Sergeant-Major Morris regaled his friends with epic tales from faraway lands— until one asked about an artifact the Sergeant had alluded to. Slowly, he produced the object: a mummified monkey’s paw. He explained that a holy man had...

Access to information is the key to unlocking human rights for all, says equality champion Paige Alexander. From educating female entrepreneurs on how to launch life-sustaining businesses to murals, billboards and other creative ways of...

One day in the fall, you called upon your friend, Sherlock Holmes, and found him in conversation with Jabez Wilson. Wilson had been working for the mysterious League of Red-Headed Men. Today, he arrived at work to find the group had...

In 1997, NASA bought a Boeing 747SP for what might be both a super cool and super absurd purpose. Turn it into SOFIA, a flying telescope.

Venus may have been named after the Roman goddess of beauty, but once humans started sending spacecraft to the planet next door, we quickly learned that beauty… hurts.<br/>

While Earth’s natural history has been playing out over the last few billion years, another epic planetary saga has also been unfolding right next door.

More than 30 million people in the US are eligible to have their arrest and conviction records cleared -- but most people who qualify either can't afford it or simply don't know it's an option. In this gripping talk, second chance...

The second law of thermodynamics - the law that entropy must, on average, increase - has been interpreted as the inevitability of the decay of structure. This is .... misleading. Structure can develop in one region even as the entropy...

Some of the oldest galaxies we’ve ever seen are small, faint satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, and they're providing us with a glimpse of how the universe evolved.

As your country's top spy, you must infiltrate the headquarters of the evil syndicate, find the secret control panel, and deactivate their death ray. But your reconnaissance team is spotty, and you have only limited information about the...

In 2002, investigative journalist and TED Fellow Will Potter took a break from his regular beat, writing about shootings and murders for the Chicago Tribune. He went to help a local group campaigning against animal testing: "I thought it...

You know nothing.

There’s a moment after you close your freezer door that it becomes slightly harder to open again. It might pass quickly, but it’s not just in your head.

There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten!), and much more. Science writer Joshua Foer describes the technique -- called the memory palace -- and shows off its...

What can't Candace Parker do? A two-time NCAA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time WNBA champion, Parker knows what it takes to fight for your dreams. In this inspiring talk, she shares what she's learned during a career...

Measles, mumps, and polio are things we can prevent with vaccines, but scientists are looking to add a surprising entry to that list: Type 1 diabetes.

Former Republican member of the u.S. Congress Bob Inglis shares an optimistic message about how conservatives can lead on climate change and other pressing problems -- and how free enterprise (and working together across ideologies) hold...

Do you often lose things like your keys? Psychology can explain not only why it happens, but also some ways to combat that.

This is episode 1 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...

What did the world learn from the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010? That shoddy buildings and bad planning can make a terrible situation even worse. "Haiti was not a natural disaster," says TED Fellow Peter Haas. "It was...

Did you know we have a whole channel dedicated to the human mind, people and interactions between people? It’s called SciShow Psych! And here is a compilation of five videos from that channel explaining some common experiences you may...

Sinead Burke is acutely aware of details that are practically invisible to many of us. At 105 centimeters (or 3' 5") tall, the designed world -- from the height of a lock to the range of available shoe sizes -- often inhibits her ability...

At TEDWomen, Tony Porter makes a call to men everywhere: Don't "act like a man." Telling powerful stories from his own life, he shows how this mentality, drummed into so many men and boys, can lead men to disrespect, mistreat and abuse...

We need women to work, and we need working women to have babies. So why is America one of the only countries in the world that offers no national paid leave to new working mothers? In this incisive talk, Jessica Shortall makes the...