On the morning of February 28, 2026, the US and Israel bombed several parts of Iran, including the Tehran compound of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Geopolitical expert and Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer breaks down why US President Donald Trump made

Matt Damon is best known as the Hollywood icon from movies like Good Will Hunting and The Martian, but he has another passion offscreen: ensuring access to clean, safe water around the world. When he met social entrepreneur Gary White in 2008, they rea

What do you do when the world declares something impossible? When physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease and social entrepreneur Kiah Williams was confronting the realities of economic hardship, they began asking a different

What if the solution to feeding humanity has been hiding in the soil for millions of years? Bioengineer Karsten Temme discovered a remarkable answer to this question: for eons, crops relied on soil microbes to convert atmospheric nitrogen into food — u

Legendary music producer Jermaine Dupri pulls back the curtain on how hit songs really get made in TED’s rapid-fire Q&A format, “On the Spot.” Answering a stream of unexpected questions, he covers what makes a good hook, why he doesn’t chase “cool,

The race to build smarter AI is crashing into a physical limitation: the power grid simply can't keep up with the energy demands of data centers. Computer scientist Ayșe Coskun shows how we could turn this problem on its head, transforming AI facil

If a company plants trees to offset its pollution, is that climate progress — or is it greenwashing? Critics of carbon markets say it’s the latter. But Sandeep Roy Choudhury, who’s spent two decades financing climate projects from rural cookstoves to c

What if the best defense against misinformation isn’t panic, but a punchline? Journalist and comedian Dave Jorgenson explores how misinformation has proliferated throughout history — from the age of Plato to the era of viral TikToks. With his own short

From negotiating food choices to limiting screen time, raising healthy kids is complicated—but it doesn’t have to be, says pediatrician Dr. Shari Barkin. Dr. Barkin joins Shoshana to talk about the ways caregivers can carve out 10 minutes of their day

Drawing on clinical research and psychological studies, writer and psychologist Emily Esfahani Smith shows why pursuing meaning — the experience of connecting to something beyond yourself — creates a deeper sense of well-being than comes from chasing h

Feeling burned out? You may be spending too much time ruminating about your job, says psychologist Guy Winch. Learn how to stop worrying about tomorrow’s tasks or stewing over office tensions with three simple techniques aimed at helping you truly rela

Have you ever left a meeting thinking: everyone talked, but nothing was achieved? Chances are that people were listening to each other, just not in the same way. Listening experts Maegan Stephens and Nicole Lowenbraun unpack the four different ways to

AI is good at seeing patterns, but it’s humans who figure out what to do next, says technologist Priyanka Vergadia. She shares three stories of human excellence sparked by AI insights and offers a pathway to identify and cultivate your irreplaceable qu

As a child in rural Kenya, conservationist Seif Hamisi fell asleep to the sound of lions outside his village. Today, the lions are gone, mirroring a continent-wide trend: African wildlife populations have plummeted in recent decades, despite billions s

We've built a legal system that distrusts eyewitness memory — backed by cautionary science and high-profile exonerations. John Wixted, a leading psychology researcher, challenges this conventional wisdom with a counterintuitive finding: the problem

Love coach Francesca Hogi is dedicated to helping daters find “lasting love in the midst of a broken dating culture.” In this episode, Francesca shares her approach to analyzing romantic patterns and feeling more empowered in your love life. From discu

Tonight, millions of people will go to bed and whisper to an AI companion. But what are we giving up when we fall in love with machines? Sextech expert Bryony Cole offers three questions to ask yourself if you’re already intimate with AI, laying out a

Yohanis Riek went from herding cattle and fighting as a child soldier to becoming the first doctor in his community in South Sudan. He shares his journey to found a nonprofit bringing health care to remote communities — empowering locals to take charge

Why do we celebrate appearance over ability in sports? Performance scientist Dominique Condo explores why so many elite female athletes — women with Olympic medals, world records and championship trophies — report body image concerns that end up hinder

Llion Jones cowrote "Attention Is All You Need," the seminal paper that introduced the transformer — the architecture that launched the generative AI revolution. Now he warns that the industry that grew out of this breakthrough is stifling th

How do you build a lifetime of love? After analyzing 450 couples across more than 40 countries, relational psychotherapist Sara Nasserzadeh discovered six essential ingredients for successful relationships (hint: it's not just about sexual chemistr

Your skin heals after a scratch. What if our roads, bridges and cities could self-repair after getting damaged, too? Scientist and engineer Mark Miodownik describes a new class of materials — animate matter — with the potential to sense damage, self-he

When it comes to sports, is there anything more evocative -- and elusive -- than "the zone"? That mythical place an athlete goes to where focus is laser-sharp, nothing can go wrong and time just vanishes. In this episode of Good Sport, a podc

As AI tools get better at making music, will there be a time when machines move people more than musicians? Putting that question to the test, legendary hitmaker Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd joins journalist Elise Hu to discuss how new tech is chang

After building a smartphone app to bring eye care to millions of people in remote areas, eye surgeon and TED Fellow Andrew Bastawrous confronted a new question: What do we lose when health care chases speed and efficiency? He offers a quiet provocation

