The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the final part of its sixth assessment report. In it, they steer away from the gloom and doom and remind us of a future that's still remarkably possible.

Reid Reimers expands your mind with an explanation of white holes -- celestial objects that almost definitely are not real things that can be found in nature. Except, we might have actually seen one.

Treo creator Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain -- to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next.

What's the science behind a sublime perfume? With charm and precision, biophysicist Luca Turin explains the molecular makeup -- and the art -- of a scent.

NASA recently sponsored new research into turning human waste into useful things, like food and plastic. And it might be used on long-term spaceflight someday.

Former "young Republican" Larry Lessig talks about what Democrats can learn about copyright from their opposite party, considered more conservative. A surprising lens on remix culture.

Daan Roosegaarde uses technology and creative thinking to produce imaginative, earth-friendly designs. He presents his latest projects -- from a bike path in eindhoven, where he reinterpreted "The Starry Night" to get people thinking...

Prosthetics can't replicate the look and feel of lost limbs but they can carry a lot of personality. Designer Scott Summit shows 3D-printed, individually designed prosthetic legs that are unabashedly artificial and completely personal --...

In the United States, it's estimated that 30 percent of adults and 66 percent of adolescents are regularly sleep-deprived. This isn't just a minor inconvenience: staying awake can cause serious bodily harm. Claudia Aguirre shows what...

Raymond Wang is only 17 years old, but he's already helping to build a healthier future. using fluid dynamics, he created computational simulations of how air moves on airplanes, and what he found is disturbing -- when a person sneezes...

The biggest surprise of discovering the Higgs boson? That there were no surprises. Gian Giudice talks us through a problem in theoretical physics: what if the Higgs field exists in an ultra-dense state that could mean the collapse of all...

Hank tells us how some gamers are outperforming sophisticated computer programs to help solve the puzzle of protein folding and to assist scientists in finding better treatments for HIV/AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimer's.

There's a helicopter on Mars, but you don't have to go that far to make one in your own home!

Software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- with clever, swipeable video and graphics and some very cool data visualizations to play with. The book is "Our Choice," Al Gore's sequel to "An...

For the past 200 years, the gallery has been the home of new and cutting-edge art, a place where the art community can come together and share new ideas. In the era of the internet, however, you can view remarkable art from the comfort...

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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Margaret Gould Stewart, YouTube's head of user experience, talks about how the ubiquitous video site works with copyright holders and creators to foster (at the best of times) a creative ecosystem where everybody wins.

As his career grew, David Byrne went from playing CBGB to Carnegie Hall. He asks: Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Laboratory, describes how the One Laptop Per Child project will build and distribute the "$100 laptop."

In the quest to map the brain, many scientists have attempted the incredibly daunting task of recording the activity of each neuron. Gero Miesenboeck works backward -- manipulating specific neurons to figure out exactly what they do,...

At her first museum job, art historian Sarah Lewis noticed something important about an artist she was studying: Not every artwork was a total masterpiece. She asks us to consider the role of the almost-failure, the near win, in our own...

How do you deal with a bully without becoming a thug? In this wise and soulful talk, peace activist Scilla Elworthy maps out the skills we need -- as nations and individuals -- to fight extreme force without using force in return. To...

How do we define a parent -- or a family? Bioethicist Veerle Provoost explores these questions in the context of non-traditional families, ones brought together by adoption, second marriages, surrogate mothers and sperm donations. In...

Artist and TED Fellow Aparna Rao re-imagines the familiar in surprising, often humorous ways. With her collaborator Soren Pors, Rao creates high-tech art installations -- a typewriter that sends emails, a camera that tracks you through...