It’s kind of a pain to get out of the pool just to use the bathroom, plus chlorine is a disinfectant so it is fine to pee in the pool, right? Well, it turns out that might give you some health issues.

How do you turn a memory, especially one of a traumatic event, into hard evidence of a crime? Julia Shaw is working on this challenge, combining tools from memory science and artificial intelligence to change how we report workplace...

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...

So political campaigns are a pretty big deal in the United States. For instance the 2012 presidential election clocked in at the most expensive ever - at around $6 billion dollars! Needless to say, money plays a very big role in...

Nobody likes going to the hospital, whether it's because of the logistical challenges of getting there, the astronomical costs of procedures or the alarming risks of complications like antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But what if we could...

What if every light bulb in the world could also transmit data? At TEDGlobal, Harald Haas demonstrates, for the first time, a device that could do exactly that. By flickering the light from a single LED, a change too quick for the human...

This week Craig talks about police searches and seizures. Now, the fourth amendment says that you have the right to be protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" but what exactly does this mean? Well, it's complicated. The...

Hank looks for some things science can add to the conversation about guns and gun violence in the wake of the tragedy last week in Newtown, Connecticut.

Our deepest sympathies are with the community of Sandy Hook, and with anyone...

Professionally diagnosing narcissistic personality disorder is difficult for psychologists, partially because anyone who might have it just thinks they’re great!

Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child? So she asked scientist Tyrone Hayes to brief her on one he studied closely: atrazine, a herbicide...

Technology architect Fadi Chehade helped set up the infrastructure that makes the internet work -- essential things like the domain name system and IP address standards. Today he's focused on finding ways for society to benefit from...

Ashraf Ghani's passionate and powerful 10-minute talk, emphasizing the necessity of both economic investment and design ingenuity to rebuild broken states, is followed by a conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson on the future of...

Get informed on the causes and risks of human papillomavirus, HPV, and how to protect yourself from the infection. -- At some point, most sexually active people will be infected with human papillomavirus, or HPV. There are over 100...

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 fund, which supports media by selling "free...

Cartoonist Jim Toomey created the comic strip Sherman's Lagoon, a wry look at underwater life starring Sherman the talking shark. As he sketches some of his favorite sea creatures live onstage, Toomey shares his love of the ocean and the...

We don't just need better laws -- we need better culture. Nate Garvis asks: What can we do to create an environment in which powerful institutions are used for the common good?

The hymen is a human structure that is surrounded by myths and misunderstandings. So today, we shed some light on what the hymen actually is, where it comes from, and why it can’t actually tell you anything about a person.

Roughly two billion people worldwide don't have access to banks or financial services like credit, insurance and investment -- or even a way to formally prove their identity. How do we bridge this divide? Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga sits...

Anonymous companies protect corrupt individuals – from notorious drug cartel leaders to nefarious arms dealers – behind a shroud of mystery that makes it almost impossible to find and hold them responsible. But anti-corruption activist...

Biologist Juliana Machado Ferreira, a TED Senior Fellow, talks about her work helping to save birds and other animals stolen from the wild in Brazil. Once these animals are seized from smugglers, she asks, then what?

This week Craig Benzine is going to talk about the structure of the U.S. court system and how exactly it manages to keep things moving smoothly. We’’ll talk about trial courts, district courts, appeals courts, circuit courts, state...

Hank tells us of a fascinating new experiment in synthetic biology - scientists have created a jellyfish out of silicone and rat heart cells.

Ethan Lindenberger never got vaccinated as a kid. So one day, he went on Reddit and asked a simple question: "Where do I go to get vaccinated?" The post went viral, landing Lindenberger in the middle of a heated debate about vaccination...

Bill Ford is a car guy -- his great-grandfather was Henry Ford, and he grew up inside the massive Ford Motor Co. So when he worries about cars' impact on the environment, and about our growing global gridlock problem, it's worth a...