Author and activist Isabel Allende discusses women, creativity, the definition of feminism -- and, of course, passion -- in this talk.

We've all seen the movies and heard the hype: But is it really possible to bring back animals that have gone extinct? If so, how? And how soon? And can I have a mammoth to ride around in my backyard? Hank explains the latest research...

Rovers like Curiosity search for life on Mars using rock and soil samples, but why don't they examine liquid or frozen water?

Humanity is on its way to creating a "black ball": a technological breakthrough that could destroy us all, says philosopher Nick Bostrom. In this incisive, surprisingly light-hearted conversation with Head of TED Chris Anderson, Bostrom...

Growing up in England, Pico Iyer was taught that the point of a game was to win. Now, some 50 years later, he's realized that competition can be "more like an act of love." In this charming, subtly profound talk, he explores what regular...

Most people are taught that dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago when a giant meteor crashed into the Yucatan peninsula. I'm here to tell you that's wrong. Dinosaurs are alive and well today, and you don't have to go to Jurassic...

The term "compassion" -- typically reserved for the saintly or the sappy -- has fallen out of touch with reality. At a special TEDPrize@UN, journalist Krista Tippett deconstructs the meaning of compassion through several moving stories,...

Eman Mohammed is one of the few female photojournalists in the Gaza Strip. Though openly shunned by many of her male colleagues, she is given unprecedented access to areas denied to men. In this short, visual talk, the TED Fellow...

If you are a living, breathing human being, chances are you have felt sad at least a few times in your life. But what exactly is melancholy, and what (if anything) should we do about it? Courtney Stephens details our still-evolving...

It's true: talking about menstruation makes many people uncomfortable. And that taboo has consequences: in India, three out of every 10 girls don't even know what menstruation is at the time of their first period, and restrictive customs...

What's going on inside the brains of animals? Can we know what, or if, they're thinking and feeling? Carl Safina thinks we can. using discoveries and anecdotes that span ecology, biology and behavioral science, he weaves together stories...

Artist eric Dyer spent years working at a computer to produce images for the screen. Longing to get his hands back on his work, he began exploring the zoetrope, a popular 19th-century device that was used to create the illusion of motion...

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 unique emotional pain. Psychologist Guy Winch reveals how recovering from heartbreak...

Nature’s beauty can be fleeting -- but not through Louie Schwartzberg’s lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful...

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 skipper of the first all-female crew in the toughest race on the seas -- and how she now...

Ukraine is on the front line of a war between freedom and tyranny, says chess grandmaster and human rights advocate Garry Kasparov. In this blistering call to action, he traces Vladimir Putin's rise to power and details his own path from...

Landing will take place the night of August 5th, 1:30 AM eastern, 10:30 pm pacific, and 6:30 AM GMT (August 6th.)

The Mars Science Laboratory or Curiosity Rover is the largest payload ever delivered to the surface of a planet and...

What does it take to build a national movement? In a captivating conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, Marian Wright Edelman reflects on her path to founding the Children's Defense Fund in 1973 -- from the early influence of...

Some days, it feels like the only thing we can agree on is that we can't agree -- on anything. Drawing on her background as a world debate champion, Julia Dhar offers three techniques to reshape the way we talk to each other so we can...

In his typically candid style, Richard St. John reminds us that success is not a one-way street, but a constant journey. He uses the story of his business' rise and fall to illustrate a valuable lesson -- when we stop trying, we fail.

In this captivating talk from the TED archive, cartoonist Ben Katchor reads from his comic strips. These perceptive, surreal stories find the profound hopes and foibles of history (and modern New York) preserved in objects like light...

It's hard to always show compassion -- even to the people we love, but Robert Thurman asks that we develop compassion for our enemies. He prescribes a seven-step meditation exercise to extend compassion beyond our inner circle.

MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch...

Professional Arab women juggle more responsibilities than their male counterparts, and they face more cultural rigidity than Western women. What can their success teach us about tenacity, competition, priorities and progress? Tracing her...