What if we could better understand the world's biggest challenges simply by looking at a map? Jack Dangermond, a pioneer in geographic information system (GIS) technology that powers the digital maps people around the world use every...

Batteries are a triumph of science-they allow smartphones and other technologies to exist without anchoring us to an infernal tangle of power cables. Yet even the best batteries will diminish daily, slowly losing capacity until they...

Dan Bricklin changed the world forever when he codeveloped VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet and grandfather of programs you probably use every day like Microsoft excel and Google Sheets. Join the software engineer and computing...

Over-the-counter pregnancy tests give potentially life-changing results with a pretty high rate of accuracy. But how do they work? Tien Nguyen explains how each test performs a scientifically rigorous, multi-stage experiment that goes...

We’ve spent most of this series talking about computers. Which makes sense - this is Crash Course COMPUTER SCIENCE after all. But at their core computers are tools employed by humans and humans are pretty complicated. So today, we’re...

Design gives form to the future, says architect Bjarke Ingels. In this worldwide tour of his team's projects, journey to a waste-to-energy power plant (that doubles as an alpine ski slope) and the LEGO Home of the Brick in Denmark -- and...

TED Fellow and urban designer Mitchell Joachim presents his vision for sustainable, organic architecture: eco-friendly abodes grown from plants and -- wait for it -- meat.

Roboticist Auke Ijspeert designs biorobots, machines modeled after real animals that are capable of handling complex terrain and would appear at home in the pages of a sci-fi novel. The process of creating these robots leads to better...

Wouldn't it be nice if our transportation was as sleek as in The Jetsons or Futurama? Flying cars are cool, but what about a giant network of human-sized tubes that run through buildings and across entire cities? Well guess what? The...

From Pokémon, to fMRI, to the relationship between masculine norms and mental health, 2016 left us with some interesting psych news to ponder.

MOMA design curator Paola Antonelli previews the groundbreaking show Design and the Elastic Mind -- full of products and designs that reflect the way we think now.

How can architects build a new world of sustainable beauty? By learning from nature. Michael Pawlyn describes three habits of nature that could transform architecture and society: radical resource efficiency, closed loops, and drawing...

Every 12 years, a megacity springs up in India for the Kumbh Mela religious festival -- what's built in ten weeks is completely disassembled in one. What can we learn from this fully functioning, temporary settlement? In a visionary...

Genomics pioneer Craig Venter takes a break from his epic round-the-world expedition to talk about the millions of genes his team has discovered so far in its quest to map the ocean's biodiversity.

Greg Lynn talks about the mathematical roots of architecture -- and how calculus and digital tools allow modern designers to move beyond the traditional building forms. A glorious church in Queens (and a titanium tea set) illustrate his...

Tim Brown says the design profession has a bigger role to play than just creating nifty, fashionable little objects. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory "design thinking" -- starting with the example of...

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity -- and offers some stirring encouragement to make it...

Taking design cues from origami, robotician Jamie Paik and her team created "robogamis": folding robots made out super-thin materials that can reshape and transform themselves. In this talk and tech demo, Paik shows how robogamis could...

In her talk, Ali Carr-Chellman pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves, and lays out her bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their culture into the classroom, with new rules that let boys be boys, and video...

In this intimate talk filmed at TED's offices, energy innovator Amory Lovins shows how to get the US off oil and coal by 2050, $5 trillion cheaper, with no Act of Congress, led by business for profit. The key is integrating all four...

Fiorenzo Omenetto shares 20+ astonishing new uses for silk, one of nature's most elegant materials -- in transmitting light, improving sustainability, adding strength and making medical leaps and bounds. On stage, he shows a few...

In this epic overview, Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of classical music through the development of written notation, the record, and the re-mix.

Collector Ravin Agrawal delivers a glowing introduction to 10 of India's most exciting young contemporary artists. Working in a variety of media, each draws on their local culture for inspiration.

Hank and PhD candidate Casey Massena go deep into the chemistry of a molecule that Casey helped create! Then Jessi joins the show to show off Ecuador, one of her many conures!