TED Talks Daily

Local reporters are on the front lines of important stories, but their work often goes unnoticed by national and international news outlets. TED Fellow and journalist Gangadhar Pat…

A full third of the world’s population -- 2.6 billion people -- play video games, plugging into massive networks of interaction that have opened up opportunities well beyond entert…

Exactly when and where did life on Earth begin? Scientists have long thought that it emerged three billion years ago in the ocean -- until astrobiologist Tara Djokic and her team m…

Civilization rests upon the existence of language, says language creator David Peterson. In a talk that’s equal parts passionate and hilarious, he shows how studying, preserving an…

Traditional thinking on corruption goes like this: if you put good laws in place and enforce them well, then economic development increases and corruption falls. In reality, we hav…

The US health care system assumes many things about patients: that they can take off from work in the middle of the day, speak English, have a working telephone and a steady supply…

Conservationist and TED Fellow Moreangels Mbizah studied the famous Cecil the lion until he was shot by a trophy hunter in 2015. She wonders how things could’ve gone differently, a…

The average farmer in America makes less than 15 cents of every dollar on a product that you purchase at a store. They feed our communities, but farmers often cannot afford the ver…

Did humans evolve from monkeys or from fish? In this enlightening talk, ichthyologist and TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty dispels some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging…

Tobacco causes more than seven million deaths every year -- and many of us are far more complicit in the problem than we realize. In a bold talk, oncologist Dr. Bronwyn King tells…

“Building a 30-foot-high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security,” says Congressman Will Hurd, a Republican f…

Genealogist Yaniv Erlich helped build the world’s largest family tree -- comprising 13 million people and going back more than 500 years. He shares fascinating patterns that emerge…

As a sex educator, Emily Nagoski is often asked: How do couples sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term? In this funny, insightful talk, she shares her answer -- draw…

“Girls’ education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to help solve some of the world’s most difficult problems,” says social entrepreneur Safeena Husain. In a visionar…

“Doctor, is this really necessary?” Backed by startling statistics about overtreatment, neurosurgeon Christer Mjåset explains the power of this and other simple questions in the co…

To study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists need to be experts at extracting simple solutions from large data sets. What else could they do with this exper…

Rising carbon levels in the atmosphere can make plants grow faster, but there’s another hidden consequence: they rob plants of the nutrients and vitamins we need to survive. In a t…

Rising inequality and growing political instability are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory, says entrepreneur Nick Hanauer. In a visionary talk, he dismantles the…

Community organizer Raj Jayadev wants to transform the US court system through "participatory defense" -- a growing movement that empowers families and community members to impact…

Reading slowly -- with her finger running beneath the words, even when she was taught not to -- has led Jacqueline Woodson to a life of writing books to be savored. In a lyrical ta…