As AI agents take over more tasks at work, the question isn’t whether or not humans matter — it’s how we make our impact count. Leadership expert Vinciane Beauchene challenges some commonly held assumptions about how AI will transform the workplace, sh

There's a common African proverb: "When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers." Policy researcher Nanjira Sambuli says we must apply this thinking to today's AI evolution, asking: When tech giants battle for dominance, who

Can anyone become happier? Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky studies this question in her lab, doing experiments on "happiness interventions" to see what kinds of actions elicit this sought-after emotion. In a quick talk, she shares the results

Hip-hop often gets blamed for its controversial lyrics. What if there was a way to actually measure its impact on people's lives? Analyzing 40 years' worth of radio station data and lyrics from rappers like Tupac, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z and Kendrick La

Have you ever recalled a story only to have someone point out "that's not how it went"? Well, what happens when what we misrepresent are our historical narratives? David Ikard is a Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Van

What if the calm you feel when you hear birdsong isn't a coincidence, but ancient evolutionary wiring ... a signal that once meant safety? Musical ecologist and rapper Louis VI says humans are hardwired to nature's sonic language, but modern li

Thanks to advanced technology, we can now see droughts and crop failures months before they hit. So why are millions of people still going hungry? TED Fellow Catherine Nakalembe, director of the NASA Harvest program in Africa, exposes the blind spots t

Want to become a K-pop superstar? Comedian and musician Charlene Kaye lays out the formula for breaking through in just a few easy steps, from rapping like a sexy baby to dancing like you’re making pizza in the Matrix. Part musical, part dance performa

Can you measure a "good life?" Management consultant Chris Musser set out to answer this question for himself, developing a daily tracker to monitor progress across nine dimensions, from faith and relationships to work and wellbeing. Learn ho

Why is it taking so long to finance the climate transition? After years working with the world's largest wealth funds and banks, finance innovator Riddhima Yadav has seen the same pattern: the climate movement is seeking perfection over progress, a

Drawing on his experience negotiating million-dollar deals for global brands, procurement expert Wolfgang Schnellbaecher distills the tricks of the world's best buyers into three simple rules to help you make the most of your money.

Learn

Are you feeling overwhelmed, uninspired, or burned out at work? In this special Unsolicited Advice episode, Anne and Frances are getting ready for summer by tackling the importance of rest and the power of intention. They offer unexpected tips and tric

Deep beneath the Earth sits 50,000 times more energy than all the world's fossil fuel reserves, but accessing it requires using the same controversial technology that oil companies spent trillions to develop: fracking. Cindy Taff left Shell to prov

Chef and TED Fellow Dieuveil Malonga traveled to nearly every country in Africa, tasting flavors straight from farms and local kitchens, to learn about the traditions that transform a dish. Today, he runs a center to train the next generation of top ch

Entrepreneur and TED Fellow Jane Marie Chen started a company that created a low-cost portable incubator for premature babies in underserved communities, with the goal of saving more than one million babies around the world. But when a major setback at

Could exposing kids to their fears help them thrive later on in life? Exploring the science of exposure therapy, pediatric psychologist Kathryn Hecht shows how encouraging children to handle discomfort builds confidence and resilience. Through personal

After decades working in technology across both the US and China, Alvin W. Graylin sees three possible paths for the future of AI: one where tech giants create a class of trillionaires, one where competition escalates into war or one where humanity bui

When entrepreneur Yi Li cofounded Farmworks, she set out to build 1,000 climate-smart farms across Kenya, complete with dams, irrigation and organic fertilizers. The science was sound, but reality proved more complicated. Learn what she discovered abou

In this episode, TED Health host Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider invites Dr. Vivek Murthy, the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States, to discuss the ongoing loneliness epidemic.

After the interview, Shoshana shares a TED-Ed talk from

You’re invited into the world of stop-motion animation, where design and engineering collide to create fan-favorite films. Visual effects artist Brian McLean (from the Oscar-winning studio behind “Coraline” and “ParaNorman”) explores how 3D printing is

Bacteria are the most incredible creatures on Earth, says biotechnologist and TED Fellow Patricia Aymà Maldonado. She presents a groundbreaking technology that “trains” bacteria to transform organic waste into biodegradable plastic that behaves like th

What if the secret to a good life isn't just what you achieve but how deeply you love? Drawing on wisdom from Aristotle, Jesus and modern social psychology, philosopher Meghan Sullivan offers tips on how to expand your capacity for love, even in th

AI is setting up residence in the final frontier, says technologist Philip Johnston. He shares the incredible work being undertaken to build data centers in outer space — and how they might harness both solar power and frigid temperatures in order to a

Picture this: a rocket ship crash-lands on a planet, and an alien approaches the spacecraft. What do you see in your mind when you visualize this scene? For Alex Rosenthal (and many others), the answer is: absolutely nothing. Exploring the fascinating

The most powerful stories are the ones told simply to connect with each other, says author Khaya Dlanga. Through humorous anecdotes and moving memories, he explores why it's the conversations we have without strategy or agenda that actually allow u