Shielded by our thick skulls and swaddled in layers of protective tissue, the human brain is extremely difficult to observe in action. Luckily, scientists can use brain organoids - pencil-eraser-sized masses of cells that function like...

Is it okay if I totally trash your office? It's a question elyn Saks once asked her doctor, and it wasn't a joke. A legal scholar, in 2007 Saks came forward with her own story of schizophrenia, controlled by drugs and therapy but...

Questionable phone calls, concerning emails, heart-rending stories from a sudden new friend in need of endless financial support: elder abuse can take many forms, says lawyer Jane Walsh. And as technology becomes more sophisticated,...

Jamila Gordon believes in the power of human connection -- and artificial intelligence -- to help people who might otherwise be left behind. Telling the story of her own path from refugee to global tech executive, she shows how AI is...

What is social deviance? Who defines what is deviant and how to people come to behave that way? Today we’re going to explore biological and psychological approaches to explaining deviance, including what each perspective can bring to the...

Nathan Myhrvold talks about a few of his latest fascinations -- animal photography, archeology, BBQ and generally being an eccentric genius multimillionaire. Listen for wild stories from the (somewhat raunchy) edge of the animal world.

The words we use to describe our emotions affect how we feel, says historian Tiffany Watt Smith, and they've often changed (sometimes very dramatically) in response to new cultural expectations and ideas. Take nostalgia, for instance:...

If you’re getting restless from social distancing and wishing you could do more to help fight the global pandemic, here are some ways that you can help scientists fight COVID-19—all from the comfort of your home.

Hank describes some scientific advances in the field of mind reading.

This video is about Simpson's paradox, a statistical paradox and ecological fallacy where seemingly contradictory results are implied by a single set of data depending on how it's grouped. The paradox can arise in medical...

Fifty years of armed conflict in Colombia has left the countryside riddled with land mines that maim and kill innocent people who happen across them. To help keep communities safe from harm, TED Resident Carlos Bautista is developing an...

When you see someone yawn, you're probably pretty likely to follow suit. But what makes it so contagious?

As technology becomes more complex, it's easier for things to go wrong.

So as you may have noticed from last episode, computers keep getting faster and faster, and by the start of the 1950s they had gotten so fast that it often took longer to manually load programs via punch cards than to actually run them!...

NASA is really good at going to space, amongst other things, but did you know that part of their mission is to work also for the public good!? It's part of NASA's doctrine that they must release the patents on the stuff they work on,...

Do you think you're good at spotting fake videos, where famous people say things they've never said in real life? See how they're made in this astonishing talk and tech demo. Computer scientist Supasorn Suwajanakorn shows how, as a grad...

Were you the favorite child, the wild child or the middle child? Jeffrey Kluger explores the profound life-long bond between brothers and sisters, and the influence of birth order, favoritism and sibling rivalry.

As simple as it seems, it's often impossible to accurately translate the word you without knowing a lot more about the situation where it's being said. Krystian Aparta describes the specific reasons why it can be difficult, citing...

Damon Horowitz reviews the enormous new powers that technology gives us: to know more -- and more about each other -- than ever before. Drawing the audience into a philosophical discussion, Horowitz invites us to pay new attention to the...

"The universe has already written the poem you were planning on writing," says Sarah Kay, quoting her friend, poet Kaveh Akbar. Performing "A Bird Made of Birds," she shares how and where she finds poetry. (Kay is also the host of TED's...

COVID-19 has the potential to ebb and flow with the seasons, but because it's a novel pandemic, that doesn't mean we're off the hook this summer.

Wandering an old dark place at night sounds pretty scary, but you can take comfort in the fact that ghostly encounters can be explained by natural phenomena: no “super-” prefix necessary.

Every day, we make decisions that have good or bad consequences for our future selves. (Can I skip flossing just this one time?) Daniel Goldstein makes tools that help us imagine ourselves over time, so that we make smart choices for...

When two people join a dating website, they are matched according to shared interests and how they answer a number of personal questions. But how do sites calculate the likelihood of a successful relationship? Christian Rudder, one of...