michael

As Jacqueline Novogratz says in her 2005 TEDTalk: "You can't talk about poverty today without talking about malaria bednets." Yesterday, the Guardian UK reported on a massive new study of malaria prevention -- which found several alarming gaps in...

Louise Leakey asks, "Who are we?" The question takes her to the Rift Valley in Eastern Africa, where she digs for the evolutionary origins of humankind -- and suggests a stunning new vision of our competing ancestors. (Recorded February 2008...

Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity. It's "ubuntu," he says: the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity...

Positive psychologist Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- both as a developing field of study, and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a strict focus on curing mental disorders and dis-ease, what...

Four of the speakers that participated in the first TEDGLOBAL in Oxford (July 2005) have all published new books recently. Former Afghani minister and head of Kabul University Ashraf Ghani (watch his TEDtalk), together with Clare Lockhart, has penned...

Linking two TEDTalks fascinations -- language and fish -- is this report from today's Science. While studying midshipman fish that grunt and hum, two neurobiologists have found the basic brain wiring that, they think, evolved into human speech. It points...

First, magician Keith Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies -- in a trick that works via podcast too. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic. (Recorded...

Stew's brilliant musical Passing Strange closes this weekend on Broadway -- and Spike Lee will film the final Saturday shows. On July 19, cameras will follow the matinee and evening performance; the show will also be filmed later without...

Speaking at the most recent EG conference, author, philosopher, prankster and journalist A.J. Jacobs talks about the year he spent living biblically -- following the rules in the Bible as literally as possible. (Recorded December 2007 in Los Angeles, California....

A tip from TED's video editor, Marla Mitchnick: Woody Allen talking with Billy Graham in this priceless interview from the '60s. And here's Part Two >> As one commenter says: This is utterly fascinating. I bet each left the interview...

Reverend Billy Graham marvels at technology's power to improve lives and change the world -- but says the end of evil, suffering and death will come only after the world accepts Jesus. (Recorded February 1998 in Monterey, California. Duration: 26:20.)...

Today, Edge 250 publishes a new short story by science historian George Dyson. A born storyteller (watch his TEDTalks on Project Orion and the earliest digital computers), he uses the short story as a persuasive tool -- or so Stewart...

If you were inspired by Neil Gershenfeld's TEDTalk on the FabLab -- where you can build just about anything you can dream of -- read on: Larry Sass, from MIT's department of architecture, is leading a team that's building a...

To reach Edward O. Wilson’s office on the Harvard campus, one must first push through a door with a sign warning the public not to enter. Then, enter a creaky old elevator and press two buttons simultaneously. This counterintuitive procedure...

Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for the lack of it? To learn more about our very real, very physical need for romantic love, Helen Fisher and her research team took...

Physicist Freeman Dyson suggests that we start looking for life on the moons of Jupiter and out past Neptune, in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. He talks about what such life would be like -- and how we...

Listen to a 22-minute audio interview with TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong, as she talks with Joan Brown Campbell: As part of her recent TED Prize, she is in the midst of writing a Charter of Compassion in a...

From the TED Prize blog: More AIMS Student Talks: Be inspired by the stories of current and former AIMS students -- young Africans whose lives have been changed through access to a top-notch scientific education at the African Institute for...

Link fixed: The wonderful Nellie McKay sings "Mother of Pearl" (with the immortal first line "Feminists don't have a sense of humor") and "If I Had You" from her sparkling set at TED2008. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration:...

Nine days before TED2008, filmmaker David Hoffman lost almost everything he owned in a fire that destroyed his home, office, and 30 years of passionate collecting. He looks back at a life that's been wiped clean in an instant --...