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Ed Boyden shows how, by inserting genes for light-sensitive proteins into brain cells, he can selectively activate or de-activate specific neurons with fiber-optic implants. With this unprecedented level of control, he’s managed to cure mice of analogs of PTSD and certain forms of blindness. On the horizon: neural prosthetics.
Wofford College president Ben Dunlap tells the story of Sandor Teszler, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who taught him about passionate living and lifelong learning.
Who Is Ben Dunlap?
Ben Dunlap was a dancer for four years with the Columbia City Ballet, kicking off a life of artistic and cultural exploration. A Rhodes Scholar, he did his PhD in English literature at Harvard, and is now the president of Wofford College, a small liberal arts school in South Carolina. He has taught classes on a wide variety of subjects, from Asian history to creative writing.
He's also a writer-producer for television, and his 19-part series The Renaissance has been adopted for use by more than 100 colleges. He has been a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Thailand and a moderator at the Aspen Institute.
Diagnosed with cancer, Bruce Feiler worried first about his young family. So -- as he shares in this funny, rambling and ultimately thoughtful talk -- he asked his closest friends to become a "council of dads," bringing their own lifetimes of wisdom to advise his twin daughters as they grow.
Who Is Bruce Feiler?
Bruce Feiler is the author of nine books, including Walking the Bible, Abraham, and America’s Prophet. He is also the writer/presenter of the PBS miniseries Walking the Bible. His latest book, The Council of Dads, tells the uplifting story of how friendship and community can help one survive life’s greatest challenges.
Feiler’s early books involve immersing himself in different cultures and bringing other worlds vividly to life. These include Learning to Bow, an account of the year he spent teaching in rural Japan; Looking for Class, about life inside Oxford and Cambridge; and Under the Big Top, which depicts the year he spent performing as a clown in the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus.
In this talk from RSA Animate, bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways it has shaped human development and society.
Who Is Jeremy Rifkin?
Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the author of 17 bestselling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society and the environment. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages and are used in thousands of universities, corporations and government agencies around the world.
Rifkin has been an advisor to the European Union for the past decade. He has been a senior lecturer at the Wharton School’s Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and his monthly column on global issues appears in many of the world's leading newspapers and magazines, including The Los Angeles Times and The Guardian."The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth."Jeremy Rifkin
Since 1979, Benjamin Zander has been the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He is known around the world as both a guest conductor and a speaker on leadership -- and he's been known to do both in a single performance. He uses music to help people open their minds and create joyful harmonies that bring out the best in themselves and their colleagues.
His provocative ideas about leadership are rooted in a partnership with Rosamund Stone Zander, with whom he co-wrote The Art of Possibility.
"Arguably the most accessible communicator about classical music since Leonard Bernstein, Zander moves audiences with his unbridled passion and enthusiasm."
-Sue Fox, London Sunday Times
Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.
Jimmy Wales recalls how he assembled "a ragtag band of volunteers," gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia, the self-organizing, self-correcting, never-finished online encyclopedia.
The mission of TED (Technology Education Design) is to promote "ideas worth spreading." It's one of our favourite websites simply because of the quality of content that is produced. The video editors do an amazing job of making the speakers stand out and having their presentations come across with no distractions. The clarity of the speakers is remarkable.
We've gone through the archives and hand-picked some of our favorite TED talks for people who want to learn more about happiness and find their career calling. Granted, it's hard to select just ten to feature here out of the 700-some-odd videos available. There is a great section on their site called "What Makes Us Happy" so be sure to check that out. If you know a video that should be on here but isn't, be sure to leave us a comment. Enjoy!
1. Do What Makes You Happy - Chip Conley
2. Dan Gilbert Asks, Why Are We Happy?
3. John Wooden On True Success
4. Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
5. Martin Seligman On Positive Psychology
6. Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action
7. Tony Robbins Asks Why We Do What We Do
8. Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke Of Insight
10. Sir Ken Robinson: Bring On The Learning Revolution!
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Bonus - Jeff Bezos: What Matters More Than Your Talents (Not A TED Talk - But Worthwhile)
What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.
After training in biochemistry at the Institute Pasteur, Matthieu Ricard left science behind to move to the Himalayas and become a Buddhist monk -- and to pursue happiness, both at a basic human level and as a subject of inquiry. Achieving happiness, he has come to believe, requires the same kind of effort and mind training that any other serious pursuit involves.
His deep and scientifically tinged reflections on happiness and Buddhism have turned into several books, including The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet. At the same time, he also makes sensitive and jaw-droppingly gorgeous photographs of his beloved Tibet and the spiritual hermitage where he lives and works on humanitarian projects.His latest book on happiness is Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill; his latest book of photographs is Tibet: An Inner Journey."Matthieu Ricard, French translator and right-hand man for the Dalai Lama, has been the subject of intensive clinical tests at the University of Wisconsin, as a result of which he is frequently described as the happiest man in the world."
Robert Chalmers, The Independent
Have you ever watched Minority Report? Many of us have wondered if the technology seen in that movie could ever be possible. Well it is. Here is the man to show it to us.
Minority Report science adviser and inventor John Underkoffler demos g-speak -- the real-life version of the film's eye-popping, tai chi-meets-cyberspace computer interface. Is this how tomorrow's computers will be controlled?
