Radioactivity, explained in a TED animation. Also see this illustrated history of how it all began.
Radioactivity, explained in a TED animation. Also see this illustrated history of how it all began.
Reblogged from smithsonianmag|8 notes
Creator of TED Conference: “I Hate Being Spoken To”
Richard Saul Wurman, the founder of the popular speaker series, shares his ideas of how to make learning more interesting.
Video: Leah Binkovitz and Ryan R. Reed
Ed note: More on Wurman and why he thinks TED is so last century.
Reblogged from theatlantic|186 notes
TED’s notion of “ideas worth spreading” — the implication being that spreading is itself a work of hierarchy and curation — has its origins in a print-based world of bylines and copyrights. It insists that ideas are, in the digital world, what they have been in the analog: packagable and ownable and claimable.
A TED talk, at this point, is the cultural equivalent of a patent: a private claim to a public concept. With the speaker, himself, becoming the manifestation of the idea. And so: In the name of spreading a concept, the talk ends up narrowing it. Pariser’s filter bubble. Anderson’s long tail. We talk often about the need for narrative in making abstract concepts relatable and impactful to mass audiences; what TED has done so elegantly, though, is to replace narrative in that equation with personality. The relatable idea, TED insists, is the personal idea. It is the performative idea. It is the idea that strides onstage and into a spotlight, ready to become a star.
Onstage at TED2012, Peter Diamandis makes a case for optimism — that we’ll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us. “I’m not saying we don’t have our set of problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down.”
Peter Diamandis runs the X Prize Foundation, which gives rich cash awards to the inventors and engineers who’ll get us back to the moon, build a better car and explore the genome. And watch for more prizes to come.
Author Susan Cain pressed for better recognition and support for the world’s introverts in a well-received talk at the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif., today.
Introverts, who prefer less social stimulation, make up a third to a half of the world’s population, according to Cain. (Introversion is different from shyness, which is about fear of social judgment.)
Cain argued that workplaces and schools are organized around extroverts, with their tendency toward outspoken leaders and emphasis on group coordination.
Reblogged from curiositycounts|33 notes
Neuroscientist Neil Burgess on how your brain tells you where you are.
Reblogged from curiositycounts|30 notes
We may not wholly understand complex diseases, but we can stop them, Agus says, with a preventive approach boosted by genomics, technology and a hard look at existing research data.
David B. Agus is a Professor of Medicine and Engineering at the USC Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering and heads USC’s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine.
Alberto Cairo’s clinics in Afghanistan used to close down during active fighting. Now, they stay open. At TEDxRC2 (the RC stands for Red Cross/Red Crescent), Cairo tells the powerful story of why — and how he found humanity and dignity in the midst of war.
Dr. Eric Schadt shows how mashing supercomputing with human biology can help scientists break out of linear thinking, uncover complex disease paths, and hone in on treatments.
Reblogged from explore-blog|49 notes