TED Talks Daily
Episodes
4 steps for ending extreme poverty | Shameran Abed
04 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At least 400 million people worldwide live in ultra-poverty: a state of severe financial and social vulnerability that robs many of hope and dignity. ...
How do daily habits lead to political violence? | Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What drives someone to commit politically motivated violence? The unsettling answer lies in daily habits. Behavioral historian Christiane-Marie Abu Sa...
Dignity isn't a privilege. It's a worker's right | Abigail Disney
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What's the purpose of a company? In this bold talk, activist and filmmaker Abigail Disney imagines a world where companies have a moral obligation to ...
Why specializing early doesn't always mean career success | David Epstein
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A head start doesn't always ... well, help you get ahead. With examples from sports, technology and economics, journalist David Epstein shares how spe...
How to build your confidence -- and spark it in others | Brittany Packnett
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Confidence is the necessary spark before everything that follows," says educator and activist Brittany Packnett. In an inspiring talk, she shares thr...
What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life | Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
NASA's Dragonfly -- a robotic rotorcraft-lander that's designed to hop across the surface of an extraterrestrial body -- is set to voyage deep into th...
Do schools kill creativity | Sir Ken Robinson
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.F...
What it means to be intersex — and how the false sex binary harms us | Susannah Temko
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For intersex people -- those born with sex characteristics outside the traditional definitions of female and male -- the stakes to appear "normal" are...
The tyranny of merit | Michael Sandel
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What accounts for our polarized public life, and how can we begin to heal it? Political philosopher Michael Sandel offers a surprising answer: those w...
How animals, bugs and plants are evolving in cities | Menno Schilthuizen
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In cities, evolution occurs constantly, as countless plants, animals and insects adapt to human-made habitats in spectacular ways. Evolutionary biolog...
Stop dancing to the sound of your oppression | Madame Gandhi
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Popular music is often riddled with misogynistic lyrics that objectify and demean women ... so why are we listening and dancing to it? Performing a sa...
Big data, small farms and a tale of two tomatoes | Erin Baumgartner
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The path to better food is paved with data, says entrepreneur Erin Baumgartner. Drawing from her experience running a farm-to-table business, she outl...
Grief and love in the animal kingdom | Barbara J. King
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From mourning orcas to distressed elephants, biological anthropologist Barbara J. King has witnessed grief and love across the animal kingdom. In this...
How to use family dinner to teach politics | Hajer Sharief
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone should participate in decision-making and politics -- and it starts at home, says activist Hajer Sharief. She introduces a simple yet transfo...
How you can help map the world's most vulnerable places | Rebecca Firth
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Want to help map the world? Community builder Rebecca Firth explains how the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is using open-source software power...
Love Letters To Strangers | Hannah Brencher
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Brencher's mother always wrote her letters. So when she felt herself bottom into depression after college, she did what felt natural -- she wro...
When is a pandemic over? | Alex Rosenthal
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Consider the following scenario: a highly infectious, sometimes deadly respiratory virus infects humans for the first time. It spreads rapidly worldwi...
What silence can teach you about sound | Dallas Taylor
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What can you hear in silence? In this exploration of sound, host of the podcast "Twenty Thousand Hertz" Dallas Taylor tells the story of arguably the ...
3 questions to ask yourself about US citizenship | Jose Antonio Vargas
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At age 16, journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas found out he was in the United States illegally. Since then, he’s been thinking deeply about...
Let's scan the whole planet with LiDAR | Chris Fisher
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We have archives of films, newspapers, even seeds -- what if we could make one for the entire surface of the earth? Drawing on his experience mapping ...
How every movie trailer gets made | Twenty Thousand Hertz
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"In a world" -- our world -- movie trailers have undergone a massive evolution. The booming voice-of-God narration of the '80s and '90s has been silen...
The difference between healthy and unhealthy love | Katie Hood
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a talk about understanding and practicing the art of healthy relationships, Katie Hood reveals the five signs you might be in an unhealthy relation...
The secrets of learning a new language | Lydia Machova
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Want to learn a new language but feel daunted or unsure where to begin? You don't need some special talent or a "language gene," says Lýdia Machová....
How to raise a black son in America | Clint Smith
04 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who ...
A stock market for social justice | ZigZag
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of ZigZag, host Manoush Zomorodi is joined by Eric Ries, who went from writing Silicon Valley's bible to building a stock market for s...
Rewriting the script(ure) | Pindrop
31 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly 400 years ago, a tiny town in Germany made a bargain with God: spare its people from the Black Plague and we'll put on a play in your honor... ...
