TED Talks Daily

Why we ignore obvious problems -- and how to act on them | Michele Wucker

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

How to recover from activism burnout | Yana Buhrer Tavanier

30 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When you're feeling burned out as an activist, what's the best way to bounce back? TED Senior Fellow Yana Buhrer Tavanier explores the power of "playt...

How I broke comedy | Hannah Gadsby

29 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hannah Gadsby's groundbreaking special "Nanette" broke comedy. In a talk about truth and purpose, she shares three ideas and three contradictions. (Or...

How generational stereotypes hold us back at work | Leah Georges

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Silent Generation, baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, Gen Z -- we're all in the workforce together. How are our assumptions about each other...

Can we cure genetic diseases by rewriting DNA? | David R. Liu

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a story of scientific discovery, chemical biologist David R. Liu shares a breakthrough: his lab's development of base editors that can rewrite DNA....

A personal air-quality tracker that lets you know what you're breathing | Romain Lacombe

22 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How often do you think about the air you're breathing? Probably not enough, says entrepreneur and TED Fellow Romain Lacombe. He introduces Flow: a per...

How hip-hop helps us understand science | Danielle N. Lee

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1990s, a scandal rocked evolutionary biology: scientists discovered that songbirds -- once thought to be strictly monogamous -- engaged i...

How Twitter needs to change | Jack Dorsey

17 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Can Twitter be saved? In a wide-ranging conversation with TED's Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey discusses the f...

Facebook's role in Brexit -- and the threat to democracy | Carole Cadwalladr

16 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In an unmissable talk, journalist Carole Cadwalladr digs into one of the most perplexing events in recent times: the UK's super-close 2016 vote to lea...

Empower a girl, transform a community | Kakenya Ntaiya

15 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kakenya Ntaiya turned her dream of getting an education into a movement to empower vulnerable girls and bring an end to harmful traditional practices ...

3 lessons on starting a movement from a self-defense trailblazer | Rana Abdelhamid

12 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

At 16,Rana Abdelhamid started teaching self-defense to women and girls in her neighborhood. Almost 10 years later, these community classes have grown ...

How risk-taking changes a teenager's brain | Kashfia Rahman

11 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Why do teenagers sometimes make outrageous, risky choices? Do they suddenly become reckless, or are they just going through a natural phase? To find o...

Wearable tech that helps you navigate by touch | Keith Kirkland

10 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Keith Kirkland is developing wearable tech that communicates information using only the sense of touch. He's trying to figure out: What gestures and v...

How to lead a conversation between people who disagree | Eve Pearlman

08 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a world deeply divided, how do we have hard conversations with nuance, curiosity, respect? Veteran reporter Eve Pearlman introduces "dialogue journ...

An AI smartwatch that detects seizures and saves lives | Rosalind Picard

05 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Every year worldwide, more than 50,000 otherwise healthy people with epilepsy suddenly die. These deaths may be largely preventable, says AI researche...

What refugees need to resettle | Muhammed Idris

04 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Every minute, 20 people are newly displaced by climate change, economic crisis and political instability, according to the UNHCR. How can we help them...

A Parkland teacher's homework for us all | Diane Wolk-Rogers

03 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Diane Wolk-Rogers teaches history at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, site of a horrific school shooting on Valentine's Day ...

How does income affect childhood brain development? | Kimberly Noble

02 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Neuroscientist and pediatrician Kimberly Noble is leading the Baby's First Years study: the first-ever randomized study of how family income changes c...

How sci-fi inspired us to go to the Moon | Alexander MacDonald

01 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Long before we had rocket scientists, the idea of spaceflight traveled from mind to mind across generations. With great visuals, author and NASA econo...

Can we regenerate heart muscle with stem cells? | Chuck Murry

29 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The heart is one of the least regenerative organs in the human body -- a big factor in making heart failure the number one killer worldwide. What if w...

A short history of trans people's long fight for equality | Samy Nour Younes

28 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Transgender activist and TED Resident Samy Nour Younes shares the remarkable, centuries-old history of the trans community, filled with courageous sto...

To detect diseases earlier, let's speak bacteria's secret language | Fatima AlZahra'a Alatraktchi

27 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bacteria "talk" to each other, sending chemical information to coordinate attacks. What if we could listen to what they were saying? Nanophysicist Fat...

A new class of drug that could prevent depression and PTSD | Rebecca Brachman

26 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Current treatments for depression and PTSD only suppress symptoms, if they work at all. What if we could prevent these diseases from developing altoge...

The surprising habits of original thinkers | Adam Grant

25 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take ...

What's killing bees -- and how to save them | Noah Wilson-Rich

20 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bees are dying off in record numbers, but ecologist Noah Wilson-Rich is interested in something else: Where are bees healthy and thriving? To find out...

