As one of the agency’s best employees, you’ve been selected as a finalist to take on a new top-secret mission. You’ve already shown your aptitude for surveillance and disguise, but the agency’s looking to test one last critical skill:...

Allyson Felix reflects on her transition from professional athlete to entrepreneur and advocate, describing it as a challenging but purposeful journey. Drawing on her experiences in sports, she emphasizes perseverance, adapting her...

With all that spam clogging your inbox, a more personalized experience with the brands you interact with would be a refreshing change of pace. Sharing insights from his research into what brands can do to improve the experience of the...

This video is about weird condensed matter systems, aka materials that have bizarre emergent particles in them that are unlike most other particles in the universe.

You might think of gas masks as clunky military-looking devices. But in the near future, we may need to rely on these filters as part of our everyday lives. In addition to emerging diseases, wildfire frequency has more than tripled, and...

As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, Black Americans were searching for ways to think about how and where they would fit into a post-slavery society. There were several competing schools of thought. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B....

Leaders can't be afraid to disrupt the status quo, says pharmaceutical CEO Paul Hudson. In conversation with TED's Lindsay Levin, he shares how AI eliminates "unglamorous work" and speeds up operations while collaborations across...

The world has plenty of clean energy. The problem is storing that energy and getting it where we need it, when we need it, says battery recycling pioneer Emma Nehrenheim. While batteries are fundamental to powering a sustainable future,...

As humans live longer than ever before, we need our implants to last as long as we do, says bioengineer Nina Tandon. Using stem cells and digital fabrication, she's working on growing anatomically precise spare parts for the human body,...

In standard use, the S-matrix can be calculated if you understand the forces in the interaction region - for example, in the nucleus of an atom. But what if you don’t know those internal interaction forces? Heisenberg sought a way to...

Peter McIndoe isn't a fan of birds. In fact, he has a theory about them that might shock you. Listen along to this eye-opening talk as it takes a turn and makes a larger point about conspiracies, truth and belonging in divisive times.

They get a rap for being spooky, but whether it’s building bridges across rivers or solving puzzles, spiders are way cooler than you might think. Many have smart or elaborate features that allow them to do some pretty extraordinary...

On the genetic level, we're not all that different from chimps. But those small differences in DNA can have massive effects. Learn what makes us truly different from chimpanzees in this new episode of SciShow!

In 1960, composer John Cage went on television to share his latest work. But rather than using traditional instruments, Cage appeared surrounded by household clutter, including a bathtub, ice cubes, a toy fish, a rubber duck, several...

Climate action has historically had a gender-neutral lens, but this lack of intentionality allows underlying biases to sneak in and negatively impact women, says gender and climate researcher Zineb Sqalli. Using Vienna, Austria's...

In the early 20th century, Alfred Wegener's theory of Continental Drift laid the foundation for our modern theory of plate tectonics. And today we know something even more exciting: Pangea was only the latest in a long lineage of...

Imagine a boat that propels by moving its "tail" from side to side, just like a fish. That's the kind of machine that TED Fellow Robert Katzschmann's lab builds: soft-bodied robots that imitate natural movements with artificial, silent...

When you report an emergency in the US, police, firefighters or paramedics answer the call. What if mental health professionals responded, too? Colorado State Representative Leslie Herod shares a straightforward and research-backed...

When it comes to fighting COVID-19, scientists are throwing every bit of science we’ve got at it. A creative technique some researchers are looking into involves using gene therapy to fight this virus with… another virus!

On the genetic level, we're not all that different from chimps. But those small differences in DNA can have huge effects.

Hollywood was riding high until their formula got to be stale. In places like Italy and France (as well as other places in the world we'll talk about soon) filmmakers were starting to break out of the mold and make daring films that...

What if we could use brain waves to treat Alzheimer's? Professor and neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai details a promising new approach to artificially stimulate gamma brain waves using light and sound therapy, to increase connectivity and...

Taking design cues from origami, robotician Jamie Paik and her team created "robogamis": folding robots made out super-thin materials that can reshape and transform themselves. In this talk and tech demo, Paik shows how robogamis could...

So, you know you'd like to get help with some problematic behavior (like fear of flying). What do you do? Who can you go to for help? Once you've gone, what can you expect? In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank...