TED Blog

Too extraordinary to ignore: Sleeping pills awaken comatose patients

In one of the most bizarre science breakthroughs in recent memory, British and South African doctors have reported three cases of semi-comatose patients who were roused to a waking, interactive state by ... a sleeping pill.

The effect was discovered by accident: Doctors had administered the sleeping pill, Zolpidem (better known in the US by the brand name Ambien), to calm a vegetative patient who was experiencing restless movements. "Lo and behold, he woke up 15 minutes later," UK doctor Ralf Clauss told Nature. "The effect is amazing to say the least.”

Full story on Nature.com (subscription only) and New Scientist. Follow-up story today on the UK's Daily Mirror, about patient Louis Viljoen.

David Rockwell & Jerry Mitchell "choreograph" a JetBlue terminal

When architect and stage designer David Rockport (TED ‘97, ‘99, ‘02) was asked to design the interior of the new JetBlue terminal at JFK, he brought in a rather unlikely partner: Broadway choreographer Jerry Mitchell. The pair had collaborated before (on shows like Hairspray, Rocky Horror, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). Now, they’re re-imagining airport foot traffic as a choreography challenge, finding ways to move people more smoothly and naturally through the pre- and post-flight experience.

"The original design made it hard to understand where you were supposed to go, either entering or leaving," Mitchell told The New York Times. "Traffic diagrams showed a huge amount of path-crossing. I started to think it would be fabulous to eliminate all this crisscrossing and straight edges, which cause anxiety when they go on too long. David asked me what dance patterns I would use, and I said, 'People move easiest in circles: off and on the merry-go-round.' "

Full story and slide show in The Times.

Olivia Judson: DNA is the new fossil record

Are fossil records a thing of the past? Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson (TED2005) thinks they may be. In Sunday’s New York Times, she made a case (aimed at the general public) that DNA sequencing and analysis now provides more detailed proof of evolution than fossils ever could.

True to form, Judson — who is known for her spicy, off-beat musings on all manner of mating issues (Her book, Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice for all Creation, was adapted into a UK Channel 4 TV series, featuring unlikely musical numbers like the "Ladybug Promiscuity song") — takes the opportunity to present a few titillating facts: like the discovery, published recently in Nature, that humans and chimpanzees were kissing cousins far more recently than previously believed.

A Working Hundred Dollar Laptop Unveiled

I received an email from my dad this afternoon saying somewhat incredulously, "Nicholas is really making this thing happen."  For those of you who don't know, "this thing" is the Hundred Dollar Laptop and Nicholas is long-time TED friend and speaker, Nicholas Negroponte.  The evidence that Nicholas is making the Hundred Dollar Laptop happen can be found in this photoset of the first working prototype of the Hundred Dollar Laptop that was just unveiled on May 23rd.  Check out the photos.  It is looking really slick. 

Bono in Africa

I'm just back from an incredible few days in Tanzania with Bono and his team, part of his current tour through Africa.  Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News is joining him in Ghana this evening, for the show's first live broadcast from Africa.  I'm sure it's worth watching. (6.30pm ET, 5.30pm PT, and also online, but check local listings.)

They shot some great footage this week. And the agenda has shifted, even since Bono's inspirational talk at TED last year.  It's no longer just about Africa's woes.  There's a lot of very cool stuff happening on the continent,  and Bono has been visiting some of the more promising projects. For example, this efficiently-run factory in Arusha creates longlasting insecticide-treated anti-malaria bednets (partly thanks to a loan several years ago by Acumen Fund.) The factory employs more than 3000 people and is now at a run rate of more than 4m nets a year, each of which provides upwards of five years of protection.  As Bono remarked, a great example of Africans working to solve one of the continent's biggest, but also most solvable, problems. I was really impressed with his serious intent, genuine desire to listen and understand, and determination to get to real solutions.

TED will be back in Arusha early next summer for the first TED conference ever held in Africa. Watch this space.

Ripe for parodying

If you liked the Sony Bouncy Balls ad, you'll love this homage, filmed in Wales for the soft drink, Tango.

In Cannes-venient Truth: Behind the scenes with Gore

When Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" premiered at Cannes this weekend, TED2006 photographer Robert Leslie was on hand to capture some behind-the-scenes pics.

Below: Pay no attention to those name placards ... Director David Guggenheim, movie star Al Gore and producer Lawrence Bender answer questions at the press conference for "An Inconvenient Truth"; Gore at the premiere. More Photos after the jump ....

Disintermediating American Idol

Who needs American Idle when you’ve got the viral power of the Internet. Those of you reading this post who have not yet seen the Chinese Backstreet Boys, as they have come to be known, may well be in minority at this point.  This lip syncing video has struck a chord with millions of viewers.  And as we’ve seen with things like JibJab’s This Land or The Star Wars Kid, cultural phenomenon spread with lightening speed on the Internet.  I am sure these two Chinese teenagers had no idea how popular their lip syncing video would become.  Yet, like the winners of American Idol, fame has turned into money for these instant celebrities.  Check out this Motorola commercial they have recently recorded and is now playing in the Chinese market.  Just another example of the powerful cultural filter that is the unfettered Internet.

Ads we love: Honda "Choir" and "Impossible Dream"

At TED2006, we devoted an unusual amount of our "interstitial" time to a single advertiser, showing three different ads from Honda, all brilliant in their own way. Mind you, Honda has no affiliation with TED. We just like their ads.

And we're not the only ones. Two of the Honda spots — Choir and Impossible Dreams — walked away with the top prize in advertising last night, winning the Grand Clio for television ads. Congratulations are in order to TEDster Russell Davies (whose blog we love); he was instrumental in the Honda campaign, before joining Nike.

So here they are: Two ads that breathe new life into the 60 (or 120) second spot. Impossible Dream and Choir. Created by Wieden + Kennedy London for Honda.

Clio Award Winners: You saw them first at TED

We were pleased to see that several of the ads we highlighted at TED2006 and TEDGlobal were awarded Clios last night, in Miami. The Honda ads, Choir and Impossible Dream, took the Grand Clio, and gold awards went to Guinness noitulovE (that's "evolution," backwards), Sony Bouncy Balls, and Sony PSP A Day in the Life. Adidas Hello Tomorrow, the mesmerizing spot from Spike Jonze, picked up a few silvers.

An Ethel song with a twist...

In perhaps the most surprising collaboration to come out of TED, string quartet Ethel has recorded a lively little number with ... Einstein the talking parrot. We give to you: Also Spracht Einstein. Delightful.

Al Gore, Comedian

At TED2006, and again at our TED screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," we witnessed the reinvention of Al Gore as global warming warrior and ... stand-up comic? The former VP, not known previously for his stage presence, was surprisingly hilarious in both his rehearsed bits and off-the-cuff comments (to say nothing of the Melissa Etheridge lip-syncing). And after this weekend's appearance on Saturday Night Live (still a hot topic, three days later), the transition seems complete.

If you missed Gore's TV comedy debut, playing the president he might have been, you can watch online and see what all the fuss is about ... Gore, who has generally set aside partisan politics to build consensus on global warming, let it rip in this satirical state of the union from the presidency-that-wasn't. ("In 2000 when you overwhelmingly made the decision to elect me as your 43rd president, I knew the road ahead would be difficult... We are facing perhaps the worst gas crisis in history. We have way too much gasoline. Gas is down to $0.19 a gallon and the oil companies are hurting. I know that I am partly to blame by insisting that cars run on trash.")

We're guessing this won't help defray rumors of a second presidential run ...

2007 TED Prize Nominations

Yes, I know there are three, big, open wishes out there going through the wish granting process, but it's time to start thinking about next year. Only two months left to get in nominations for the 2007 TED Prize winners. We're looking for visionaries that can make a difference in the world and mobilize the TED Community into joining them.

Nomination forms are available online.

WIRED Rave Awards for Cameron Sinclair, Peter Diamandis, Saul Griffith ...

TEDPrize winner Cameron Sinclair is having a very good year. Fresh on the heels of both the TEDPrize and the RISD/Target Emerging Designer Award, tonight he'll receive a WIRED Rave Award, recognizing him and his wife/Architecture for Humanity co-founder Kate Stohr for innovation in architecture.

WIRED is also raving about other TED speakers, who'll be honored tonight in San Francisco and profiled in the June magazine. These include X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis (for Science), and inventor Saul Griffith — or rather, his company, Squid Labs (for industrial design).

The annual WIRED Maverick award will be awarded collectively to four individuals — George Clooney, Jeff Skoll, Steven Soderbergh and TEDster Mark Cuban — representing the "New Hollywood." And a new award has been added: "Faced with the prospect of handing out yet another well-deserved Rave Award to Steve Jobs, WIRED's editors took the unprecedented step of creating a separate award in his honor," the press release explains. "The inaugural Steve Jobs Award, recognizing sustained excellence and creative genius, goes to ... Steve Jobs."

Bono becomes newspaper editor for a day

The cover of today's UK Independent is pure genius. They made TED Prize winner Bono guest editor for the day. His front page lead headline reads:
"No news today." with a footnote that clarifies: "Just 6,500 Africans died today as a result of a preventable, treatable disease." The novice editor appears to have had access to some pretty interesting writers too. Check it out...  (If accessing after May 16, you may need to search the site for the May 16 edition.)