3 lessons on success from an Arab businesswoman | Leila Hoteit

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Professional Arab women juggle more responsibilities than their male counterparts, and they face more cultural rigidity than Western women. What can t...

The secret to scientific discoveries? Making mistakes | Phil Plait

18 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Phil Plait was on the Hubble Space Telescope team that discovered the first exoplanet ever detected -- until they realized they'd made a mistake. What...

How to keep human biases out of AI | Kriti Sharma

15 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

AI algorithms make important decisions about you all the time -- like how much you should pay for car insurance or whether or not you get that job int...

Our dangerous quest to perfect ourselves | Thomas Curran

14 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Social psychologist Thomas Curran explores how the pressure to be perfect -- in our social media feeds, in school, at work -- is driving a rise in men...

Where did the Moon come from? A new theory | Sarah T. Stewart

13 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Earth and Moon are like identical twins, made up of the exact same materials -- which is really strange, since no other celestial bodies we know o...

The creative power of misfits | WorkLife with Adam Grant

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Harness the power of frustrated people to shake up the status quo -- just like Pixar did. This episode is made possible with the support of Bonobos, A...

The "dementia village" that's redefining elder care | Yvonne van Amerongen

11 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How would you prefer to spend the last years of your life: in a sterile, hospital-like institution or in a village with a supermarket, pub, theater an...

We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

08 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We teach girls that they can have ambition, but not too much ... to be successful, but not too successful, or they'll threaten men, says author Chimam...

The most powerful woman you've never heard of | T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison

07 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone's heard of Martin Luther King Jr. But do you know the woman Dr. King called "the architect of the civil rights movement," Septima Clark? The ...

How we can store digital data in DNA | Dina Zielinski

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From floppy disks to thumb drives, every method of storing data eventually becomes obsolete. What if we could find a way to store all the world's data...

A bold idea to replace politicians | César Hidalgo

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

CésarHidalgo has a radical suggestion for fixing our broken political system: automate it! In this provocative talk, he outlines a bold idea to bypas...

How I'm making bricks out of ashes and rubble in Gaza | Majd Mashharawi

04 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Majd Mashharawi was walking through her war-torn neighborhood in Gaza when an idea flashed in her mind: What if she could take the rubble and transfor...

How a new species of ancestors is changing our theory of human evolution | Juliet Brophy

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, a treasure trove of unusual fossils were uncovered in a cave in South Africa, and researchers soon realized: these were the remains of a new ...

Is your country at risk of becoming a dictatorship? Here's how to know | Farida Nabourema

28 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Farida Nabourema has dedicated her life to fighting the military regime in Togo, Africa's oldest autocracy. She's learned two truths along the way: no...

The self-assembling computer chips of the future | Karl Skjonnemand

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The transistors that power the phone in your pocket are unimaginably small: you can fit more than 3,000 of them across the width of a human hair. But ...

A juror's reflections on the death penalty | Lindy Lou Isonhood

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lindy Lou Isonhood grew up in a town where the death penalty was a fact of life, part of the unspoken culture. But after she served as a juror in a ca...

An architect's subversive reimagining of the US-Mexico border wall | Ronald Rael

25 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is a border? It's a line on a map, a place where cultures mix and merge in beautiful, sometimes violent and occasionally ridiculous ways. And a b...

How education helped me rewrite my life | Ashweetha Shetty

21 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's no greater freedom than finding your purpose, says education advocate Ashweetha Shetty. Born to a poor family in rural India, Shetty didn't le...

How to teach kids to talk about taboo topics | Liz Kleinrock

20 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When one of Liz Kleinrock's fourth-grade students said the unthinkable at the start of a class on race, she knew it was far too important a teachable ...

What if all US health care costs were transparent? | Jeanne Pinder

20 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the US, the very same blood test can cost $19 at one clinic and $522 at another clinic just blocks away -- and nobody knows the difference until th...

What is the meaning of work? | Roy Bahat and Bryn Freedman

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Roy Bahat was worried. His company invests in new technology like AI to make businesses more efficient -- but, he wondered, what was AI doing to the p...

Lessons from past presidents | Doris Kearns Goodwin

18 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about what we can learn from American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. Then she shares a...

The age of genetic wonder | Juan Enriquez

15 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Gene-editing tools like CRISPR enable us to program life at its most fundamental level. But this raises some pressing questions: If we can generate ne...

3 ways to practice civility | Steven Petrow

13 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be civil? JournalistStevenPetrow looks for answers in the original meaning of the word, showing why civility shouldn't be dismiss...

