michael

You have 8 hours left to contribute to the Preamble of the Charter for Compassion. Tonight at midnight EST, writing begins on the next phase: the Affirmations. In the Affirmations section of the Charter, you can contribute by writing...

Zambia-born filmmaker Franco Sacchi tours us through Nollywood, Nigeria's booming film industry (said to be the world's 3rd largest). Listen for stories of guerrilla filmmaking and brilliance under pressure from crews that can shoot a full-length feature in a week....

This past weekend, we added a captcha system to TED.com's "Send this user an email" feature. We're using reCaptcha, which harnesses the mighty power of captcha to help digitize old books and newspapers. Right now, reCaptcha is decoding texts from...

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi spins through a dizzying array of inspirations -- from '50s pinups to a fleeting glimpse of a hole in a shirt that makes him shout "Stop the cab!" What else keeps him creative and passionate about...

Futurist Stewart Brand works on the Clock of the Long Now, a timepiece that counts down the next 10,000 years. It's a beautiful project that asks us to think about the far, far future. Here, he discusses a tricky side...

A free press -- papers, magazines, radio, TV, blogs -- is the backbone of any true democracy (and a vital watchdog on business). Sasa Vucinic, a journalist from Belgrade, talks about his new media fund, which supports free media by...

By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world....

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy shares the thrill: This is incredible: For the first time, ever, astronomers have captured an optical image of a planet orbiting a star like our own. And that’s not all: we also have a second...

Via 37signals: Video of Jules, the robot who can make faces. Read more about Jules in the Daily Mail -- or just watch:...

Artist and comedian Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art -- by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size. Beyond the whimsy, of course, is...

From Google.org (headed by 2006 TED Prize winner Larry Brilliant) comes this neat data display: Google Flu Trends. The project came about after some Google search engineers wondered if, in communities where more people searched on the term "flu,"...

At Serious Play 2008, Charles Elachi shares stories from NASA's legendary Jet Propulsion Lab -- including tales and video from the Mars Rover project. (Recorded May 2008 in Pasadena, California. Duration: 28:17.) Watch Charles Elachi's talk from Serious Play 2008...

Whatever else we believe in, most of us believe in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize, she wished for the Charter for Compassion, a document...

Political scientist Samantha Power tells the story of a complicated hero, Sergio Vieira de Mello. This UN diplomat walked a thin moral line, negotiating with the world's worst dictators to help their people survive crisis. It's a compelling story told...

Physicist Lee Smolin talks about how the scientific community works: as he puts it, "we fight and argue as hard as we can," but everyone accepts that the next generation of scientists will decide who's right. And, he says, that's...

Via LiveScience, this report: An astounding batch of new deep-sea discoveries, from strange shark behavior to gigantic bacteria, was announced today by an international group of 2,000 scientists from 82 nations. The Census of Marine Life is a 10-year...

Ushahidi is a crowdsourcing tool that lets ordinary people report the news via txt, email and the web -- a crucial thing in fast-developing crises when there's little mainstream media on the ground. Ushahidi was built in a few...

What's the science behind a sublime perfume? With charm and precision, biophysicist Luca Turin explains the molecular makeup -- and the art -- of a scent. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:53.) Watch Luca Turin's talk on TED.com,...

Looking for something to do with your spare energy post-Nov. 4? Find some inspiration in TEDTalks on: Social change, activism and fighting poverty >> Creativity and art >> Way-new education >> Suggest your own favorites in the comments below...

Update: I'm hearing more and more reports of RSS troubles during our Big Re-Upload -- for instance, for some people using Google Reader, which picks up on every change to a video asset. I apologize for the duplicate RSS listings...