TED Talks Daily

As you get older, your eyes worsen and become susceptible to a disease called age-related macular degeneration -- the leading cause of blindness, with no cure in sight. Sharing the science of how your vision works, researcher Joshua Chu-Tan offers breakthrough insights on a lesser-known protein that could change the treatment for this disease, preserving the gift of sight for longer and improving the quality of life for millions of people.

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We’ve been hearing about self-driving cars for years, but autonomous vehicle entrepreneur Aicha Evans thinks we need to dream more daringly. In this exciting talk, she introduces us to robotaxis: fully autonomous, eco-friendly shuttles that would take you from place to place and take up less space on the streets than personal cars. Learn how this new technology works -- and what a future where we hail robotaxis would look like.

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TED Fellow and education innovator Larry Irvin envisions a world where every child can see themselves reflected in their teachers. With his team at Brothers Empowered to Teach, Irvin is providing pathways to careers in education for Black men, who currently make up less than three percent of all teachers in the US -- offering training, personal and professional development and job placement. He shares how their holistic, people-centered approach is changing education.

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What if we had a map of ... everything? Jack Dangermond, a visionary behind the geographic information system (GIS) technology used to map and analyze all kinds of complex data, walks us through the interconnected technologies gathering information about every crack and corner of the Earth. Learn how this "living atlas" and "geospatial nervous system" can help us better understand our changing planet -- and let nature guide our actions towards a more sustainable future.

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The financial sector often talks of decarbonizing investment portfolios as a way to fight climate change. But portfolios can be “cleaned” without having any real impact on the problem, says investment expert Nili Gilbert. Bringing science to finance, she unpacks how investors can actually help decarbonize the world -- a costly endeavor, estimated at three to five trillion dollars per year between now and 2050 -- and ensure the climate transition is just, global and interconnected. “Changing the markets can be a way to change the world,” she says.

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What if your hour-long commute was reduced to just minutes? That's the promise of the hyperloop: a transit system designed around a pod that zooms through a vacuum-sealed space (roughly the size of a subway tunnel) at hyper-speed, powered by next-generation batteries and state-of-the-art magnetic levitation. In the visionary talk, Josh Giegel, the hyperloop's very first passenger, shares how this zipping innovation could launch us into a faster, cleaner future of transportation.

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What we know today about global greenhouse gas emissions is mostly self-reported by countries, and those numbers (sometimes tallied manually on paper!) are often inaccurate and prone to manipulation. If we really want to get serious about fighting climate change, we need a way to track carbon pollution in real-time and identify the worst culprits, says high-tech environmental activist Gavin McCormick. Enter Climate TRACE: a coalition of scientists, activists and tech companies using satellite imagery, big data and AI to monitor and transparently report on all of the world’s emissions as they happen -- and speed up meaningful climate action. A powerful, free, global tool to match the scale of a civilization-threatening crisis.

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Questionable phone calls, concerning emails, heart-rending stories from a sudden new friend in need of endless financial support: elder abuse can take many forms, says lawyer Jane Walsh. And as technology becomes more sophisticated, susceptibility to tricks and scams will increase -- no matter a person's age or intellect. Walsh spotlights the rise of this predatory crime, why it goes undetected and how you can protect your loved ones' kindness, dignity and self-respect from being manipulated.

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Who are you, really? Neuroscientist Anil Seth lays out his fascinating new theory of consciousness and self, centered on the notion that we “predict” the world into existence. From sleep to memory and everything in between, Seth explores the reality we experience in our brains -- versus the world as it objectively might be. (This talk and conversation, hosted by TED science curator David Biello, was part of a TED Membership event. Visit ted.com/membership to become a TED Member.)

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When it comes to tackling climate change, the size of a country doesn't matter -- it's their ambition that counts, says First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon. In a rousing talk, she shares examples of small nations -- from Bhutan and Fiji to her own Scotland -- whose leadership and climate action are galvanizing change on the international stage. (Followed by a brief Q&A with TED's global curator Bruno Giussani about the Cambo oil field project)

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