How your brain's executive function works -- and how to improve it | Sabine Doebel
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You use your brain's executive function every day -- it's how you do things like pay attention, plan ahead and control impulses. Can you improve it to...
How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them | Vernā Myers
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly — as we've seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New...
How shocking events can spark positive change | Naomi Klein
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Things are pretty shocking out there right now -- record-breaking storms, deadly terror attacks, thousands of migrants disappearing beneath the waves ...
The secret soundtrack of the sea | TEDxSHORTS
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Marine biologist, fish ecologist and self-confessed ocean optimist Steve Simpson explains the intricate sounds that exist in our oceans -- and why lis...
Can light stop the coronavirus? | David Brenner
24 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Far-UVC light is a type of ultraviolet light that kills microbes and viruses and, crucially, seems to be safe to use around humans. Radiation scientis...
How to use love to repair social inequality | Chloé Valdary
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What does Kendrick Lamar have in common with Disney's "Moana"? They recognize our common humanity and show us how to love ourselves and one another, s...
A comprehensive, neighborhood-based response to COVID-19 | Kwame Owusu-Kesse
21 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Crisis interventions often focus on a single aspect of a big, complicated problem, failing to address the broader social and economic context. Kwame O...
Stop making mass shooters famous | Tom Teves
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On July 20, 2012, a mass shooting in a movie theater of Aurora, Colorado left the town, and the nation, reeling. To many -- including Tom Teves, who l...
How city mayors are taking action on climate change | Eric Garcetti
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"If you change your city, you're changing the world," says Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles and chair of C40 Cities, a network of the world's megac...
Activism, changemakers and hope for the future | Malala Yousafzai
18 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Education activist (and recent Oxford graduate) Malala Yousafzai reflects on the defining moments of her life, how she balances passion with personhoo...
Want a more just world? Be an unlikely ally | Nita Mosby Tyler
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A more equal world starts with you. Citing a formative moment from her own life, equity advocate Nita Mosby Tyler highlights why showing up and fighti...
What if you could help decide how the government spends public funds? | Shari Davis
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What if you could help decide how the government spends public funds in your community? That’s the idea behind participatory budgeting, a process th...
The colorful critter world of microbes in Antarctica | Ariel Waldman
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this tour of the microscopic world, explorer and artist Ariel Waldman introduces the charismatic creatures lurking beneath Antarctica's massive ice...
A blueprint for reparations in the US | William "Sandy" Darity
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With clarity and insight, economist and author William "Sandy" Darity discusses how the grievous injustice of slavery in the US led to the immense wea...
What happens when biology becomes technology? | Christina Agapakis
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"We've been promised a future of chrome -- but what if the future is fleshy?" asks biological designer Christina Agapakis. In this awe-inspiring talk,...
You Have the Rite" | Marc Bamuthi Joseph
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a breathtaking, jazz-inflected spoken-word performance, TED Fellow Marc Bamuthi Joseph shares a Black father's tender and wrenching internal reflec...
Every day you live, you impact the planet | Jane Goodall + Chris Anderson
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall says that humanity's survival depends on conservation of the natural world. In conversation with head of TED Chri...
A friendly, autonomous robot that delivers your food | Ali Kashani
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Meet the friendly robot that could deliver your next burrito. Ali Kashani introduces us to Postmates' autonomous delivery robot and explains how it co...
How the pandemic will shape the near future | Bill Gates
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Gates talks best (and worst) case scenarios for the coronavirus pandemic in the months ahead, explaining the challenges of reducing virus transmi...
Africa is a sleeping giant -- I’m trying to wake it up | Adeola Fayehun
06 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“Africa is like a sleeping giant,” says journalist and satirist Adeola Fayehun at the beginning of this hilarious, incisive talk. “The truth is ...
The new urgency of climate change | Al Gore
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The coronavirus brought much of the world to a standstill, dropping carbon emissions by five percent. Al Gore says keeping those rates down is now up ...
Scenes from a Black trans life | D-L Stewart
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At the crossroads of life and livelihood, scholar D-L Stewart invites us into scenes from his own life as he resists and reflects on the dehumanizing ...
What foods did your ancestors love? | Aparna Pallavi
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, Indigenous food cultures vanish because of industrialized agriculture and a shifting, Western-influenced concept of the ideal diet. ...
Stop being a bystander in your own life | Tracy Edwards
30 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Life doesn't go from A to B -- it's messy," says sailing legend Tracy Edwards. In this inspiring talk, she tells how she went from teenage misfit to ...
How we can build sustainable, equitable cities after the pandemic | Vishaan Chakrabarti
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Cities are engines of culture, commerce, knowledge and community, but they're also centers of inequality and poverty. As the world rebuilds from the c...