Design Like You Give a Damn

TED Prize winner Cameron Sinclair has a new book coming out - an encyclopedia of sorts that showcases global projects in which design improves living standards - and the Observer has the story. The article has a great summary of how Architecture for Humanity came to be and an idea of where it's going. For those of you in New York, Cameron will be signing books at the Jacob Javits Center this Saturday, May 20, at 1:00 PM.

Joshua Prince-Ramus splits with Rem Koolhaas

At TED2006, architect Joshua Prince-Ramus held our rapt attention as he deconstructed the process of building the Seattle Library, peeling back the collaborative "hyper-rational" process layer by layer. It was clear to us then that Prince-Ramus — U.S. director of Rem Koolhaas' architecture firm, OMA — was poised to make a name for himself, independent of his mentor. (Note the pre-TED coverage in BusinessWeek Online.)

Now it's official. Prince-Ramus has set out on his own, forming a new firm with business partner Erez Ella, and taking the entire New York OMA office and the majority of U.S. clients with them. Though the split was amicable, breaking up is always hard to do. "It ultimately became a clear decision, but not an easy one," Prince-Ramus told The New York Times, which ran a full-page story yesterday. Said Koolhaas: "The sadness is something we deal with in private."

The new firm, Ramus-Ella Architects (REX), will continue to oversee development of the Wyly Theater in Dallas and the Museum Plaza in Louisville (both of which Prince-Ramus walked us through in Monterey), as well as the Annenberg Center at CalTech. Good luck to you, Joshua! We're looking forward to seeing you succeed!

Remarkable Punditry from the BBC

My old friend Guy Kewney gave a bizarre interview on the BBC this past week, offering a surprisingly rambling commentary on the Beatles/Apple court case.   Except it turned out not to be him at all, but his startled cab driver who had been grabbed by a floor producer apparently because was holding Kewney's name tag.  Reminded me for a moment of the classic Peter Sellers movie "Being There". Priceless. Check out the look on the driver's face as the interview starts to roll.....

Very Monty Python

This posting has absolutely no purpose... except to confess that this made me laugh. A lot.

Jennifer Lin on Oprah

Not being a regular viewer of Oprah, I somehow missed this a couple weeks' back. An appearance by the remarkable pianist Jennifer Lin. Two years ago, when she was just 14, she lit up the TED Conference with an astonishing improvisation. (Click the second link on this page.)  Her Oprah appearance included some brief clips from that TED performance, and a second improvisation in which Oprah (instead of Goldie Hawn) drew the notes from which she played.  Ah, Jennifer, we miss you!

Bonds to fund a free press? You heard it first at TED ...

Last summer at TEDGlobal, Sasa Vucinic explained in quiet tones his maverick idea: He wanted to sell "free-press bonds.". "If investors are willing to fund the US deficit, why wouldn't investors want to fund the press freedom deficit?" Vucinic asked. (BBC article on that talk)

Yesterday, he put that thought to the test. As TEDGlobal producer Bruno Giussani reports on his blog:

It's now reality: for the first time a social cause will be listed on a major stock exchange. The Media Development Loan Fund, a non-profit run by Vucinic (picture) and based in New York and Prague providing low-cost financing to independent media in emerging democracies, is launching a security that mobilises private investment to support a free press - basically a bond with a social element. They're doing so together with Swiss bank Vontobel and Zurich social investment specialists responsAbility.

(...) The timing of the issue is not coincidental: today May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. Vucinic said this morning in the Financial Times that he believes the new product could become "a blueprint for engaging private finance in social projects around the world".

The "TIME 100" names names

This week, TIME Magazine puts their annual stake in the ground, naming the 100 most influential people of the moment. As usual, a number of TED veterans among them: Al Gore, Bill (and Melinda) Gates, Bono, Freakonomics author Steven Levitt, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, the "Flickr founders" and the "Skype guys."

Water runs uphill, make headlines

Banal, yet eye-grabbing science story of the day: U.S. physicists have demonstrated that water droplets can run uphill, propelled by their own steam.

Hot Study Hall: The History Boys on Broadway

Alan Bennett's fabulous new play The History Boys opened on Broadway last week at the Broadhurst to uniformly wonderful reviews after sold-out runs in London and Sydney. Set in Thatcher-era England, History Boys takes place in a state school where sixth form boys are preparing to take exams that will admit them to their fantasy of Oxbridge, or to lesser schools. Hector, their larger-than-life "general studies" professor played by (Harry Potter's comically evil uncle in the films) Richard Griffiths teaches them the joy of learning with and by heart, for the love of knowledge itself. Because his unorthodox methods drive the headmaster around the bend, a new teacher (Stephen Campbell Moore) is brought in to help them prepare for Orals. The chaos, crushes, and manic energy of adolescence contrast with the faculty rivalries and intrigue that threaten to bring a vunerable teacher down.  More after the jump...