In Rajasthan, India, an extraordinary school teaches rural women and men -- many of them illiterate -- to become solar engineers, artisans, dentists and doctors in their own villages. It's called the Barefoot College, and its founder,...

It's a classic underdog tale: David, a young shepherd armed only with a sling, beats Goliath, the mighty warrior. The story has transcended its biblical origins to become a common shorthand for unlikely victory. But, asks Malcolm...

Say the word "doubt" aloud. What is that "b" doing there? Does it have any purpose? Gina Cooke explains the long and winding history of "doubt" and why the spelling, though it seems random, is a wink to its storied past.

"Magic is a great analogy for how we edit reality and form a story -- and then mistake that story for the truth," says psychological illusionist Derren Brown. In a clever talk wrapped around a dazzling mind-reading performance, Brown...

They say everyone has a doppelganger, but is that really true? This week we meet a young woman who found her own look-alike, and figure out how we actually recognize faces.

In a poetic, personal talk, TED Fellow Katlego Kolanyane-Kesupile examines the connection between her modern queer lifestyle and her childhood upbringing in a rural village in Botswana. "In a time where being brown, queer, African and...

This year, explorer Ben Saunders attempted his most ambitious trek yet. He set out to complete Captain Robert Falcon Scott's failed 1912 polar expedition — a four-month, 1,800-mile round trip journey from the edge of Antarctica to the...

My science fiction has different ancestors -- African ones, says writer Nnedi Okorafor. In between excerpts from her "Binti" series and her novel "Lagoon," Okorafor discusses the inspiration and roots of her work -- and how she opens...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how an overall chemical reaction is made up of several elementary steps. The stoichiometry of this equation can be predicted but the rate law must be measured. If the elementary steps of the...

It's time to take a look at a quieter, sweeter, and maybe happier film in this series. Sophia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" is a wonderful romantic comedy that doesn't play by the usual rules of its genre. In this episode, Michael...

Machines that can think, learn and adapt are coming -- and that could mean that we humans will end up with significant unemployment. What should we do about it? In a straightforward talk about a controversial idea, futurist Martin Ford...

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Musician and activist Peter Gabriel shares his very personal motivation for standing up for human rights with the...

With vibrant video clips captured by submarines, David Gallo takes us to some of Earth's darkest, most violent, toxic and beautiful habitats, the valleys and volcanic ridges of the oceans' depths, where life is bizarre, resilient and...

Peter Molyneux demos Milo, a hotly anticipated video game for Microsoft's Kinect controller. Perceptive and impressionable like a real 11-year-old, the virtual boy watches, listens and learns -- recognizing and responding to you.

Janet Echelman found her true voice as an artist when her paints went missing -- which forced her to look to an unorthodox new art material. Now she makes billowing, flowing, building-sized sculpture with a surprisingly geeky edge. A...

With the large hadron collider running out of places to look for clues to a deeper theory of physics, we need a bigger particle accelerator. We have one - the galaxy.

Join us as we explore flower parts, pollination, and double fertilization in angiosperms. We'll also talk about the importance of pollinators, like bees, and the role they play. 00:00 Intro 1:34 What are Angiosperms? 1:48 Fruit 2:29...

The water hyacinth may look like a harmless, even beautiful flowering plant -- but it's actually an invasive aquatic weed that clogs waterways, stopping trade, interrupting schooling and disrupting everyday life. In this scourge, green...

We've all heard the theories on why the dinosaurs died -- but how did they come to dominate the earth for so long in the first place? (Hint: it has nothing to do with their size, speed, spikes or fantastic feathers.) Travel back in time...

Reporter Janine di Giovanni has been to the worst places on Earth to bring back stories from Bosnia, Sierra Leone and most recently Syria. She tells stories of human moments within large conflicts -- and explores that shocking transition...

All of us want to invent that game-changing product, launch that successful company, write that best-selling book. And yet so few of us actually do it. TED Fellow and Brazilian entrepreneur Bel Pesce breaks down five easy-to-believe...

Baritone thunder. Snarling winds. Consuming downpours. Okeechobee, the hurricane of 1928, forced many to flee their ruined communities. But for Janie Crawford, it inspired an unexpected homecoming. So begins Zora Neale Hurston's...

Everyone has the right to a clean environment -- but major disparities exist when it comes to who faces the consequences of pollution. Environmental justice leader Peggy Shepard points to the disproportionate impact that hazardous...

The ocean is often thought of as a victim of climate change, in need of human protection. But ocean expert Susan Ruffo says that mindset needs to shift. From storing carbon to providing protection to coastal communities, Ruffo highlights...