How doctors can help low-income patients (and still make a profit) | P.J. Parmar

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Modern American health care is defined by its high costs, high overhead and inaccessibility -- especially for low-income patients. What if we could re...

Why noise is bad for your health -- and what you can do about it | Mathias Basner

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Silence is a rare commodity these days. There's traffic, construction, air-conditioning, your neighbor's lawnmower ... and all this unwanted sound can...

How women in Pakistan are creating political change | Shad Begum

11 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Activist Shad Begum has spent her life empowering women to live up to their full potential. In a personal talk, she shares her determined struggle to ...

America's forgotten working class | J.D. Vance

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

J.D. Vance grew up in a small, poor city in the Rust Belt of southern Ohio, where he had a front-row seat to many of the social ills plaguing America:...

What your breath could reveal about your health | Julian Burschka

07 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's no better way to stop a disease than to catch and treat it early, before symptoms occur. That's the whole point of medical screening technique...

How we can help the "forgotten middle" reach their full potential | Danielle R. Moss

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You know the "forgotten middle": they're the students, coworkers and regular people who are often overlooked because they're seen as neither exception...

The uncomplicated truth about women's sexuality | Sarah Barmak

05 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Is women's sexuality actually more complicated than men's? The answer is no, says author Sarah Barmak. In an eye-opening talk, she shows how a flawed ...

How do we learn to work with intelligent machines? | Matt Beane

04 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The path to skill around the globe has been the same for thousands of years: train under an expert and take on small, easy tasks before progressing to...

How we can start to heal the pain of racial division | Ruby Sales

01 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Where does it hurt?" It's a question that activist and educator Ruby Sales has traveled the US asking, looking deeply at the country's legacy of raci...

An astronaut's story of curiosity, perspective and change | Leland Melvin

31 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What job is best for a young man who's been a tennis ace, a cross-country traveler, a chemistry nerd and an NFL draftee? How about ... astronaut? Lela...

The way we think about biological sex is wrong | Emily Quinn

31 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Did you know that almost 150 million people worldwide are born intersex -- with biology that doesn't fit the standard definition of male or female? (T...

The disarming case to act right now on climate change | Greta Thunberg

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this passionate call to action, 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg explains why, in August 2018, she walked out of school and organized a ...

Reflections from a lifetime fighting to end child poverty | Marian Wright Edelman.

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What does it take to build a national movement? In a captivating conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, Marian Wright Edelman reflects on he...

Can we solve global warming? Lessons from how we protected the ozone layer | Sean Davis

29 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Montreal Protocol proved that the world could come together and take action on climate change. Thirty years after the world's most successful envi...

The power of women's anger | Soraya Chemaly

28 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anger is a powerful emotion -- it warns us of threat, insult, indignity and harm. But across the world, girls and women are taught that their anger is...

Ray Kurzweil on what the future holds next

24 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Join head of TED Chris Anderson for a very special conversation with legendary inventor and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil, recorded live onstage at ...

What's needed to bring the US voting system into the 21st century | Tiana Epps-Johnson

23 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The American election system is complicated, to say the least -- but voting is one of the most tangible ways that each of us can shape our communities...

How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods | Kotchakorn Voraakhom

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From London to Tokyo, climate change is causing cities to sink -- and our modern concrete infrastructure is making us even more vulnerable to severe f...

How to resolve racially stressful situations | Howard C. Stevenson

21 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If we hope to heal the racial tensions that threaten to tear the fabric of society apart, we're going to need the skills to openly express ourselves i...

The political progress women have made -- and what's next | Cecile Richards

18 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Women have made enormous progress over the last century -- challenging the status quo, busting old taboos and changing business from the inside out. B...

A life-saving device that detects silent heart attacks | Akash Manoj

17 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You probably know the common symptoms of a heart attack: chest and arm pain, shortness of breath and fatigue. But there's another kind that's just as ...

Embrace the strange magic of your true self | Casey Gerald

17 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The way we're taught to live has got to change, says author Casey Gerald. Too often, we hide parts of ourselves in order to fit in, win praise, be acc...

How empowering women and girls can help stop global warming | Katharine Wilkinson

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If we really want to address climate change, we need to make gender equity a reality, says writer and environmentalist Katharine Wilkinson. As part of...

Why black girls are targeted for punishment at school -- and how to change that | Monique W. Morris

15 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Around the world, black girls are being pushed out of schools because of policies that target them for punishment, says author and social justice scho...

3 ways to build a happy marriage and avoid divorce | George Blair-West

14 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Choosing to marry and share your life with someone is one of the most important decisions you can make in life. But with divorce rates approaching fif...

Quantum computing explained in 10 minutes | Shohini Ghose

11 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A quantum computer isn't just a more powerful version of the computers we use today; it's something else entirely, based on emerging scientific unders...

