TED Talks
TED: This scientist makes ears out of apples | Andrew Pelling
TeD Fellow Andrew Pelling is a biohacker, and nature is his hardware. His favorite materials are the simplest ones (and oftentimes he finds them in the garbage). Building on the cellulose structure that gives an apple its shape, he...
TED Talks
TED: A new superweapon in the fight against cancer | Paula Hammond
Cancer is a very clever, adaptable disease. To defeat it, says medical researcher and educator Paula Hammond, we need a new and powerful mode of attack. With her colleagues at MIT, Hammond engineered a nanoparticle one-hundredth the size...
TED Talks
George Whitesides: A lab the size of a postage stamp
Traditional lab tests for disease diagnosis can be too expensive and cumbersome for the regions most in need. George Whitesides' ingenious answer is a foolproof tool that can be manufactured at virtually zero cost.
TED Talks
Jonathan Trent: Energy from floating algae pods
Call it "fuel without fossils": Jonathan Trent is working on a plan to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities. Hear his team's bold vision for Project OMEGA (Offshore Membrane...
TED Talks
Jorge Soto: The future of early cancer detection?
Along with a crew of technologists and scientists, Jorge Soto is developing a simple, noninvasive, open-source test that looks for early signs of multiple forms of cancer. Onstage at TEDGlobal 2014, he demonstrates a working prototype of...
TED Talks
Sara-Jane Dunn: The next software revolution: programming biological cells
The cells in your body are like computer software: they're "programmed" to carry out specific functions at specific times. If we can better understand this process, we could unlock the ability to reprogram cells ourselves, says...
TED Talks
TED: This tiny particle could roam your body to find tumors | Sangeeta Bhatia
What if we could find cancerous tumors years before they can harm us -- without expensive screening facilities or even steady electricity? Physician, bioengineer and entrepreneur Sangeeta Bhatia leads a multidisciplinary lab that...
TED Talks
Siddharthan Chandran: Can the damaged brain repair itself?
After a traumatic brain injury, it sometimes happens that the brain can repair itself, building new brain cells to replace damaged ones. But the repair doesn't happen quickly enough to allow recovery from degenerative conditions like...
TED Talks
Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology
We have no ways to directly observe molecules and what they do -- but Drew Berry wants to change that. He demos his scientifically accurate (and entertaining!) animations that help researchers see unseeable processes within our own cells.
TED Talks
Cheryl Hayashi: The magnificence of spider silk
Cheryl Hayashi studies spider silk, one of nature's most high-performance materials. Each species of spider can make up to 7 very different kinds of silk. How do they do it? Hayashi explains at the DNA level -- then shows us how this...
TED Talks
TED: This computer will grow your food in the future | Caleb Harper
What if we could grow delicious, nutrient-dense food, indoors anywhere in the world? Caleb Harper, director of the Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, wants to change the food system by connecting growers with technology....
TED Talks
Marc Koska: 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
Reuse of syringes, all too common in under-funded clinics, kills 1.3 million each year. Marc Koska clues us in to this devastating global problem with facts, photos and hidden-camera footage. He shares his solution: a low-cost syringe...
TED Talks
David R. Liu: Can we cure genetic diseases by rewriting DNA?
In a story of scientific discovery, chemical biologist David R. Liu shares a breakthrough: his lab's development of base editors that can rewrite DNA. This crucial step in genome editing takes the promise of CRISPR to the next level: if...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The 4 greatest threats to the survival of humanity | TED-Ed
With the invention of the atomic bomb, humanity gained the power to destroy itself for the first time in our history. Since then, our risk of either extinction or the collapse of civilization has steadily increased. Just how likely are...
TED Talks
TED: A new way to study the brain's invisible secrets | Ed Boyden
Neuroengineer ed Boyden wants to know how the tiny biomolecules in our brains generate emotions, thoughts and feelings -- and he wants to find the molecular changes that lead to disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer's. Rather than...
TED Talks
TED: Could we treat spinal cord injuries with asparagus? | Andrew Pelling
Take a mind-blowing trip to the lab as TED Senior Fellow Andrew Pelling shares his research on how we could use fruits, vegetables and plants to regenerate damaged human tissues -- and develop a potentially groundbreaking way to repair...
TED Talks
Suzanne Lee: Grow your own clothes
Designer Suzanne Lee shares her experiments in growing a kombucha-based material that can be used like fabric or vegetable leather to make clothing. The process is fascinating, the results are beautiful (though there's still one minor...
TED Talks
Molly Stevens: A new way to grow bone
What does it take to regrow bone in mass quantities? Typical bone regeneration -- wherein bone is taken from a patient’s hip and grafted onto damaged bone elsewhere in the body -- is limited and can cause great pain just a few years...
TED Talks
TED: Meet the microscopic life in your home -- and on your face | Anne Madden
Behold the microscopic jungle in and around you: tiny organisms living on your cheeks, under your sofa and in the soil in your backyard. We have an adversarial relationship with these microbes -- we sanitize, exterminate and disinfect...
TED Talks
Mark Kendall: Demo: A needle-free vaccine patch that's safer and way cheaper
One hundred sixty years after the invention of the needle and syringe, we're still using them to deliver vaccines; it's time to evolve. Biomedical engineer Mark Kendall demos the Nanopatch, a one-centimeter-by-one-centimeter square...
TED Talks
TED: Gene editing can now change an entire species -- forever | Jennifer Kahn
CRISPR gene drives allow scientists to change sequences of DNA and guarantee that the resulting edited genetic trait is inherited by future generations, opening up the possibility of altering entire species forever. More than anything,...
TED Talks
Neil Burgess: How your brain tells you where you are
How do you remember where you parked your car? How do you know if you're moving in the right direction? Neuroscientist Neil Burgess studies the neural mechanisms that map the space around us, and how they link to memory and imagination.
SciShow
What Do 'Natural' and 'Artificial' Flavors Really Mean?
What does it actually mean when your snack cake has "naturally flavored" on the package?
TED Talks
TED: How we're harnessing nature's hidden superpowers | Oded Shoseyov
What do you get when you combine the strongest materials from the plant world with the most elastic ones from the insect kingdom? Super-performing materials that might transform ... everything. Nanobiotechnologist Oded Shoseyov walks us...