Seasonal illnesses from infectious diseases aren’t a new concept, but a few decades ago public health experts began to notice the same behavior in some non-infectious diseases like breast cancer. These patterns have helped us learn a lot...

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 they get a bill weeks later. Journalist Jeanne Pinder says it doesn't have to be this...

Natsai Audrey Chieza is a designer on a mission -- to reduce pollution in the fashion industry while creating amazing new things to wear. In her lab, she noticed that the bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor makes a striking red-purple...

In which John Green teaches you about Beloved by Toni Morrison. I'll warn you up front, this book is something of a downer. That's because it deals with subjects like slavery, the death of a child, a potential haunting, and a bunch of...

How does bitcoin work? What is a "block chain"? What problem is this system trying to solve, and how does it use the tools of cryptography to do so?

Imagine we want to build a new space port at one of four recently settled Martian bases, and are holding a vote to choose its location. Of the 100 colonists on Mars, 42 live on West Base, 26 on North Base, 15 on South Base, and 17 on...

A mini-lesson on patterns at varying scale.

What is the blockchain? If you don't know, you should; if you do, chances are you still need some clarification on how it actually works. Don Tapscott is here to help, demystifying this world-changing, trust-building technology which, he...

Fresh food free of chemicals and pesticides is hard to come by in China: in 2016, the Chinese government revealed half a million food safety violations in just nine months. In the absence of safe, sustainable food sources, TED Fellow...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on scale and perspective.


TERMS
Phenomena - observable events in the natural world (require exp
lanations)
Time - an irreversible s
eries of...

In sub-Saharan Africa, power outages, low technology penetration, slow internet and understaffed hospitals plague health care systems. To make progress on these problems in Malawi, TED Fellow Soyapi Mumba and his team created a new...

Eigenvalues and eigenvectors are one of the most important ideas in linear algebra, but what on earth are they?

Our universe started with the Big Bang, but how will it end? Explore cosmologists’ three possible scenarios: the Big Crunch, the Big Freeze and the Big Rip. -- We know about our universe’s past: the Big Bang theory predicts that all...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how a system can be viewed as an object and an object can be viewed as a system.

In an engaging, insightful conversation, criminal justice reformer Nick Turner breaks down the ways the US criminal legal system perpetuates centuries-old racial and economic inequality. He joins TED current affairs curator Whitney...

In this video Paul Andersen attempts to explain the age old questions - What is Energy? Even though it comes in many forms one of the defining characteristics of energy is that it is conserved over time. He then explains that all...

How does bitcoin work? What is a "block chain"? What problem is this system trying to solve, and how does it use the tools of cryptography to do so?

As we get into our unit on stratification, we inevitably return to our old friends, the three sociological paradigms. How to structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism each think about stratification?...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on matter and matter transport.


TERMS
Matter - physical
substances
System - a set of components (e.g. things) w
orking together
Transport - to...

Axolotls are one of science's most studied animals. Why, you ask? These extraordinary salamanders are masters of regeneration: they can flawlessly regenerate body parts ranging from amputated limbs and crushed spines to parts of their...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on scale mechanisms within complex systems.

T
ERMS:
Cause and effect relationships - one event that gives rise to ano
ther event
Complex systems - a...

Why do we trust some companies and not others? Using real-world examples, digital trust advisor Marcos Aguiar decodes this make-or-break quality -- and offers seven tools to help leaders design a foundation of trust into their business...

We’ve spent most of this series talking about computers. Which makes sense - this is Crash Course COMPUTER SCIENCE after all. But at their core computers are tools employed by humans and humans are pretty complicated. So today, we’re...

Today, we wrap up our discussion of the console wars by taking a look at Microsoft's Xbox which was announced in 2001. The early 2000s saw a lot of innovation in hardware and games and we'll cover some of that, but one significant change...