Right now, the construction industry heavily relies on concrete, but it isn't great for the earth. Many scientists are looking for ways to replace it in the future, and some of their ideas are so off the wall that they just might work.

From packing peanuts to disposable coffee cups, each year the uS alone produces some two billion pounds of Styrofoam -- none of which can be recycled. Frustrated by this waste of resources and landfill space, Ashton Cofer and his science...

When he was just 14 years old, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from rough plans he found in a library book.

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on testing causes.

T
ERMS:
Tests - a planned act that is done to learn
something
Cause - a thing that gives r
ise to an event
Support - t
o give...

What do you get when you give a design tool a digital nervous system? Computers that improve our ability to think and imagine, and robotic systems that come up with (and build) radical new designs for bridges, cars, drones and much more...

What do you learn when you sail around the world on your own? When solo sailor Ellen MacArthur circled the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she came back with new insight into the way the world works, as a place of...

Plastic bags are essentially indestructible, yet they're used and thrown away with reckless abandon. Most end up in the ocean, where they pollute the water and harm marine life; the rest are burned in garbage piles, where they release...

In 2006, open-learning visionary Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind Connexions (now called OpenStax), an open-source, online education system. It cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share and modify course materials...

Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library -- every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history ... It's all free to the public -- unless someone else gets to it first.

Deep into the ocean even the slightest glimmer give you away. Which is why some fish have evolved to be so dark that they absorb any light that hits them.

At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional "take / make / waste" industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable...

By 2050, it will take 100 billion land animals to provide the world's population with meat, dairy, eggs and leather goods. Maintaining this herd will take a huge, potentially unsustainable toll on the planet. What if there were a...

There are a lot of resources given by nature for free -- all we need is our sensitivity to see them and our creativity to use them, says architect Anna Heringer. Heringer uses low-tech materials like mud and bamboo to create structures...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on material properties.


TERMS
Structure - parts in a mater
ial object
Function - an activity or purp
ose for a thing
Properties - any traits...

What will the world look like when we move beyond the keyboard and mouse? Interaction designer Sean Follmer is building a future with machines that bring information to life under your fingers as you work with it. In this talk, check out...

Hank introduces us to ecology - the study of the rules of engagement for all of us earthlings - which seeks to explain why the world looks and acts the way it does. The world is crammed with things, both animate and not, that have been...

Tal Golesworthy is a boiler engineer -- he knows piping and plumbing. When he needed surgery to repair a life-threatening problem with his aorta, he mixed his engineering skills with his doctors' medical knowledge to design a better...

Designing electronics is generally cumbersome and expensive -- or was, until Leah Buechley and her team at MIT developed tools to treat electronics just like paper and pen. In this talk from TEDYouth 2011, Buechley shows some of her...

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This video is about the international system of...

Your mobile phone, computer and game console have a bloody past — tied to tantalum mining, which funds the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Drawing on his personal story, activist and refugee Bandi Mbubi gives a stirring call...

There's a creepy transformation taking over our cities, says architecture critic Justin Davidson. From Houston, Texas to Guangzhou, China, shiny towers of concrete and steel covered with glass are cropping up like an invasive species....

If you find a glowing rock, it probably doesn't mean you're the chosen one. If it's one of these five phenomena, it's quantum mechanics, not narrative significance.

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pters

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ESCENCE
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Daniel Libeskind builds on very big ideas. Here, he shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture -- raw, risky, emotional, radical -- and that offer inspiration for any bold creative pursuit.

You might want to hold off on sending your family's secret chili recipe across the internet to your family member who lives out of state. Researchers are working on a way to harness quantum weirdness to send information super securely!