The dancer, the singer, the cellist … a moment of creative magic

Legendary dancer Bill T. Jones and TED Fellows Joshua Roman and Somi didn’t know exactly what was going to happen when they took the stage at TED2015. They just knew they wanted to show the audience a creative collaboration in action. The result: An improvised piece they call “The Red Circle and the Blue Curtain,” so extraordinary it had to be shared …Watch now »

Pamela Ronald studies the genes that make plants more resistant to disease and stress. In an eye-opening talk, she describes her decade-long quest to help create a variety of rice that can survive prolonged flooding. She shows how the genetic improvement of seeds saved the Hawaiian papaya crop in the 1990s — and makes the case that modern genetics is sometimes the most effective method to enhance food security for our planet’s growing population. Watch »

Liver cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to detect, but synthetic biologist Tal Danino had a left-field thought: What if we could create a probiotic, edible bacteria that was “programmed” to find liver tumors? His insight exploits something we’re just beginning to understand about bacteria: their power of quorum sensing, or doing something together once they reach critical mass. Danino, a TED Fellow, explains how quorum sensing works — and how clever bacteria working together could someday change cancer treatment. Watch »

Singer-songwriter Dawn Landes tells the story of Tori Murden McClure, who dreamed of rowing across the Atlantic in a small boat — but whose dream was almost capsized by waves the size of a seven-story building. Through video, story and song, Landes imagines the mindset of a woman alone in the midst of the vast ocean. Watch »Subtle motion happens around us all the time, including tiny vibrations caused by sound. New technology shows that we can pick up on these vibrations and actually re-create sound and conversations just from a video of a seemingly still object. But now Abe Davis takes it one step further: Watch him demo software that lets anyone interact with these hidden properties, just from a simple video. Watch »

Quote of the Week

May 9, 2015

It’s the mortar, not just the bricks, that makes a building strong. The mortar, in a strong team, is social capital: mutual reliance, an underlying sense of connectedness that builds trust.”

Margaret HeffernanEssay: The secret ingredient that makes some teams stronger than others