eL Seed fuses Arabic calligraphy with graffiti to paint colorful, swirling messages of hope and peace on buildings from Tunisia to Paris. The artist and TED Fellow shares the story of his most ambitious project yet: a mural painted across 50 buildings in Manshiyat Naser, a district of Cairo, Egypt, that can only be fully seen from a nearby mount...

What does this gorgeous street art say? It's Arabic poetry, inspired by bold graffiti and placed where a message of hope and peace can do the most good. In this quietly passionate talk, artist and TED Fellow eL Seed describes his ambition: to create art so beautiful it needs no translation.

"How fast are you moving?" seems like an easy question, but it's actually quite complicated -- and perhaps best answered by another question: "Relative to what?" Even when you think you're standing still, the Earth is moving relative to the Sun, which is moving relative to the Milky Way, which is...you get the idea. Tucker Hiatt unravels the con...

Why can't our extremely complex eyes render simple optical illusions? Surprise, surprise -- it comes back to the brain, which has only evolved to encounter natural stimuli. At TEDYouth 2012, Mark Changizi explains how the brain reckons with optical illusions.[Directed by TED Media].

Your mortal enemy has captured you and hooked you up to a bizarre experiment. He's extended your nervous system with one very long neuron to a target about 70 meters away. At some point, he's going to fire an arrow. If you can then think a thought to the target before the arrow hits it, he'll let you go. So who wins that race? Seena Mathew exami...

What if super speed wasn't just the stuff of epic comic book stories? Is it scientifically possible to be super speed? In this series Joy Lin tackles six superpowers and reveals just how scientifically realistic they can be to us mere mortals. [Directed by Cognitive Media, narrated by James Arnold Taylor].

Our eyes are practically magical, but they cannot see everything. For instance, the naked eye cannot see the moment where all four of a horse's legs are in the air or the gradual life cycle of plants -- but cameras can capture these moments. Bill Shribman gives examples where photography can pick up where the eye leaves off. [Directed by Darcy V...

The complex systems of high school dating and chemical reactions may have more in common than you think. Explore five rules for speeding up chemical reactions in the lab that might just land you a date to a dance! [Directed by Andrew Park, narrated by Aaron Sams].

In 1815, Lord Byron proposed a challenge to a few literary guests he had gathered in his house on Lake Geneva: Who could write the most chilling ghost story? This question sparked an idea in eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley who, over the next few months, crafted the story of “Frankenstein.” Iseult Gillespie shares everything you need to know to re...

Why does the Earth spin? Does a basketball falling from a spinning merry-go-round fall in a curve, as it appears to, or in a straight line? How can speed be manipulated while spinning? In short, why is the spinning motion so special? Brian Jones details the dizzyingly wide array of ways that spinning affects our lives. [Directed by Flaming Medus...

There are three types of color receptors in your eye: red, green and blue. But how do we see the amazing kaleidoscope of other colors that make up our world? Colm Kelleher explains how humans can see everything from auburn to aquamarine. [Directed by Jeremiah Dickey, narrated by Colm Kelleher].

Each year, the world loses enough food to feed half a billion people to fungi, the most destructive pathogens of plants. Mycologist and TED Fellow Mennat El Ghalid explains how a breakthrough in our understanding of the molecular signals fungi use to attack plants could disrupt this interaction -- and save our crops.

The Greeks had a simple and elegant formula for the universe: just earth fire wind and water. Turns out there's more to it than that -- a lot more. Visible matter (and that goes beyond the four Greek elements) comprises only 4% of the universe. CERN scientist James Gillies tells us what accounts for the remaining 96% (dark matter and dark energy...

A cat's bladder can only store a golf ball's worth of urine. For humans, it's a coffee mug and for elephants, a kitchen trash can. An elephant's bladder is 400 times the size of a cat's, but it doesn't take an elephant 400 times longer to pee. So, how does this work? David L. Hu digs into what scientists call the "Other Golden Rule." [Directed b...

