Singer-songwriter Rei brings her mix of indie rock and blues to the TED stage in a performance of two songs, "my mama" and "BLACK BANANA."

Designer Sandra Rey has found a way to channel one of nature's superpowers: bioluminescence. By isolating the DNA that causes some squids to glow, and introducing it into bacteria, she's created a light source that can glow for three days -- without generating the usual pollution caused by lightbulbs. Her idea is still in development, but Rey ma...

Imagine an extra brain that knows us better than we know ourselves, that exists "with us, beside us, experiencing our world with us ... always connected, always processing, always watching." Nivruti Rai believes that AI systems could become these kinds of guardian angels, if given the chance. In this future-forward talk, Rai explains how machin...

From 2016 to 2019, the world saw record-breaking heat waves, rampant wildfires, and the longest run of category 5 tropical cyclones on record. The number of extreme weather events has been increasing for the last 40 years, and current predictions suggest that trend will continue. So, is the increase in extreme weather due to random chance, or ch...

Engineer RA Mashelkar shares three stories of ultra-low-cost design from India that use bottom-up rethinking, and some clever engineering, to bring expensive products (cars, prosthetics) into the realm of the possible for everyone.

Ray Kurzweil's latest graphs show that technology's breakneck advances will only accelerate -- recession or not. He unveils his new project, Singularity University, to study oncoming tech and guide it to benefit humanity.

In this charming talk, artist Aparna Rao shows us her latest work: cool, cartoony sculptures (with neat robotic tricks underneath them) that play with your perception -- and crave your attention. Take a few minutes to simply be delighted.

Two hundred million years ago, our mammal ancestors developed a new brain feature: the neocortex. This stamp-sized piece of tissue (wrapped around a brain the size of a walnut) is the key to what humanity has become. Now, futurist Ray Kurzweil suggests, we should get ready for the next big leap in brain power, as we tap into the computing power ...

What if you knew what your coworkers really thought about you and what they were really like? Ray Dalio makes the business case for using radical transparency and algorithmic decision-making to create an idea meritocracy where people can speak up and say what they really think -- even calling out the boss is fair game. Learn more about how these...

Welcome to the world of Lucius Popidius Secundus a 17-year old living in Rome in 73 AD. His life is a typical one of arranged marriages coming-of-age festivals and communal baths. Take a look at this exquisitely detailed lesson on life of a typical Roman teenager two thousand years ago. [Lesson by Ray Laurence, directed by Cognitive Media, narra...

We all strive for happiness -- but we spend most of our lives learning to be unhappy, says Srikumar Rao. In this practical talk, he teaches how to break free of the "I'd be happy if ..." mental model, and embrace our hard-wired happiness.

Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Ray Kurzweil explains in abundant, grounded detail why, by the 2020s, we will have reverse-engineered the human brain and nanobots will be operating your consciousness.

"I believe that losing my hearing was one of the greatest gifts I've ever received," says Elise Roy. As a disability rights lawyer and design thinker, she knows that being Deaf gives her a unique way of experiencing and reframing the world -- a perspective that could solve some of our largest problems. As she says: "When we design for disability...

At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional "take / make / waste" industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce.

In 1947, the British viceroy announced that after 200 years of British rule, India would gain independence and be partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. What followed was one of the largest and bloodiest forced migrations in history: an estimated 1 million people lost their lives. What caused this violent aftermath? Haimanti Roy detai...

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, Bunker Roy, explains how it works.

Self-described control freak Gabriela Roa thought she had everything under control when her son was born -- little did she know what it was like to live with a toddler. Initially, she tried to fight back against her son's messiness, but learned a surprising lesson when she decided to start embracing it. After studying the way in which chaos can ...

Botanical artist Nirupa Rao captures the spirit and beauty of nature in watercolor. With a portfolio of enchanting, scientifically accurate illustrations, she aims to reignite our emotional connection to the environment -- and open our eyes to an entire kingdom hidden in plain sight.

Could human civilization eventually spread across the whole Milky Way galaxy? Could we move beyond our small, blue planet to establish colonies in the multitude of star systems out there? These questions are pretty daunting, but their (theoretical) answers were actually put forth decades ago. Roey Tzezana describes the conceptual von Neumann mac...

How will AI improve our lives in the years to come? From its inception six decades ago to its recent exponential growth, futurist Ray Kurzweil highlights AI's transformative impact on various fields and explains his prediction for the singularity: the point at which human intelligence merges with machine intelligence.

Rajesh Rao is fascinated by "the mother of all crossword puzzles": how to decipher the 4000-year-old Indus script. He's enlisting modern computation to try to read this lost language, the key to understanding this ancient civilization.

Extreme runner Ray Zahab shares an enthusiastic account of his record-breaking trek on foot to the South Pole -- a 33-day sprint through the snow.

"I'm a capitalist. I believe in the system. I believe you can increase the size of the pie and you could divide it well," says Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates. He offers wide-ranging insight and advice on how we might recover from the global economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis -- and use it as an opportunity to reform the sys...

How did the young, wealthy women of Ancient Rome spend their days? Meet Domitia and her sister Domitia and her sister Domitia and her sister Domitia. Ray Laurence sketches the domestic life of leisure that these young girls lived, despite little recorded information on women from this otherwise well-documented era. [Directed by Cognitive Media, ...

MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

What will it take to power the planet in a way that doesn't hurt it? Chris Roe, Amazon's director of energy and sustainable operations, shares the company's pledge to get to net-zero carbon and fully operate all buildings -- including data and distribution centers, warehouses, commercial offices and grocery stores -- on 100-percent renewable ene...

We give scientists and engineers great technical training, but we're not as good at teaching ethical decision-making or building character. Take, for example, the environmental crisis that recently unfolded in Flint, Michigan -- and the professionals there who did nothing to fix it. Siddhartha Roy helped prove that Flint's water was contaminated...

"For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming world," says science writer Britt Wray. In this quick talk, she explores how climate change is threatening our well-being -- mental, social and spiritual -- and offers a starting point for what we can do abou...

Artist and TED Fellow Aparna Rao re-imagines the familiar in surprising, often humorous ways. With her collaborator Soren Pors, Rao creates high-tech art installations -- a typewriter that sends emails, a camera that tracks you through the room only to make you invisible on screen -- that put a playful spin on ordinary objects and interactions.

Among the dinosaurs, giant sea dragons roamed the ancient ocean. Millions of years later, paleontologist Dean R. Lomax and his team freed the remains of one of these colossal creatures from the Earth. Settle in to learn about the once-in-a-lifetime discovery of the 10-meter-long Rutland ichthyosaur: the largest and most complete ichthyosaur ever...