TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A day in the life of an Aztec midwife
The midwife Xoquauhtli has a difficult choice to make. She owes a debt to her patron Teteoinnan, the female warrior goddess at the center of the Aztec seasonal festival, who must be kept happy or she will bring bad luck. Xoquauhtli...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are the Illuminati real? | Chip Berlet
The year was 1776. In Bavaria, new ideals of rationalism, religious freedom and universal human rights competed with the Catholic church's heavy influence over public affairs. Adam Weishaupt, a law professor frustrated with the Church's...
TED Talks
TED: Why museums are returning cultural treasures | Chip Colwell
Archaeologist and curator Chip Colwell collects artifacts for his museum, but he also returns them to where they came from. In a thought-provoking talk, he shares how some museums are confronting their legacies of stealing spiritual...
TED Talks
TED: The inaccurate link between body ideals and health | Nancy N. Chen
Global obesity rates are on the rise, but body shaming campaigns are doing more harm than good, says medical anthropologist Nancy N. Chen. Reflecting on how the cultural histories of body ideals have changed over time, she offers a new...
TED Talks
Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty
TED collaborates with animator Andrew Park to illustrate Denis Dutton's provocative theory on beauty -- that art, music and other beautiful things, far from being simply "in the eye of the beholder," are a core part of human nature with...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Kay Almere Read: The Aztec myth of the unlikeliest sun god
Nanahuatl, weakest of the Aztec gods, sickly and covered in pimples, had been chosen to form a new world. There had already been four worlds, each set in motion by its own "Lord Sun," and each had been destroyed. For a new world to be...
TED Talks
TED: How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison - Alice Goffman
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist...
TED Talks
Ray Kurzweil: The accelerating power of technology
Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Ray Kurzweil explains in abundant, grounded detail why, by the 2020s, we will have reverse-engineered the human brain and nanobots will be operating your consciousness.
TED Talks
Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a...
TED Talks
TED: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google manipulate our emotions | Scott Galloway
The combined market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google is now equivalent to the GDP of India. How did these four companies come to infiltrate our lives so completely? In a spectacular rant, Scott Galloway shares...
TED Talks
TED: Why art thrives at Burning Man | Nora Atkinson
Craft curator Nora Atkinson takes us on a trip to Nevada's Black Rock Desert to see the beautifully designed and participatory art of Burning Man, revealing how she discovered there what's often missing from museums: curiosity and...
TED Talks
My wish: Let my photographs bear witness - James Nachtwey
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, war photographer James Nachtwey shows his life's work and asks TED to help him...
SciShow
How Studying Bacteria Almost Kept Us From Discovering the Flu
Today we know pathogens -- viruses, bacteria, and certain other microbes -- are responsible for many diseases. But linking specific diseases to the microbes that cause them has been surprisingly tricky, and some research practices lead...
TED Talks
Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration
In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Iseult Gillespie: Frida Kahlo: The woman behind the legend
In 1925, Frida Kahlo was on her way home from school in Mexico City when the bus she was riding collided with a streetcar. She suffered near-fatal injuries and her disability became a major theme in her paintings. Over the course of her...
TED Talks
Andrew Fitzgerald: Adventures in Twitter fiction
In the 1930s, broadcast radio introduced an entirely new form of storytelling; today, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter are changing the scene again. Andrew Fitzgerald takes a look at the (aptly) short but fascinating history of new...
TED Talks
Treat design as art - Paola Antonelli
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Paola Antonelli, design curator at New York's Museum of Modern Art, wants to spread her appreciation of design --...
SciShow
Is Urine Really Sterile?
Despite what you might've seen on some wilderness-survival show, there's increasing evidence that your pee isn't sterile. So don't do anything crazy with it. Sci Show explains!
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to see more and care less: The art of Georgia O'Keeffe | Iseult Gillespie
Feeling disconnected from creating art within classical conventions, artist Georgia O'Keeffe began experimenting with abstract drawings that defied easy classification. Using the shapes and rhythms of nature to capture her internal...
TED Talks
Phillip Atiba Goff: How we can make racism a solvable problem -- and improve policing
When we define racism as behaviors instead of feelings, we can measure it -- and transform it from an impossible problem into a solvable one, says justice scientist Phillip Atiba Goff. In an actionable talk, he shares his work at the...
TED Talks
TED: 9 myths about psychology, debunked | Ben Ambridge
How much of what you think about psychology is actually wrong? In this whistle-stop tour of disproved ideas, Ben Ambridge shares nine popular ideas about psychology that have been proven wrong -- and uncovers a few surprising truths...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The tale of the doctor who defied Death
A husband and wife were in despair. The woman had just given birth to their 13th child, and the growing family was quickly running out of food and money. Wandering into the woods, the father encountered a skeletal figure with sunken eyes...
TED Talks
Clay Shirky: How social media can make history
While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing...
TED Talks
Richard Ledgett: The NSA responds to Edward Snowden's TED Talk
After a surprise appearance by Edward Snowden at TED2014, Chris Anderson said: "If the NSA wants to respond, please do." And yes, they did. Appearing by video, NSA deputy director Richard Ledgett answers Anderson's questions about the...