Around the world right now, one billion people are trapped in poor or failing countries. How can we help them? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor.

No matter how wealthy a country is, there's a lot it can do to improve the health of its citizens.

How does a city become known as a "music city"? Publicist Elizabeth Cawein explains how thriving music scenes make cities healthier and happier and shares ideas for bolstering your local music scene -- and showing off your city's talent...

Robots and algorithms are getting good at jobs like building cars, writing articles, translating -- jobs that once required a human. So what will we humans do for work? Andrew McAfee walks through recent labor data to say: We ain't seen...

To address the problem of counterfeit goods, African entrepreneurs like Bright Simons have come up with innovative and effective ways to confirm products are genuine. Now he asks: Why aren't these solutions everywhere? From...

The prevailing image of where refugees live is of temporary camps in isolated areas -- but in reality, nearly 60 percent of them worldwide end up in urban areas. TED Fellow Robert Hakiza takes us inside the lives of urban refugees -- and...

His Holiness the Karmapa talks about how he was discovered to be the reincarnation of a revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism. In telling his story, he urges us to work on not just technology and design, but the technology and design of the...

These days, we’re pretty good at harnessing the power of antibodies for medicines and as molecular tools, but they do have some drawbacks. So, cutting-edge researchers are hoping to develop smaller and more stable alternatives, and...

In high school biology, we learn that humans are born with either XX or XY chromosomes, and that a person’s internal and external sex organs match those chromosomes. It turns out, however, that sex isn’t that straightforward.

Could the same mechanism used to accelerate vaccine development work for spurring solutions to the climate crisis? Sustainability innovator Stacy Kauk introduces the billion-dollar fund to supercharge the carbon removal market, which...

Preventing heartworm disease in your dog isn't just good for your furry friend. It turns out that humans can be infected with heartworm, too!

Twins can be a lot more complicated than just identical or fraternal, and the rarer types of twins suggest that we have a lot more to learn about human development.

The human body generally grows in a predictable pattern, but in one rare case, one American girl essentially remained a toddler her entire life.

Adorable, sure, but how are you alive?? Giant pandas present a conservation challenge like no other. Find out how the bears eke out an existence in the wild, and why they're proving so hard to save.

Do you think animals can be divided into two biological sexes: female and male? Well, it's way more complicated that that!_

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 to keep up with innovations in fields like facial recognition and augmented reality, we...

Paul Andersen explains how genes control the timing and coordination of embryo development. Seed germination initiates the discussion of cell differentiation. The SRY gene and genetic transplantation shows the importance of embryonic...

Royal jelly! For bees, it’s what makes all the difference between a queen and a worker.

There's a lot we don't understand about autism spectrum disorder, but this week scientists announced that they may have found a link between the disorder and elevated hormone levels.

Today we’re going to discuss what it means for a place to be “developed”. Development is often associated with economic success — that is countries with higher standards of living and material wealth like those found in Europe and North...

Medicine has made leaps and bounds in treating illnesses in the last century, but are they ever going to get around to curing the common cold? We might be closer than you think.

All new products must pass through the "valley of death" before they reach the market. Many never make it out, and sometimes that's OK -- if they don't work, don't fill a need or for any number of reasons. One of the fields where this...

With a greater understanding of biological mechanisms, humans may be able to take a devastating birth defect and turn it into a treatment for cancer.

If you: do laundry, are (or have been) pregnant, tidy up, shop for your household or do similar labor, then by GDP standards, you're unproductive. In this visionary talk, economist Marilyn Waring seeks to correct the failures of this...