TEDGlobal 2009
Sophie Hunger: Songs of secrets and city lights
611,339 views
No Transcript
This haunting, intimate performance by European singer-songwriter Sophie Hunger features songs from her breakout debut "Monday's Ghost" and album "1983."
TED Talks with English transcript
TED2010
Seth Berkley: HIV and flu -- the vaccine strategy
647,763 views
Readability: 4.9
Seth Berkley explains how smart advances in vaccine design, production and distribution are bringing us closer than ever to eliminating a host of global threats -- from AIDS to malaria to flu pandemics.
TED2010
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Inside a school for suicide bombers
1,204,403 views
Readability: 3.9
Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy takes on a terrifying question: How does the Taliban convince children to become suicide bombers? Propaganda footage from a training camp is intercut with her interviews of young camp graduates. A shocking vision.
TEDxUSC
Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture
1,253,227 views
Readability: 4.2
Copyright law's grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry ... and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley. In her talk, she talks about what all creative industries can learn from fashion's free culture.
TED2010
Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!
9,209,583 views
Readability: 3.4
In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.
TED in the Field
Craig Venter: Watch me unveil "synthetic life"
1,297,241 views
Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they've created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.
TED2010
Richard Sears: Planning for the end of oil
685,133 views
Readability: 3.6
As the world's attention focuses on the perils of oil exploration, we present Richard Sears' talk from early February 2010. Sears, an expert in developing new energy resources, talks about our inevitable and necessary move away from oil. Toward ... what?
Mission Blue Voyage
Dee Boersma: Pay attention to penguins
436,454 views
Readability: 3.8
Think of penguins as ocean sentinels, says Dee Boersma -- they're on the frontlines of sea change. Sharing stories of penguin life and culture, she suggests that we start listening to what penguins are telling us.
TED2010
Graham Hill: Why I'm a weekday vegetarian
2,651,431 views
We all know the arguments that being vegetarian is better for the environment and for the animals -- but in a carnivorous culture, it can be hard to make the change. Graham Hill has a powerful, pragmatic suggestion: Be a weekday veg.
TED2010
William Li: Can we eat to starve cancer?
5,284,275 views
Readability: 5.2
William Li presents a new way to think about treating cancer and other diseases: anti-angiogenesis, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that cut off the supply lines and beat cancer at its own game. NOTE: This talk was given in 2010, and this field of science has developed quickly since then. Enjoy it as a piece of science history but not as the last word on this topic. Read "Criticisms & updates" below for more details.
Toronto Youth Corps
Viktor Frankl: Why believe in others
1,316,557 views
No Transcript
In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning -- and the most important gift we can give others.
TED2010
Julia Sweeney: It's time for "The Talk"
3,719,405 views
Readability: 2.6
Despite her best efforts, comedian Julia Sweeney is forced to tell a little white lie when her 8-year-old begins learning about frog reproduction -- and starts to ask some very smart questions.
TEDxNYED
Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover
2,804,252 views
Readability: 4.2
Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.
Mission Blue Voyage
Enric Sala: Glimpses of a pristine ocean
383,247 views
Readability: 4.4
Enric Sala shares glorious images -- and surprising insights and data -- from some of the most pristine areas of the ocean. He shows how we can restore more of our oceans to this healthy, balanced state, and the powerful ecological and economic benefits of doing so.
TED2010
Nathan Myhrvold: Could this laser zap malaria?
965,317 views
Readability: 3.7
Nathan Myhrvold and team's latest inventions -- as brilliant as they are bold -- remind us that the world needs wild creativity to tackle big problems like malaria. And just as that idea sinks in, he rolls out a live demo of a new, mosquito-zapping gizmo you have to see to believe.
TED2010
Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks
1,674,218 views
Readability: 4.3
We're all embedded in vast social networks of friends, family, co-workers and more. Nicholas Christakis tracks how a wide variety of traits -- from happiness to obesity -- can spread from person to person, showing how your location in the network might impact your life in ways you don't even know.