In 1903, US President Theodore Roosevelt took a camping trip in California's Yosemite Valley with conservationist John Muir. Roosevelt famously loved the outdoors, but Muir had invited him for more than just camping: Yosemite was in danger. It was part of a struggle to set aside land for both preservation and public use. Elyse Cox details the de...

A portly Miller, barely able to sit on his horse, rambles on about the flighty wife of a crotchety old carpenter and the scholar she takes as her lover. This might sound like a bawdy joke, but it's part of one of the most esteemed works of English literature ever created: The Canterbury Tales. Iseult Gillespie shares everything you need to know ...

In 1970, marijuana was classified as a schedule 1 drug in the United States: the strictest designation possible, meaning it was completely illegal and had no recognized medical uses. Today, marijuana's therapeutic benefits are widely acknowledged, but a growing recognition for its medical value doesn't answer the question: is recreational mariju...

Imagine opening a bag of chips, only to find Santa Claus looking back at you. Or turning a corner to see a building smiling at you. Humans see faces in all kinds of mundane objects, but these faces aren't real — they're illusions due to a phenomenon known as face pareidolia. So why exactly does this happen, and how far does this distortion go? S...

Stand by for an animated exploration of the famous Fermi Paradox. Given the vast number of planets in the universe, many much older than Earth, why haven't we yet seen obvious signs of alien life? The potential answers to this question are numerous and intriguing, alarming and hopeful. [Directed by Andrew Park, narrated by Chris Anderson].

By 2050, it's estimated that over 65% of the world will be living in cities. We may think of nature as being unconnected to our urban spaces, but trees have always been an essential part of successful cities. Humanity has been uncovering these arboreal benefits since the creation of our first cities thousands of years ago. So what makes trees so...

The human eye is an amazing mechanism, able to detect anywhere from a few photons to a few quadrillion, or switch focus from the screen in front of you to the distant horizon in a third of a second. How did these complex structures evolve? Joshua Harvey details the 500 million year story of the human eye. [Directed by Artrake Studio, narrated Ad...

Light always travels at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second. But if you're in motion too, you're going to perceive it as traveling even faster -- which isn't possible! In this second installment of a three-part series on space-time, CERN scientists Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie use a space-time diagram to analyze the sometimes confounding ...

It's late, pitch dark and a self-driving car winds down a narrow country road. Suddenly, three hazards appear at the same time. With no human at the wheel, the car uses smart eyes, sensors that'll resolve these details all in a split-second. How is this possible? Sajan Saini explains how LIDAR and integrated photonics technology make self-drivin...

You may have heard the expression that dogs 'see with their noses.' But these creature's amazing nasal architecture actually reveals a whole world beyond what we can see. Alexandra Horowitz illustrates how the dog's nose can smell the past, the future and even things that can't be seen at all. [Directed by Província Studio, narrated by Pen-Pen C...

Objects that fly faster than the speed of sound (like really fast planes) create a shock wave accompanied by a thunder-like noise: the sonic boom. These epic sounds can cause distress to people and animals and even damage nearby buildings. Katerina Kaouri details how scientists use math to predict sonic booms' paths in the atmosphere, where they...

Social media has dramatically changed the way journalists and audiences interact with information and news. In this talk, the prominent journalist and anchor-woman Elli Stai analyses the frame of social media and fake news, and talks about all those traits that journalists should have in order to retain their status as the bearers of information...

In his talk, he talked about how people can always find alternatives especially when they are living in an area that is under a blockade where most of the necessary chemical materials for chemistry lab are not allowed to enter the city. El Sadi created a new lab which he called the green lab especially that it is environmentally friendly. He was...

Helmy ElSaeed is a 27 years old Guinness record breaker who studied economics at Concordia University , he cycled from the northernmost part of Europe in Norway to its most southern part in Gibraltar. This push to his comfort zone limits was not only to break the Guinness record but to raise awareness for autism as well. Helmy loved cycling so m...

Bringing up a new generation of Violin enthusiasts in the Suez Canal University, Islam El Sayyad is the first Violin soloist in the Ismailia Arabic Musical Team. Considering the Violin to be an integral part of himself, Islam wows the TEDx Suez Canal University audience with a nostalgic performance that combines traditional and contemporary pieces.