TED-Ed

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/3-things-i-learned-while-my-plane-crashed-ric-eliasRic Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time. Talk by Ric Elias. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphon...

Get to know the story of the Three Sisters, and what we can learn about sustainably growing food from Indigenous practices.--Suffering illness and despair, Chief Handsome Lake prepared for death. Then, he had a vision. He was walking through a planted field and heard a woman call out. She told him that the recent devastation had left her and her sisters with little hope for the future and asked if...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/on-being-wrong-kathryn-schulzMost of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we're wrong about that? "Wrongologist" Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility. Talk by Kathryn Schulz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trace Malik Ambar’s historic rise from enslaved youth to brilliant military tactician and kingmaker in the Indian sultanate.--In 1624, Mughal Emperor Jahangir received word of yet another defeat at the hands of his greatest enemy: Malik Ambar. Jahangir was so obsessed with defeating his rival, he commissioned a painting of himself shooting an arrow at Ambar’s skull. So, who was this brilliant tact...

Discover an infamous bet between two professors, which sought to predict whether the earth would run out of resources due to a growing human population.--In 1980, Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon bet $1,000 on a question with stakes that couldn’t be higher: would the earth run out of resources to sustain a growing human population? They bet $200 on the price of five metals. If the price of a metal de...

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline. Talk by David Christian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Practice more problem-solving at https://brilliant.org/TedEd--Today is the annual wizard tournament featuring competitors from three schools, and you’re in charge. The wizards have entered the maze and compete in your chosen events in utmost secrecy; only you and they see what happens. But a dark wizard appears and casts a forgetting curse— throwing the results into question. Can you figure out wh...

Sign up for our newsletter and never miss an episode: http://bit.ly/TEDEdNewsletterWith humor and persistence, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock dives into the hidden but influential world of brand marketing on his quest to make a completely sponsored film about sponsorship. (And yes, onstage naming rights for this talk were sponsored too. By whom and for how much? He'll tell you.)Talk by Morgan Spurlock....

Get to know the life of enigmatic poet and writer Fernando Pessoa, who wrote not as himself but as other people he invented.--On November 30th, 1935, dozens of writers passed away. They came from different backgrounds, espoused divergent beliefs, and wrote in a variety of styles. Yet almost 30,000 pages of their work was stashed in a trunk in an apartment in Lisbon, Portugal. So, what mysterious s...

Rebecca Onie asks audacious questions: What if waiting rooms were a place to improve daily health care? What if doctors could prescribe food, housing and heat in the winter? At TEDMED she describes Health Leads, an organization that does just that -- and does it by building a volunteer base as elite and dedicated as a college sports team. Talk by Rebecca Onie. Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...

We think of space as a silent place. But physicist Janna Levin says the universe has a soundtrack -- a sonic composition that records some of the most dramatic events in outer space. (Black holes, for instance, bang on spacetime like a drum.) An accessible and mind-expanding soundwalk through the universe. Talk by Janna Levin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trace the history of coffee, from its first known origins to its rise in popularity due to trade routes and cultivation.--One day around 850 CE, a goatherd observed that his goats started acting abnormally after nibbling on some berries. The herder tried them himself, and soon enough, he was just as hyper. As the story goes, this was humanity’s first run-in with coffee. So, how did coffee go from...

Dig into the seasoning known as MSG, and find out how this flavoring was developed and if it’s actually bad for your health.--In 1968, Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok felt ill after dinner at a Chinese restaurant and wrote a letter to a medical journal connecting his symptoms to MSG. His letter would change the world’s relationship with MSG, inspiring international panic, biased science, and sensationalist...

In the fall of 2011 Peter Norvig taught a class with Sebastian Thrun on artificial intelligence at Stanford attended by 175 students in situ -- and over 100,000 via an interactive webcast. He shares what he learned about teaching to a global classroom. Talk by Peter Norvig. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/printing-a-human-kidney-anthony-atalaSurgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago; we meet him onstage. Talk...

Explore different philosophers’ ideas about anger and dig into their theories on how we should handle this complicated emotion.--Anger is a complicated emotion. It can feel reasonable and righteous or impulsive and uncontrollable. Anger can be an important part of letting us know when something immoral is happening, but finding the right response to those psychological alarm bells can be tricky. S...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-infamous-and-ingenious-ho-chi-minh-trail-cameron-patersonThe Ho Chi Minh Trail not only connected North and South Vietnam during a brutal war but also aided Vietnamese soldiers. The trail shaved nearly five months of time off of the trip and was used as a secret weapon of sorts. Cameron Paterson describes the history and usage of the infamous trail....

Trace the history of ketchup, from the condiment’s origins in 3rd century China to becoming a staple of American cuisine.--In the mid-18th century, England was crazy for ketchup. The sauce was a staple, but this ketchup wasn’t the ubiquitous red goop you’re familiar with today. In fact, it was a sweet and savory brown sauce that didn’t even have tomatoes in it. So where did this early ketchup come...

Trace the rise and fall of the Lakota Empire which, at their height, were the most dominant power in the American West.--In 1776, a powerful empire was born in North America. The Lakotas had reached the Black Hills, the most sacred place and most coveted buffalo hunting grounds in the western plains. Located in what is now South Dakota, control of the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa, marked the tribe as...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-is-verbal-irony-christopher-warnerAt face value, the lines between verbal irony, sarcasm, and compliments can be blurry. After all, the phrase 'That looks nice' could be all three depending on the circumstances. In the final of a three part series on irony, Christopher Warner gets into the irony you may use most often and most casually: verbal irony...

Dig into how scholars decoded the writing on the Rosetta Stone, and how this helped them understand ancient hieroglyphs.--For centuries, scholars puzzled over the hieroglyphs they found carved onto ancient Egyptian ruins, tablets, and papyri. But in 1799, a unique discovery would finally help unlock their meaning. It was a stone inscribed with three different texts: Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Demotic E...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-mendel-s-pea-plants-helped-us-understand-genetics-hortensia-jimenez-diazEach father and mother pass down traits to their children, who inherit combinations of their dominant or recessive alleles. But how do we know so much about genetics today? Hortensia Jiménez Díaz explains how studying pea plants revealed why you may have blue eyes. Lesson by Hort...

Take a look at the science of how addictive drugs affect your body and why substance addiction can be so difficult to treat.--As of 2021, more than 36 million people were estimated to be experiencing substance use disorder. This condition spans a spectrum of patterned drug use that causes issues in a person’s life, with substance addiction at the more severe end. Why are some people more susceptib...

"The world needs you, badly," begins celebrated biologist E.O. Wilson in his letter to a young scientist. Previewing his upcoming book, he gives advice collected from a lifetime of experience -- reminding us that wonder and creativity are the center of the scientific life. (Filmed at TEDMED.)Talk by E.O. Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/working-backward-to-solve-problems-maurice-ashleyImagine where you want to be someday. Now, how did you get there? Retrograde analysis is a style of problem solving where you work backwards from the endgame you want. It can help you win at chess -- or solve a problem in real life. At TEDYouth 2012, chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley delves into his favorit...