Society has a set of stories it tells itself about who refugees are and what they look like, says documentarian and TED Fellow Feras Fayyad. With his films, he's on a mission to separate the facts about refugees from fiction, as a form...

Every human deserves protection under their country’s laws — even when that law is forgotten or ignored. Sharing three cases from her international legal practice, Kimberley Motley, an American litigator practicing in Afghanistan and...

So we all know that breathing is pretty important, right? Today we're going to talk about how it works, starting with the nameless evolutionary ancestor that we inherited this from, and continuing to the mechanics of both simple...

We all want to be safe, and our safety is intertwined, says Tracie Keesee, cofounder of the Center for Policing Equity. Sharing lessons she's learned from 25 years as a police officer, Keesee reflects on the public safety challenges...

Why are all the gas stations, cafes and restaurants in one crowded spot? As two competitive cousins vie for ice-cream-selling domination on one small beach, discover how game theory and the Nash Equilibrium inform these retail hotspots.

Ants are practically everywhere, and some creatures have found it beneficial to blend in with this crowd rather than stick out.

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Sheikha Al Mayassa, a patron of artists, storytellers and filmmakers in Qatar, talks about how art and culture create a country's identity -- and allow every country to share its unique identity with the wider world. As she says: "We...

Massimo Banzi helped invent the Arduino, a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that's inspired thousands of people around the world to make the coolest things they can imagine -- from toys to satellite gear. Because, as he...

There is a group of animals with more species than any other group, but Earth has such an astonishing variety of life that figuring out which group dominates is tricky.

Through treating everything from strokes to car accident traumas, neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch knows the brain's inability to repair itself all too well. But now, she suggests, she and her colleagues may have found the key to neural...

Some aquarium hobbyists will pay $10,000 or more for a single shrimp because of the rarity of their colors or patterns.

His face is recognized all over the world _ the young medical student who became a revolutionary icon. But was Che Guevara a heroic champion of the poor, or a ruthless warlord who left a legacy of repression? Alex Gendler puts this...

What if we could diagnose some of the world's deadliest diseases by the smells our bodies give off? In a fascinating talk and live demo, biologist James Logan introduces Freya, a malaria-sniffing dog, to show how we can harness the...

Traditional lab tests for disease diagnosis can be too expensive and cumbersome for the regions most in need. George Whitesides' ingenious answer is a foolproof tool that can be manufactured at virtually zero cost.

In December 1910, the exiled former leader Manuel Bonilla boarded a borrowed yacht and set sail for Honduras in hopes of reclaiming power by whatever means necessary. Bonilla had a powerful backer: the notorious organization known...

Mona Lisa is one of the best-known faces on the planet. But would you recognize an image of Leonardo da Vinci? Illustrator Siegfried Woldhek uses some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face...

Mathematician Steven Strogatz shows how flocks of creatures (like birds, fireflies and fish) manage to synchronize and act as a unit -- when no one's giving orders. The powerful tendency extends into the realm of objects, too.

The brain is what makes us function, yet we understand so little about how it works. We are learning more about the brain by using new technology to monitor epilepsy patients during surgery. Moran Cerf explains the process doctors use to...

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Journalist Misha Glenny spent several years in a courageous investigation of organized crime networks, which have...

As we continue explore free will, today Hank considers a middle ground between hard determinism and libertarian free will: compatibilism. This view seeks to find ways that our internally motivated actions can be understood as free in a...

Today, we’re going to take a look at how the government plays a role in the economy. Specifically, the way the government creates and maintains our market economic system. Now sure, the government’s role in the economy can be...

Thanks to strontium, oxygen, and rings in a tusk, scientists now have evidence that extinct mastodons may have participated in yearly migrations.

There's an angry divisive tension in the air that threatens to make modern politics impossible. Elizabeth Lesser explores the two sides of human nature within us (call them "the mystic" and "the warrior”) that can be harnessed to elevate...

You've been chosen as a champion to represent your wizarding house in a deadly duel against two rival magic schools. Your opponents are a powerful sorcerer who wields a wand that can turn people into fish, and a powerful enchantress who...