How do you teach an entire country how to vote when no one has done it before? It's a huge challenge facing fledgling democracies around the world -- and one of the biggest problems turns out to be a lack of shared language. After all,...

Over the years, research has shown a counterintuitive fact about human nature: Sometimes, having too much choice makes us less happy. This may even be true when it comes to medical treatment. Baba Shiv shares a fascinating study that...

A hostile artificial intelligence called NIM has taken over the world's computers. You're the only person skilled enough to shut it down, and you'll only have one chance. Can you survive and shut off the artificial intelligence? Dan...

Greg Gage is on a mission to make brain science accessible to all. In this fun, kind of creepy demo, the neuroscientist and TED Senior Fellow uses a simple, inexpensive DIY kit to take away the free will of an audience member. It's not a...

Why do we often neglect big problems, like the financial crisis and climate change, until it's too late? Policy strategist Michele Wucker urges us to replace the myth of the "black swan" -- that rare, unforeseeable, unavoidable...

It turns out if you’d like to take a deeper look into the universe, the universe itself might actually help you do that!

The internet has given us access to a wealth of information about humanity, including about those big weird brains that make us who we are.

Astronomers believe that every star in the galaxy has a planet, one fifth of which might harbor life. Only we haven't seen any of them -- yet. Jeremy Kasdin and his team are looking to change that with the design and engineering of an...

Take a trip down the microworld as roboticists Paul McEuen and Marc Miskin explain how they design and mass-produce microrobots the size of a single cell, powered by atomically thin legs -- and show how these machines could one day be...

Even the most skilled athletes, musicians, and performers can make mistakes on relatively simple tasks, so what’s happening in our brains when we choke, and is there something we can do to overcome these moments?

Pearl Arredondo grew up in East Los Angeles, the daughter of a high-ranking gang member who was in and out of jail. Many teachers wrote her off as having a problem with authority. Now a teacher herself, she's creating a different kind of...

Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demonstrates a new way to use fMRI to show brain activity -- thoughts, emotions, pain -- while it is happening. In other words, you can actually see how you feel.

Solar sail technology was once only theoretical, but it's now being developed to propel spaceships. How did the first solar sails get into space, and why?

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...

In 1995, the British Medical Journal published a report about a builder who accidentally jumped onto a nail, which pierced straight through his steel-toed boot. He was in such agonizing pain that any movement was unbearable. But when the...

Polio is almost completely eradicated. But as Bruce Aylward says: Almost isn't good enough with a disease this terrifying. Aylward lays out the plan to continue the scientific miracle that ended polio in most of the world -- and to snuff...

Da Vinci imagined a helicopter powered solely by human muscles. Now more than 500 years later, two teams are using advanced materials to try and make that dream come true. Hank and Catilin discuss these two teams and the Sikorsky Prize...

Our neighboring star Betelgeuse got noticeably dimmer a few months ago, and thanks to the Hubble telescope, we recently figured out what was going on. Also, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico suffered some damage this week.

Michael Aranda explains five of the worst computer viruses that have hit the net!

Hailed as the greatest pickpocket in the world, Apollo Robbins studies the quirks of human behavior as he steals your watch. In a hilarious demonstration, Robbins samples the buffet of the TEDGlobal 2013 audience, showing how the flaws...

Flinching in response to an unexpected loud noise might not be pleasant, but it's also not a problem for most people. For one family, however, getting startled would cause their bodies to go stiff and fall.

You can use your smartphone to find a local ATM, but what if you need a defibrillator? Lucien Engelen shows us online innovations that are changing the way we save lives, including a crowdsourced map of local AEDs.

Plenty of robots can fly -- but none can fly like a real bird. That is, until Markus Fischer and his team at Festo built SmartBird, a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. A soaring demo fresh...

La nueva película de Holywood: ¡el ataque de las hormigas locas! Y nuestro contraataque.
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Siempre tratamos de usar lenguaje fácil de comprender, por lo que evitamos el lenguaje técnico. Sin embargo,...