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We are saddened by the news that ocean photographer, filmmaker and storyteller Mike deGruy died yesterday in a helicopter crash in Australia. Mike was truly one of the great teachers and advocates for the oceans, as you can see in his TEDTalk, filmed aboard Mission Blue in 2010: In this talk, as in his photography [...]

The new feature “State of the X,” on the TEDx Tumblr, runs the numbers on TEDx and the great video coming from these worldwide independently produced events. To start — how many TEDx events happened in the past month? TEDx events by the numbers: January 77 TEDx events happened around the world 67 cities hosted one [...]

Late in January, Robin Ince tweeted: balls, 7 months too late I’ve just realised what i should have done my TED talk on So the TED Blog asked: What? And here is what he wrote: Every year I attempt to say yes to things that are out of my comfort zone. These are never physical [...]

Juliette LaMontagne’s Breaker offers millennials a unique, hands-on alternative learning opportunity — working on projects with serious social impact. Breaker teams take on such challenges as illiteracy and feeding the city, while gaining valuable real-world social entrepreneurship skills. Take us through the Breaker process — how does it work? Each three-month Breaker project convenes a [...]

Can students learn better by sharing what they know? TED Fellow Nina Tandon believes in the power of sharing ideas and using TED Talks in her classroom. In addition to that, she is now using the TED Conversation platform in the Bioelectricity course that she’s currently teaching at Cooper Union in New York City. After [...]

The best moments at TED have often come from unexpected places. But this year, we’re pushing that to an entirely new level. We’re staging a global talent search to bring together the most remarkable lineup in TED’s history. A series of public auditions in cities around the world will reveal voices, talents and ideas that [...]

Ten years ago, educator Sugata Mitra and his colleagues cracked open a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed a networked PC, and left it there for the local children to freely explore. What they quickly saw in their ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiment was that kids from one of [...]

In the 1970s, Diana Nyad set long-distance swim records that are still unbroken. Thirty years later, at 60, she attempted her longest swim yet, from Cuba to Florida. In this funny, powerful talk at TEDMED, she talks about how to prepare mentally to achieve an extreme dream, and asks: What will YOU do with your [...]

TEDx events — powered by passionate volunteer hosts and committed audience members — are hotbeds of innovation, and we’re constantly looking to them for what’s next in event planning, audience participation and outreach. Each month, the TEDx team picks 10 great event ideas bubbling up from the TEDx community, highlighting them in a newsletter and [...]

2012 may be the year of 3D printing, when this three-decade-old technology finally becomes accessible and even commonplace. Lisa Harouni gives a useful introduction to this fascinating way of making things — including intricate objects once impossible to create. (Recorded at TEDSalon London, November 2011, in London, UK. Duration: 14:50) Watch Lisa Harouni’s talk on TED.com, where [...]

What makes you, you? Is it how you think of yourself, how others think of you, or something else entirely? At TEDxYouth@Manchester, Julian Baggini draws from philosophy and neuroscience to give a surprising answer. (Recorded at TEDxYouth@Manchester, August 2011, in Miami Beach, Florida. Duration: 12:14) Watch Julian Baggini’s talk on TED.com, where you can download [...]

Algae plus salt water equals … fuel? At TEDxNASA@SiliconValley, Bilal Bomani reveals a self-sustaining ecosystem that produces biofuels — without wasting arable land or fresh water. (Recorded at TEDxNASA@SiliconValley, August 2011, in Miami Beach, Florida. Duration: 14:27) Watch Bilal Bomani’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find [...]

Yesterday, TED Fellow William Kamkwamba debuted an illustrated children’s version of his memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, co-written with Bryan Mealer and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon. Since its publication in 2009, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind has been printed in 17 editions internationally. For this Young Readers edition, for ages 6 and [...]

Scott Rickard set out to engineer the ugliest possible piece of music, devoid of any pattern, using a mathematical concept known as the Golomb ruler. At TEDxMIA, he shares the math behind musical beauty (and its opposite). (Recorded at TEDxMIA, September 2011, in Miami Beach, Florida. Duration: 9:46) Watch Scott Rickard’s talk on TED.com, where [...]

Agriculturalist and social entrepreneur Su Kahumbu created iCow, a mobile app that supports farmers caring for livestock. Soon it will become an information-delivery platform that could help generate a whole new crop of young farmers. What does iCow do? The iCow application essentially reminds small-scale dairy farmers in Kenya of important periods in gestation. This [...]

We all want customized experiences and products — but when faced with 700 options, consumers freeze up. With fascinating new research, Sheena Iyengar demonstrates how businesses (and others) can improve the experience of choosing. (Recorded at TEDSalon New York 2011, November 2011, in New York, NY. Duration: 16:05) Watch Sheena Iyengar’s talk on TED.com, where you can [...]

mfriess: Save the free Internet @rupertmurdoch @Sony @EA say no to #SOPA and #PIPA #wikipediablackout Pls RT http://t.co/cVnypsHS

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto — a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume. (Recorded at the TED offices, January 2012, in New York. Duration: 13:59) Watch Clay Shirky’s talk on [...]

Cybercrime expert Mikko Hypponen talks us through three types of online attack on our privacy and data — and only two are considered crimes. (Recorded at TEDxBrussels 2011, November 2011, in Brussels, Belgium. Duration: 9:23) Watch Mikko Hypponen’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances [...]

Today, several of our favorite websites are going dark or blacking out their homepages to raise awareness of two bills, in the US House and Senate, that threaten people’s ability to share on the web. In the past week, we’ve pondered what TED.com should be doing to help raise awareness of the PIPA and SOPA [...]