Viruses have a bad reputation -- but some of them could one day save your life, says biotech entrepreneur Alexander Belcredi. In this fascinating talk, he introduces us to phages, naturally-occurring viruses that hunt and kill harmful...

Want to navigate the solar system without having to buy a spacecraft? Jon Nguyen demos NASA JPL's "Eyes on the Solar System" -- free-to-use software for exploring the planets, moons, asteroids, and spacecraft that rotate around our sun...

Today, we’re going to take a look at how computers use a stream of 1s and 0s to represent all of our data - from our text messages and photos to music and webpages. We’re going to focus on how these binary values are used to represent...

There are a whole lot of people out there who have bought into the notion that, in order to be physically fit, you should aim for taking 10,000 steps a day. But where did this idea come from, and how did we all agree on this magical,...

Today we're going to talk big picture about what Neural Networks are and how they work. Neural Networks, which are computer models that act like neurons in the human brain, are really popular right now - they're being used in everything...

Hans Rosling had a question: Do some religions have a higher birth rate than others -- and how does this affect global population growth? Speaking at the TEDxSummit in Doha, Qatar, he graphs data over time and across religions. With his...

Hank breaks the news to you about your brain on football, the reality behind the latest moon-base plan, and an epic win -- and fail -- in the animal kingdom.

Human beings have been campaigning against inequality and poverty for 3,000 years. But this journey is accelerating. Bono "embraces his inner nerd" and shares inspiring data that shows the end of poverty is in sight … if we can harness...

In 2019, Amazon signed the Climate Pledge, a commitment to become a net-zero carbon business by 2040. Dave Clark, Amazon's chief of consumer retail, and Kara Hurst, head of the company's sustainability efforts, sit down with entrepreneur...

Hank faces off against his Crash Course co-worker Evelyn from the Internets in this test of wits and sticky science knowledge! Who will win and who will lose?

Love is a complicated combination of brain chemicals and behavior that scientists are only just beginning to figure out. And it's remarkable that in every society that we have looked at on Earth, romantic love exists. So if love is so...

Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics -- and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials.

We try to leave jargon out of our videos, but if you want to learn more about this topic, here are some handy keywords to get your googling started: - Milky Way: Earth's home galaxy - The Malaspina Expedition 2010: A research project to...

Scientists have developed a new AI that can teach itself how to be the master of an ancient board game.

Animals that eat things are at the forefront of this week’s news, from mice with pain-killing hunger to fish with signs of diabetes.

Five billion people can't use the internet. Aleph Molinari empowers digitally excluded people, by giving them access to computers and sharing the know-how to use them.

Fifty years of armed conflict in Colombia has left the countryside riddled with land mines that maim and kill innocent people who happen across them. To help keep communities safe from harm, TED Resident Carlos Bautista is developing an...

Cicadas have developed an amazing strategy for growth, survival, reproduction, and overcoming predation by...doing nothing. They do nothing for years (except sip at the juice excreted from root structures) before emerging in huge,...

They call you the human cannonball. Your act involves flying through rings of fire, bouncing through a trampoline course, and catching the trapezist in the grand finale. Today's pre-flight test fails dramatically, and upon inspection,...

This is episode 5 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hedge, as they attempt to save the world. The two embark on a quest to collect three artifacts and...

Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's...

Every new invention changes the world -- in ways both intentional and unexpected. Historian Edward Tenner tells stories that illustrate the under-appreciated gap between our ability to innovate and our ability to foresee the consequences.

Near the end of 2020, we got some puzzling but good news: COVID-19 fatality rates have been dropping. Here are a few factors that might help explain why we’re seeing this trend.

Hooray for technology! It makes everything better for everyone!! Right? Well, no. When a new technology, like ebooks or health trackers, is only available to some people, it has unintended consequences for all of us. Jon Gosier, a TED...