TEDIndia 2009
Anil Gupta: India's hidden hotbeds of invention
764,089 views
Readability: 3.7
Anil Gupta is on the hunt for the developing world's unsung inventors -- indigenous entrepreneurs whose ingenuity, hidden by poverty, could change many people's lives. He shows how the Honey Bee Network helps them build the connections they need -- and gain the recognition they deserve.
Mission Blue Voyage
Jeremy Jackson: How we wrecked the ocean
827,500 views
Readability: 3.6
In this bracing talk, coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson lays out the shocking state of the ocean today: overfished, overheated, polluted, with indicators that things will get much worse. Astonishing photos and stats make the case.
TED2010
Thomas Dolby: "Love Is a Loaded Pistol"
618,579 views
To write his first studio album in decades, "A Map of the Floating City," Thomas Dolby has been working in the inspirational setting of a restored lifeboat. At TED2010 he premieres a gorgeous, evocative song from that album -- about one night with a legend. He's backed by members of the modern string quartet Ethel.
TEDxPuget Sound
Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action
48,856,581 views
Readability: 3.5
Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers ...
TED2010
Esther Duflo: Social experiments to fight poverty
1,298,863 views
Readability: 2.8
Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt -- by testing solutions with randomized trials.
TED2010
Sebastian Wernicke: Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)
2,510,120 views
Readability: 4.2
In a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek analysis, Sebastian Wernicke turns the tools of statistical analysis on TEDTalks, to come up with a metric for creating "the optimum TEDTalk" based on user ratings. How do you rate it? "Jaw-dropping"? "Unconvincing"? Or just plain "Funny"?
TED2010
George Whitesides: Toward a science of simplicity
691,339 views
Readability: 3.5
Simplicity: We know it when we see it -- but what is it, exactly? In this funny, philosophical talk, George Whitesides chisels out an answer.
Mission Blue Voyage
Roz Savage: Why I'm rowing across the Pacific
700,173 views
Readability: 3.2
Five years ago, Roz Savage quit her high-powered London job to become an ocean rower. She's crossed the Atlantic solo, and just started the third leg of a Pacific solo row, the first for a woman. Why does she do it? Hear her reasons, both deeply personal and urgently activist.
TED2010
Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of all knowledge
1,811,819 views
Readability: 4.4
Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica, talks about his quest to make all knowledge computational -- able to be searched, processed and manipulated. His new search engine, Wolfram Alpha, has no lesser goal than to model and explain the physics underlying the universe.
TEDIndia 2009
Kavita Ramdas: Radical women, embracing tradition
589,855 views
Readability: 4.4
Investing in women can unlock infinite potential around the globe. But how can women walk the line between Western-style empowerment and traditional culture? Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women talks about three encounters with powerful women who fight to make the world better -- while preserving the traditions that sustain them.
The Do Lectures
Tim Birkhead: The early birdwatchers
119,803 views
No Transcript
Birds, a perennial human fascination, entertained medieval homes long before science took them for serious study. "Wisdom of Birds" author Tim Birkhead tours some intriguing birdwatcher lore (dug up in old field journals) -- and talks about the role it plays in ornithology today.
TED2010
Omar Ahmad: Political change with pen and paper
600,274 views
Readability: 3.5
Want your local politician to pay attention to an issue you care about? Send a monthly handwritten letter, says former mayor Omar Ahmad -- it's more effective than email, phone, or even writing a check. He shares four steps to writing a letter that works.
TED2010
Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team
6,113,394 views
Readability: 4.1
Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the "marshmallow problem" -- a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average?
TED2010
Frederick Balagadde: Bio-lab on a microchip
322,648 views
Readability: 5.3
Drugs alone can't stop disease in sub-Saharan Africa: We need diagnostic tools to match. TED Senior Fellow Frederick Balagadde shows how we can multiply the power and availability of an unwieldy, expensive diagnostic lab -- by miniaturizing it to the size of a chip.