The case to infect volunteers with COVID-19 to accelerate vaccine testing | Nir Eyal
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conventional vaccine testing is a slow, years-long process. As thousands of people continue to die each day from COVID-19, bioethicist Nir Eyal propos...
How women will lead us to freedom, justice and peace | H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“I was the first woman president of an African nation, and I do believe more countries ought to try that,” says H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel ...
How to support and celebrate living artists | Swizz Beatz
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Legendary hip-hop producer Swizz Beatz is on a mission to revolutionize the way artists do business. In this glorious talk, he shares some of the ways...
Why colonialist stereotypes persist — and how to stop romanticizing history | Farish Ahmad-Noor
23 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Colonialism remains as an inescapable blight on the present, lingering in the toxic, internalized mythologies and stereotypes that outlive the regimes...
How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time | Baratunde Thurston
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Baratunde Thurston explores the phenomenon of white Americans calling the police on black Americans who have committed the crimes of ... eating, walki...
Hunting for dinosaurs showed me our place in the universe | Kennet Lacovara
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when you discover a dinosaur? Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara details his unearthing of Dreadnoughtus -- a 77-million-year-old sauropod t...
My secret to staying focused under pressure | Russell Wilson
16 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Athletes train their bodies to run faster, jump higher, throw farther -- so why don’t they train their minds, too? Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russ...
3 secrets of resilient people | Lucy Hone
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone experiences loss, but how do you cope with the tough moments that follow? Resilience researcher Lucy Hone shares three hard-won strategies fo...
How to build an antiracist world | Ibram X. Kendi
13 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There is no such thing as being “not racist,” says author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. In this vital conversation, he defines the transformative ...
How drawing can set you free | Shantell Martin
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Who are you? To answer this question, artist Shantell Martin followed her pen. In this brilliantly visual talk featuring her signature freestyle line ...
What tech companies know about your kids | Veronica Barassi
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The digital platforms you and your family use every day -- from online games to education apps and medical portals -- may be collecting and selling yo...
Bangkok
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let's say you go into labor in the back of a taxi. The traffic is so bad you don't know if you'll make it to the hospital on time. You make the obviou...
How to turn your dissatisfaction into action | Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After the devastating rebel invasion of Sierra Leone in 1999 and the Ebola epidemic in 2014, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Freetown, refused to be para...
We need to green the economy while restarting it | Nigel Topping
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nigel Topping has a cool job: he’s the UK’s High Level Climate Action Champion for COP26, the UN’s climate change conference taking place in 202...
5 steps to remove yourself from drama at work | Anastasia Penright
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No matter your industry, you’ve experienced drama at work. In this funny and all-too-relatable talk, community leader Anastasia Penright outlines f...
The path to ending systemic racism in the US | Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson, Dr. Bernice King, Anthony D. Romero
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a time of mourning and anger over the ongoing violence inflicted on Black communities by police in the US and the lack of accountability from natio...
Part 2: The path to ending systemic racism in the US | Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson, Dr. Bernice King, Anthony D. Romero
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is part two of a special episode of TED Talks Daily. In the first, you heard from Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, who heads the Center for Policing Equit...
How to support witnesses of harassment and build healthier workplaces | Julia Shaw
04 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What makes you speak up -- or not -- when you see something you know is wrong? Memory scientist Julia Shaw explains the psychology of those who witnes...
The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Now more than ever, it's important to look boldly at the reality of race and gender bias -- and understand how the two can combine to create even more...
The true cost of financial dependence | Estelle Gibson
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Giving up control of your finances -- voluntarily or otherwise -- can leave you powerless and, in some cases, confined to a cycle of abuse. In this pe...
My story of love and loss as a transracial adoptee | Sara Jones
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A mysterious tattoo on her forearm was all that linked Sara Jones, who was adopted as a child by white parents, to her South Korean origins. Searching...
Let's make the world wild again | Kristine Tompkins
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Earth, humanity and nature are inextricably interconnected. To restore us all back to health, we need to "rewild" the world, says environmental activi...
Autofocusing reading glasses of the future | Nitish Padmanaban
28 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As you age, you gradually lose the ability to refocus your eyes -- a phenomenon as old as humanity itself -- leading to a reliance on bifocals, contac...
The secret weapon against pandemics | Georges C. Benjamin
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The coronavirus pandemic won't be the last crisis to test public health systems worldwide, says physician and health policy leader Georges C. Benjamin...
A COVID-19 “exit” strategy to end lockdown and reopen the economy | Uri Alon
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How can we return to work without spurring a second surge of coronavirus infection? Biologist Uri Alon shares a thought-provoking strategy: four days ...
