TED Talks Daily

The James Webb Space Telescope is a miracle of modern science and engineering. With a 21-foot, gold-coated mirror protected by a sunshield that's the size of a tennis court, it's the world's most powerful telescope and humanity's latest attempt to answer questions like: "Where did we come from?" and "Are we alone?" (It also needed to be folded up like origami in order to launch into space.) Nobel Laureate John C. Mather, the leader of the team at NASA that built the Webb, explains how the telescope will observe the first galaxies to form in the early universe, peer behind clouds of cosmic dust and gas to reveal stars being born and uncover new details about places like Europa and Titan, which could harbor life. "We're going to get a great surprise from this telescope," Mather says.

Building a pandemic-free future won’t be easy, but Bill Gates believes that we have the tools and strategies to make it possible -- now we just have to fund them. In this forward-looking talk, he proposes a multi-specialty Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization (GERM) team that would detect potential outbreaks and stop them from becoming pandemics. By investing in disease monitoring, research and development as well as improved health systems, Gates believes we can “create a world where everyone has a chance to live a healthy and productive life -- a life free from the fear of the next COVID-19.”

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What happens when the data-driven capabilities of AI are combined with human creativity and ingenuity? Shining a light on the opportunities this futuristic collaboration could bring to the workplace, AI expert Shervin Khodabandeh shares how to redesign companies so that people and machines can learn from each other.

To solve the climate crisis, we need to make tropical forests worth more alive than dead, says environmental economist Nat Keohane. Highlighting the urgent need to stop deforestation and the carbon pollution it brings, he details the work of the LEAF Coalition -- a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership that’s channeling one billion dollars into protecting tropical forests -- and shares three building blocks for a robust market for forest carbon that enables economies to thrive while protecting natural resources.

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To solve the climate crisis, we need to make tropical forests worth more alive than dead, says environmental economist Nat Keohane. Highlighting the urgent need to stop deforestation and the carbon pollution it brings, he details the work of the LEAF Coalition -- a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership that's channeling one billion dollars into protecting tropical forests -- and shares three building blocks for a robust market for forest carbon that enables economies to thrive while protecting natural resources.

Getting pregnant as a track and field athlete is often called the "kiss of death" -- a sign your athletic career will soon end. Olympic champion, entrepreneur and proud mother Allyson Felix thinks it shouldn't be that way. She tells the story of starting a family while fighting to change her former sponsor's maternity policy -- and paving the way for others to get greater protection and more support. Her message is a testament to the power of believing in and advocating for yourself. "You don't have to be an Olympian to create change for yourself and others," she says. "Each of us can bet on ourselves."

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Getting pregnant as a track and field athlete is often called the "kiss of death" -- a sign your athletic career will soon end. Olympic champion, entrepreneur and proud mother Allyson Felix thinks it shouldn't be that way. She tells the story of starting a family while fighting to change her former sponsor's maternity policy -- and paving the way for others to get greater protection and more support. Her message is a testament to the power of believing in and advocating for yourself. "You don't have to be an Olympian to create change for yourself and others," she says. "Each of us can bet on ourselves."

Africa needs new energy sources to fuel its development, but the continent should invest in renewable energy instead of cheap, polluting alternatives like coal, says climate inclusion activist Chibeze Ezekiel. He tells the story of how he worked with local communities in Ghana to halt the construction of the country's first coal power plant -- and encouraged the government to prioritize investments in renewable energy instead. "Development and clean, breathable air should not be mutually exclusive," Ezekiel says.

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What's on Elon Musk's mind? In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Musk details how the radical new innovations he's working on -- Tesla's intelligent humanoid robot Optimus, SpaceX's otherworldly Starship and Neuralink's brain-machine interfaces, among others -- could help maximize the lifespan of humanity and create a world where goods and services are abundant and accessible for all. It's a compelling vision of a future worth getting excited about. (Recorded at the Tesla Texas Gigafactory on April 6, 2022)

In this live, unedited conversation, Elon Musk -- the head of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company -- digs into the recent news around his bid to purchase Twitter and gets honest about the biggest regret of his career, how his brain works, the future he envisions for the world and a lot more. (This conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson was recorded live at TED2022 on April 14, 2022. If you want to hear even more, head over to "The TED Interview" podcast, where Musk and Anderson sat down at the new Tesla Gigafactory in Texas to discuss some of the radical innovations he's working on -- including Tesla's intelligent humanoid robot, SpaceX's Starship and Neuralink's brain-machine interfaces.)