New research looks into how snow falls on Mars, and scientists have been looking into other things falling from the sky onto planets: diamonds!

If you want to build a business that lasts, there may be no better place to look for inspiration than your own immune system. Join strategist Martin Reeves as he shares startling statistics about shrinking corporate life spans and...

Paul Andersen reflects on Digital Aristotle, his trip to the YouTube Edu summit, and the future of education

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. A massive generation of young people is about to inherit the world, and it's the duty of everyone to give them a...

Tan Le's astonishing new computer interface reads its user's brainwaves, making it possible to control virtual objects, and even physical electronics, with mere thoughts (and a little concentration). She demos the headset, and talks...

In the mid-ninth century, Chinese chemists, hard at work on an immortality potion, instead invented gunpowder. They soon found that this highly inflammable powder was far from an elixir of life -- they put it to use in bombs against...

With her gorgeous, haunting photographs, artist uldus Bakhtiozina documents dreams, working with daily life as she imagines it could be. She creates everything in her work by hand -- from costumes to stages -- without digital...

Can you make a black hole out of light? Learn about the strange theoretical object called the 'Kugelblitz'.

A billion people in the world lack access to all-season roads. Could the structure of the internet provide a model for how to reach them? Andreas Raptopoulos of Matternet thinks so. He introduces a new type of transportation system that...

eL Seed fuses Arabic calligraphy with graffiti to paint colorful, swirling messages of hope and peace on buildings from Tunisia to Paris. The artist and TED Fellow shares the story of his most ambitious project yet: a mural painted...

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Credits (and Twitter...

In the late 1970s, two physicists in Switzerland set out to invent a new type of microscope using quantum physics that would allow them to do something no one had ever done before: see the individual atoms in a sheet of metal.

Here's a powerful provocation from artist Jae Rhim Lee. Can we commit our bodies to a cleaner, greener Earth, even after death? Naturally -- using a special burial suit seeded with pollution-gobbling mushrooms. Yes, this just might be...

Combining projection mapping and a pop-up book, Marco Tempest tells the visually arresting story of Nikola Tesla -- called "the greatest geek who ever lived" -- from his triumphant invention of alternating current to his penniless last...

Sugar alcohol sounds like a fun adult dessert, but what is it really?

Humanity is on its way to creating a "black ball": a technological breakthrough that could destroy us all, says philosopher Nick Bostrom. In this incisive, surprisingly light-hearted conversation with Head of TED Chris Anderson, Bostrom...

Inspired by cell division, Michael Hansmeyer writes algorithms that design outrageously fascinating shapes and forms with millions of facets. No person could draft them by hand, but they're buildable -- and they could revolutionize the...

The aptly named White Sands National Park is home to over 400 square kilometers of blindingly white sand. It's the culmination of a remarkable 250 million year process of sorting, transporting, and purifying gypsum to make a truly...

The brain of luchador Hanko wants to take on the worlds fastest supercomputer, "K," in a cage match for bragging rights - which one is the most impressive information processor?

How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it's trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: "charter cities," city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. (Could Guantánamo...

Former "young Republican" Larry Lessig talks about what Democrats can learn about copyright from their opposite party, considered more conservative. A surprising lens on remix culture.

Many of us have a social media presence -- a virtual personality made up of status updates, tweets and connections, stored in the cloud. Adam Ostrow asks a big question: What happens to that personality after you've died? Could it ......

Your favorite TV chef might have told you to make sure you sear your meat because that nice brown crust helps seal in the moisture, but is that actually how it works? Michael explains the science of your cook out.

People want to be religious, says scholar Karen Armstrong; we should help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help build a Charter for Compassion -- to restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious...