Standing up to discrimination and hate should be everyone's business, says community activist Wale Elegbede. In this vital talk, he shares how his community in La Crosse, Wisconsin came together to form an interfaith group in response to...

Hans Rosling reframes 10 years of UN data with his spectacular visuals, lighting up an astonishing -- and under-reported -- piece of front-page good news: We're winning the war against child death. Along the way, he debunks one flawed...

I bet you've heard about the birth order cliche: The oldest child is responsible, the middle one is a rebel, and the youngest is spoiled. This stereotype might apply to you and your siblings, but is it universal?

Can two people who make the same bad decision bear different levels of moral responsibility? Today, we try to address this question with the concept of moral luck. Hank explains the difference between moral and causal responsibility, and...

Temper tantrums are more complex than just a toddler's unbridled rage. And recent research into what toddlers are thinking and feeling can help us better support kids’ healthy development!

Paul Andersen explains important concepts that can not be explained by simple Mendelian genetics. He begins with a discussion of polygenic inheritance and uses a simulation on height to show how a bell shape curve of phenotypes is...

For the past 70 years, scientists in Britain have been studying thousands of children through their lives to find out why some end up happy and healthy while others struggle. It's the longest-running study of human development in the...

We’re picking up where we left off last time, exploring the “ethics of care” and how it applies to extreme poverty. Are we responding to global poverty in a moral way? Philosophers like Peter Singer argue that we have an obligation to...

In a talk about understanding and practicing the art of healthy relationships, Katie Hood reveals the five signs you might be in an unhealthy relationship -- with a romantic partner, a friend, a family member -- and shares the things you...

The parenting section of the bookstore is overwhelming -- it's "a giant, candy-colored monument to our collective panic," as writer Jennifer Senior puts it. Why is parenthood filled with so much anxiety? Because the goal of modern,...

"Co-parenting" isn't a buzzword -- it's a way of showing up for your family openly, consistently and lovingly, says storyteller and father Joel Leon. In this moving talk, he challenges all parents to play an equal, active role in their...

It's obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier - like traveling or watching movies without subtitles. But are there other advantages to having a bilingual (or multilingual) brain? Mia Nacamulli details...

Parasitic worms date back thousands of years, causing diseases that limit human potential. But today, effective treatment against them requires just a few pills, taken once or twice a year. With 1.7 billion people at risk of infection,...

One of the ways that the US Constitution baked the institution of slavery into the very core of the new United States was through the fugitive slave clause. The clause required that people who escaped slavery be returned to their...

In this deeply charming and humorous talk, DJ and self-professed pirate Tom Nash meditates on how facing adversity due to disability invited patience, ambition and pragmatism into his life in enlightening, unexpected ways. "We all have...

The starving orphan seeking a second helping of gruel. The spinster wasting away in her tattered wedding dress. The stone-hearted miser plagued by the ghost of Christmas past. More than a century after his death, these remain...

Parents, take a deep breath: how your kids turn out isn't fully on you. Of course, parenting plays an important role in shaping who children become, but psychologist Yuko Munakata offers an alternative, research-backed reality that...

This week, we continue our look at various Pantheons, and Mike digs deep into the gods of the ancient Greeks. We're talking Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Artemis, Hephaestos, Ares, and Apollo. We're also talking Jupiter, Juno, Neptune,...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the world population has undergone exponential growth since the industrial revolution. Predicting the future world population is difficult because each country will grow at different rates. ...

How does our knowledge grow? It turns out there are some different ideas about that. Schemas, Four-Stage Theory of Cognitive Development, and Vygotsky's Theory of Scaffolding all play different roles but the basic idea is...

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, West Virginia -- and a shocking image of the sugar we eat -- TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

Artist Raghava KK demos his new children's book for iPad with a fun feature: when you shake it, the story -- and your perspective -- changes. In this charming short talk, he invites all of us to shake up our perspective a little bit.

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or...

The tale of the curious Elephant's Child and how it got the trunk all elephants have today.