The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain | Karissa Sanbonmatsu

10 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How exactly does gender work? It's not just about our chromosomes, says biologist Karissa Sanbonmatsu. In a visionary talk, she shares new discoveries...

What should electric cars sound like? | Renzo Vitale

09 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Electric cars are extremely quiet, offering some welcome silence in our cities. But they also bring new dangers, since they can easily sneak up on uns...

How India's smartphone revolution is creating a new generation of readers and writers | Chiki Sarkar

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

India has the second largest population of any country in the world -- yet it has only 50 decent bookshops, says publisher Chiki Sarkar. So she asked ...

What are you willing to give up to change the way we work? | Martin Danoesastro

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What does it take to build the fast, flexible, creative teams needed to challenge entrenched work culture? For transformation expert Martin Danoesastr...

The story of a parent's transition and a son's redemption | Paula Stone Williams and Jonathan Williams

07 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Paula Stone Williams knew from a young age that she was transgender. But as she became a parent and prominent evangelical pastor, she feared that comi...

How to break bad management habits before they reach the next generation of leaders | Elizabeth Lyle

03 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Companies are counting on their future leaders to manage with more speed, flexibility and trust than ever before. But how can middle managers climb th...

In the opioid crisis, here's what it takes to save a life | Jan Rader

02 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As a fire chief and first responder, Jan Rader has spent her career saving lives. But when the opioid epidemic hit her town, she realized they needed ...

Why the secret to success is setting the right goals | John Doerr

01 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our leaders and institutions are failing us, but it's not always because they're bad or unethical, says venture capitalist John Doerr -- often, it's s...

How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky

31 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way ...

You aren't at the mercy of your emotions -- your brain creates them | Lisa Feldman Barrett

28 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Can you look at someone's face and know what they're feeling? Does everyone experience happiness, sadness and anxiety the same way? What are emotions ...

You aren't at the mercy of your emotions -- your brain creates them | Lisa Feldman Barrett

28 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Can you look at someone's face and know what they're feeling? Does everyone experience happiness, sadness and anxiety the same way? What are emotions ...

How we need to remake the internet | Jaron Lanier

27 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the early days of digital culture, Jaron Lanier helped craft a vision for the internet as public commons where humanity could share its knowledge -...

The story of 'Oumuamua, the first visitor from another star system | Karen J. Meech

26 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In October 2017, astrobiologist Karen J. Meech got the call every astronomer waits for: NASA had spotted the very first visitor from another star syst...

How to fix a broken heart | Guy Winch

25 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

At some point in our lives, almost every one of us will have our heart broken. Imagine how different things would be if we paid more attention to this...

How to build (and rebuild) trust | Frances Frei

24 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Trust is the foundation for everything we do. But what do we do when it's broken? In an eye-opening talk, Harvard Business School professor Frances Fr...

The real reason female entrepreneurs get less funding | Dana Kanze

20 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Women own 39 percent of all businesses in the US, but female startup founders get only two percent of venture funding. What's causing this gap? Dana K...

How "baby bonds" could help close the wealth gap | Darrick Hamilton

18 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Hard work, resilience and grit lead to success, right? This narrative pervades the way we think, says economist Darrick Hamilton, but the truth is tha...

How to break the cycle of toxic masculinity | Eldra Jackson

18 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In a powerful talk, educator Eldra Jackson III shares how he unlearned dangerous lessons about masculinity through Inside Circle, an organization that...

The riddle of experience vs. memory | Daniel Kahneman

17 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selve...

How to be "Team Human" in the digital future | Douglas Rushkoff

13 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Humans are no longer valued for our creativity, says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff -- in a world dominated by digital technology, we're now just val...

Why you should treat the tech you use at work like a colleague | Nadjia Yousif

12 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine your company hires a new employee and then everyone just ignores them, day in and day out, while they sit alone at their desk getting paid to ...

3 kinds bias that shape your worldview | J. Marshall Shepherd

11 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What shapes our perceptions (and misperceptions) about science? In an eye-opening talk, meteorologist J. Marshall Shepherd explains how confirmation b...

How storytelling helps parents in prison stay connected to their kids | Alan Crickmore

10 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When a parent is sent to prison, the unintended victims of their crimes are their own children -- without stability and support, kids are at higher ri...

The work that makes all other work possible | Ai-jen Poo

07 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Domestic workers are entrusted with the most precious aspects of people's lives -- they're the nannies, the elder-care workers and the house cleaners ...

Get ready for hybrid thinking | Ray Kurzweil

06 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Two hundred million years ago, our mammal ancestors developed a new brain feature: the neocortex. This stamp-sized piece of tissue (wrapped around a b...