The TedxDeExtinction conference, discussing how and whether to resurrect extinct species from DNA, took place on the Ides of March 2013 at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC. Watch archived versions of the talks. If people had the ability to resurrect extinct species (dubbed “de-extinction”) and reintroduce them to the wild, should we direct [...]

Sugata Mitra gave street kids in a slum in New Delhi access to a computer connected to the Internet, and found that they quickly taught themselves how to use it. This was the moment he says he discovered a new way of teaching. He calls it the grandmother technique, and it goes like this: expose [...]

Saul Griffith likes kites – but not the kind that you might have flown during your childhood. I’m talking about kites with wingspans bigger than a Boeing 747 – kites that are capable of generating (several times) more electricity than today’s stationary wind turbines. In his March 2009 TED talk, Saul – with Makani Power – [...]

In February 2010, Bill Gates stood up and presented a TED talk on what we can do to improve the lives of the poorest 2 billion people on the planet. Perhaps surprisingly, this talk was not on vaccines or seeds, but instead was focused on how energy – and the carbon dioxide emitted by our [...]

Editor’s Note: Scientific American‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in 60-Second Solar. Read his introduction here and see all posts here. I mentioned in my last post that you really need to do energy audits on an ongoing basis. Luckily, you can, without hiring a consultant each time. Fellow solar [...]