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Biologist Robert Full explains how bio-mimicry not only teaches us how to make better robots but also helps us to better understand the world around us. Case in point, while investigating how to replicate gecko feet and in turn to make a gecko robot, Full’s team discovered that the machine didn’t operate well without a tail. When his team asked Full what was the purpose of the gecko’s tail, to his surprise, he wasn’t quite sure, so he set out to investigate. He discovered an entire universe of surprises, which he describes in this TED talk.

Listen to Dan Ariely’s talk, presented in February 2009 at the TED conference, about his experiments in predictable irrationality. He explains how bugs in our moral code make us think it’s okay to cheat or steal sometimes but not others.

Theo Jansen invents incredible mechanical creatures, or new kinds of life, as he likes to say. He presented them at TED.
This CGI reconstruction demonstrates the principle behind these walking creatures:

Some intrepid designers at the University of Louisiana have taken the idea and created a kind of walking Segway, they’ve named it the Cajun Crawler:

The scooter was inspired by Theo Jansen’s leg mechanism. Throughout our research, we found no application where Jansen’s leg mechanism was used as a weight-bearing application or vehicle. The legs are made of standard 5052 Aluminum. The joints all contain deep-groove ball bearings.

No flying cars yet, but the future is just about here. Check out this amazing device that only costs around $350 for the parts—it’s basically a camera, projector and smart phone interacting with the world around us.

Hit play or watch Pattie Mae at TED.

Paul Rothemund will send chills down your spine as he explains the astonishing potential of DNA folding in this great TED talk from September 2007.

Hit play or watch Paul Rothemund: The astonishing promise of DNA folding. See also—Paul’s other talk on DNA folding, Paul Rothemund casts a spell with DNA.

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, at a 2005 TED Talk speaks about the economics of car seats. His data lead him to ask the morally difficult question, are children’s car seats worth the time and expense it takes to use them?

Hit play or watch Steven Levitt on child car seats at TED.com.

I just watched Dave Eggers TED talk about the 826 Valencia project. It’s inspiring and funny; please enjoy:

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don’t need to go that far, he reminds us—it’s as simple as asking a teacher “How can I help?” He asks that we share our own volunteering stories at his new website, Once Upon a School.

This remarkable video shows a glimpse into the fascinating world of the ant. The narrator describes the intricate ant nest as an accomplishment equivalent to the building of the great wall of China.

The structure covers 538 square feet and travels 26 feet into the earth. In it’s construction, the colony moved 40 tons of soil. Billions of ant loads of soil were brought to the surface. Each load weighed four times as much as the worker ant, and in human terms, was carried over 1/2 mile to the surface.

[Ants! - YouTube]

I also recommend the TED talk by Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?

This summer, while working at a camera/photography store in Lethbridge, one of the jobs I did was Photoshop work and printing photos.

One day a middle-aged woman came into the store carrying an old 8×10 of her deceased parents. She explained that the photo had been damaged when it fell off the wall and the glass protecting it, broke and cut into the image. She asked if we would be able to photoshop the damage out and make a new copy.

Before I could speak, the manager of the store pulled the image from my hand and inspected the photograph.

“Who took the photo?”

There was no stamp on the back and she didn’t know. She explained, “It was taken about 30 years ago by a photographer that their pastor hired to take family photos at their church”.

He told her due to copyright laws, he would not print her a new image. (Nevermind the illegally copied Photoshop program he was using to charge $45/hour to make other’s copies).

Should it be illegal to recover the woman’s photo? Common sense revolts at the idea.

But she never did get it fixed.

Update: I’ve since learned the manager has been “let go”.

See this great TED talk by Larry Lessig speaking about the shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws.

What you are about to watch is truly remarkable, and it just gets better as it goes.

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from [Flickr], Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo.

See more on Seadragon and Photosynth.