective-changing TED Talks back to back for five days straight is nothing to scoff at. Let's be honest: Your brain gets tired. That's why TED's curators program each session with short video breaks to give the mind a rest before the next set of talks. Funny, inspiring, silly, beautiful, here's all the videos ...

Deborah Gordon studies ants and the way they form networks to get things done. Like nodes on the internet, individual ants organize into large, complex systems by passing simple signals back and forth. We’re encouraged to call this the “Anternet,” and Gordon and her collaborators are thinking in terms of network theory -- studying how ants creat...

This week, we've launched a new blog: TEDx Innovations. It's a space for TEDx organizers to share their passion and ingenuity, to reveal the things they're trying at their events and the ways they're evolving this global platform before our eyes. Bookmark it and look for lots more to come. Mastering the physics behind sailing in the Bosto...

Simon Sinek leads off his TED Talk, and his new book, with a moving story about a US military commander who loves his troops. It's among several TED Talks featuring lessons in leadership from the military. But when civilians are asked to draw such lessons from military leaders, let’s agree: It’s complicated. A few thing we don't have in commo...

"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." This is the mantra of leadership expert Simon Sinek in one of the most popular TED Talks of all time (Watch: Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action). In his talk from TEDxPugetSound, Sinek looks at Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers -- and examines why they were so...

After watching the collection of talks on The Deep Ocean, read a thoughtful recap of the major points in this TED Study, and learn where experts believe things are headed. Where next? TED speaker Robert Ballard and many other scientists and ocean explorers find it remarkable that we're expending so much effort to explore outer space when we have...

Tucked into the northeast corner of the Vancouver Convention Centre, a podium was set up for the duration of TED2015. A small camera captured what happened behind it, with a panorama of Vancouver’s mountains and harbor in the distance, complete with sea planes skimming across the water. From this vantage point, classrooms around the world...

As anyone who’s ever recovered from an injury knows, physical therapy can be painful, boring and slow. TED Fellow Cosmin Mihaiu is out to change that with MIRA, software that disguises physical therapy exercises as fun-to-play videogames. Here’s how it works. Unlikely -- fun! -- physical therapy. “Traditionally, a patient doing physical therapy...

To close out day 3 of TED2019, we imagine different versions of the future -- from the magical possibilities of deep-sea exploration to the dark future of humanity if something goes horribly wrong. Gulp. The event: Talks and performances from TED2019, Session 7: Possibility, hosted by TED's Helen Walters and Kelly Stoetzel When and whe...

You don’t. And you’re also steering the focus away from someone who probably just wants to be heard. Here’s how to be a more considerate conversation partner, says radio host and writer Celeste Headlee. A good friend of mine lost her dad some years back. I found her sitting alone outside our workplace, just staring at the horizon. She was absol...

Written by the educators who created The Deep Ocean, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material. How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean. Arthur C. Clarke Planet Ocean In the late 1960s,...

There’s something so cool about finding a new podcast to love -- each little download opens a door to new ideas, new jokes, new ways of seeing the world. Working at TED, as you might guess, many of us have strong opinions about this. Beyond the podcasts we all love: This American Life, Radiolab, The Moth, Serial, and of course our own TED Ra...

Enjoy these fascinating reads from across the internet: This weekend, a New York Times cover story revealed how drug cartels are crafting “diesel-powered submarines that would be the envy of all but a few nations.” It’s a fact that Navy Admiral James Stavridis shared with us at TEDGlobal 2012, in his talk “A Navy Admiral’s Thoughts on Gl...

Adventurer

In the deepest, darkest parts of the oceans are ecosystems with more diversity than a tropical rainforest. Taking us on a voyage into the ocean -- from the deepest trenches to the remains of Titanic -- marine biologist David Gallo explores the wonder and beauty of marine life.

Victor Vescovo is leading the first-ever manned expedition to the deepest point of each of the world's five oceans. In conversation with TED science curator David Biello, Vescovo discusses the technology that's powering the explorations -- a titanium submersible designed to withstand extraordinary conditions -- and shows footage of a never-befor...

Sound design is built on deception -- when you watch a movie or TV show, nearly all of the sounds you hear are fake. In this audio-rich talk, Tasos Frantzolas explores the role of sound in storytelling and demonstrates just how easily our brains are fooled by what we hear.

When we ditch our assumptions, new ideas can enter the world, says filmmaker Zach King. In an entertaining talk full of props and surprises, King shows us the trick to regaining our sense of childlike wonder through the power of storytelling -- and a bit of magic.

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mindbending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, even new mountains. He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Google Ocean, anyone?

Just a few meters below the waves, marine biologist and explorer-photographer David Gruber discovered something amazing -- a surprising new range of sea creatures that glow in many colors in the ocean's dim blue light. Join his journey in search of biofluorescent sharks, seahorses, sea turtles and more, and learn how these light-up creatures cou...

Africa needs new energy sources to fuel its development, but the continent should invest in renewable energy instead of cheap, polluting alternatives like coal, says climate inclusion activist Chibeze Ezekiel. He tells the story of how he worked with local communities in Ghana to halt the construction of the country's first coal power plant -- a...