10 ways to have a better conversation | Celeste Headlee
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations -- and that most of us don't converse very well. ...
Actionable solutions to support the mental health of US veterans | Charles P. Smith
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Veterans in the United States take their own lives at an alarming rate. Suggesting new ways to prioritize mental health in the military, veterans advo...
The Real Reason You Procrastinate
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You procrastinate because you're lazy, right? Wrong. The truth is more complex—and far more interesting. Learn how to stop putting off important tas...
The quirky sex lives of ocean creatures | Marah J. Hardt
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The ocean plays host to a peculiar party of wild, marine sex life that's perhaps quirkier (and kinkier) than you can fathom. But is human behavior int...
Can we edit memories? | Amy Milton
19 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Trauma and PTSD rewire your brain -- especially your memory -- and can unearth destructive emotional responses when stirred. Could we eliminate these ...
To overcome challenges, stop comparing yourself to others | Dean Furness
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When you stop comparing yourself to others, you can accomplish great things, says wheelchair athlete Dean Furness. He shares how, after losing the use...
The case for student mental health days | Hailey Hardcastle
15 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
School can be rife with stress, anxiety, panic attacks and even burnout — but there's often no formal policy for students who need to prioritize the...
Restoring human dignity at the US southern border | Norma Pimentel
14 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After seeing the conditions in which children were held at a detention center on the US-Mexico border, Sister Norma Pimentel established a humanitaria...
How to manage your stress like an ER doctor | Darria Long
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do doctors in the emergency room stay calm and focused amidst the chaos? Drawing on years of experience, ER doctor Darria Long shares a straightfo...
How The Bail Project is reforming criminal justice in the US | Robin Steinberg and Manoush Zomorodi
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly half a million people in the US are in jail right now without being convicted of a crime, simply because they can’t come up with the money to...
A virus detection network to stop the next pandemic | Pardis Sabeti and Christian Happi
11 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How can we stop the next pandemic before it starts? Disease researchers Pardis Sabeti and Christian Happi introduce Sentinel, an early warning system ...
The mental health benefits of storytelling for health care workers | Laurel Braitman
09 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Health care workers are under more stress than ever before. How can they protect their mental health while handling new and complex pressures? TED Fel...
How American and Chinese values shaped the coronavirus response | Huang Hung
08 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
To combat COVID-19, countries have enforced city-wide shutdowns, stay-at-home orders and mask mandates -- but the reaction (and adherence) to these ru...
How face surveillance threatens your privacy and freedom | Kade Crockford
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Privacy isn't dead, but face surveillance technology might kill it, says civil rights advocate Kade Crockford. In an eye-opening talk, Kade outlines t...
The cost of workplace stress -- and how to reduce it | Rob Cooke
06 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
By some estimates, work-related stress drains the US economy of nearly 300 billion dollars a year -- and it can hurt your productivity and personal he...
How we're using AI to discover new antibiotics | Jim Collins
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Before the coronavirus pandemic, bioengineer Jim Collins and his team combined the power of AI with synthetic biology in an effort to combat a differe...
The anti-CEO playbook | Hamdi Ulukaya
04 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Profit, money, shareholders: these are the priorities of most companies today. But at what cost? In an appeal to corporate leaders worldwide, Chobani ...
How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas | Manoush Zomorodi
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Do you sometimes have your most creative ideas while folding laundry, washing dishes or doing nothing in particular? It's because when your body goes ...
Who are you, really? The puzzle of personality | Brian Little
30 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What makes you, you? Psychologists like to talk about our traits, or defined characteristics that make us who we are. But Brian Little is more interes...
How to overcome apathy and find your power | Dolores Huerta
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Sí, se puede!" -- "Yes, we can!" It's the rallying cryDoloresHuerta came up with as a young activist in the 1970s, and she's lived by it in her tire...
How "policing for profit" undermines your rights | Dick M. Carpenter II
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many countries have an active, centuries-old law that allows government agencies to take your things -- your house, your car, your business -- without...
Crisis support for the world, one text away | Nancy Lublin
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What if we could help people in crisis anytime, anywhere with a simple text message? That's the idea behind Crisis Text Line, a free 24-hour service t...
A global pandemic calls for global solutions | Larry Brilliant
24 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Examining the facts and figures of the coronavirus outbreak, epidemiologist Larry Brilliant evaluates the global response in a candid interview with h...
How to shift your mindset and choose your future | Tom Rivett-Carnac
23 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to big life problems, we often stand at a crossroads: either believe we're powerless against great change, or we rise to meet the challe...