TED Talks
Federica Bianco: How we use astrophysics to study earthbound problems
To study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists need to be experts at extracting simple solutions from large data sets. What else could they do with this expertise? In an interdisciplinary talk, TED Fellow and...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How pigeons took over the world | Elizabeth Carlen and Joanna Moles
Seeing their meat as a protein source and their poop as the perfect fertilizer, humans brought pigeons into captivity as far back as 10,000 years ago. As we carried pigeons around the world, they formed the wild urban flocks we're...
Crash Course
Int'l Commerce, Snorkeling Camels, and The Indian Ocean Trade: Crash Course World History
In which John Green teaches you the history of the Indian Ocean Trade. John weaves a tale of swashbuckling adventure, replete with trade in books, ivory, and timber. Along the way, John manages to cover advances in seafaring technology,...
TED Talks
TED: How Syria's architecture laid the foundation for brutal war | Marwa Al-Sabouni
What caused the war in Syria? Oppression, drought and religious differences all played key roles, but Marwa Al-Sabouni suggests another reason: architecture. Speaking to us over the Internet from Homs, where for the last six years she...
Crash Course
Elizabeth Key Crash Course Black American History
The legal system can seem like a complicated tangle of arcane rules and loopholes, and it can sometimes seem like it is designed to confuse. But it is possible, with the right application, for the legal system to rectify injustices....
TED Talks
Haas&Hahn: How painting can transform communities
Artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn create community art by painting entire neighborhoods, and involving those who live there -- from the favelas of Rio to the streets of North Philadelphia. What's made their projects succeed? In this...
TED Talks
Robert Neuwirth: The hidden world of shadow cities
Robert Neuwirth, author of "Shadow Cities," finds the world's squatter sites -- where a billion people now make their homes -- to be thriving centers of ingenuity and innovation. He takes us on a tour.
TED Talks
Daniele Quercia: Happy maps
Mapping apps help us find the fastest route to where we’re going. But what if we’d rather wander? Researcher Daniele Quercia demos “happy maps” that take into account not only the route you want to take, but how you want to feel along...
TED Talks
TED: The tech-forward rejuvenation of "underdog" cities | Irma L. Olguin Jr.
Computer skills aren't what's stopping people from breaking into the tech industry, says social entrepreneur Irma L. Olguin Jr. More often, the biggest hurdles are things like access to childcare, transportation and financial stability....
TED Talks
Will Wright: Spore, birth of a game
In a friendly, high-speed presentation, Will Wright demos his newest game, Spore, which promises to dazzle users even more than his previous masterpieces.
TED Talks
Teddy Cruz: How architectural innovations migrate across borders
As the world's cities undergo explosive growth, inequality is intensifying. Wealthy neighborhoods and impoverished slums grow side by side, the gap between them widening. In this eye-opening talk, architect Teddy Cruz asks us to rethink...
TED Talks
TED: Who belongs in a city? | OluTimehin Adegbeye
Underneath every shiny new megacity, there's often a story of communities displaced. In this moving, poetic talk, OluTimehin Adegbeye details how government land grabs are destroying the lives of thousands who live in the coastal...
TED Talks
Dean Kamen: To invent is to give
Inventor Dean Kamen lays out his argument for the Segway and offers a peek into his next big ideas (portable energy and water purification for developing countries).
TED Talks
TED: Buildings that blend nature and city | Jeanne Gang
A skyscraper that channels the breeze ... a building that creates community around a hearth ... Jeanne Gang uses architecture to build relationships. In this engaging tour of her work, Gang invites us into buildings large and small, from...
TED Talks
TED: Planet City -- a sci-fi vision of an astonishing regenerative future | Liam Young
Get transported on a stunningly rendered, sci-fi safari through Planet City: an imaginary metropolis of 10 billion people, from the brain of director and architect Liam Young. Explore the potential outcomes of an urban space designed to...
TED Talks
TED: Why good hackers make good citizens | Catherine Bracy
Hacking is about more than mischief-making or political subversion. As Catherine Bracy describes in this spirited talk, it can be just as much a force for good as it is for evil. She spins through some inspiring civically-minded projects...
SciShow
The Strange Scourge of Light Pollution
Light pollution -- it's not just the bane of light sleepers and frustrated astronomers. It also is tinkering with the biological cycles of all kinds of living things, including us! SciShow takes you behind the glare to understand the...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Real life sunken cities - Peter Campbell
Though people are most familiar with Plato's fictional Atlantis, many real underwater cities actually exist. Peter Campbell explains how sunken cities are studied by scientists to help us understand the lives of our ancestors, the...
TED Talks
TED: 4 ways to make a city more walkable | Jeff Speck
Freedom from cars, freedom from sprawl, freedom to walk your city! City planner Jeff Speck shares his "general theory of walkability" -- four planning principles to transform sprawling cities of six-lane highways and 600-foot blocks into...
TED Talks
Lord Nicholas Stern: The state of the climate — and what we might do about it
How can we begin to address the global, insidious problem of climate change — a problem that's too big for any one country to solve? Economist Nicholas Stern lays out a plan, presented to the UN's Climate Summit in 2014, showing how the...
TED Talks
Charles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the slums
Charles Leadbeater went looking for radical new forms of education -- and found them in the slums of Rio and Kibera, where some of the world's poorest kids are finding transformative new ways to learn. And this informal, disruptive new...
TED Talks
Bran Ferren: To create for the ages, let's combine art and engineering
When Bran Ferren was just 9, his parents took him to see the Pantheon in Rome — and it changed everything. In that moment, he began to understand how the tools of science and engineering become more powerful when combined with art, with...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do you decide where to go in a zombie apocalypse? - David Hunter
Can geography save your life in case of, say, a zombie apocalypse? Understanding the push and pull factors that create geographic movement -- or how people, resources, and even ideas travel -- might help you determine the location that's...
TED Talks
TED: uber's plan to get more people into fewer cars | Travis Kalanick
uber didn't start out with grand ambitions to cut congestion and pollution. But as the company took off, co-founder Travis Kalanick wondered if there was a way to get people using uber along the same routes to share rides, reducing costs...