Goodbye, textbooks; hello, open-source learning: Rice University professor Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind Connexions, his open-source, online education system. It cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share and modify course materials freely, anywhere in the world.

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Documenting our endangered cultures: Photographer Phil Borges shows rarely seen images of people from the mountains of Dharamsala, India, and the jungles of the Ecuadorean Amazon. In documenting these endangered cultures, he intends to help preserve them.

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Life on Mars? Let's look in the caves: So the Mars Rovers didn't scoop up any alien lifeforms. Scientist Penelope Boston thinks there's a good chance -- a 25 to 50 percent chance, in fact -- that life might exist on Mars, deep inside the planet's caves. She details how we should look and why.

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Why squatter cities are a good thing: Rural villages worldwide are being deserted, as billions of people flock to cities to live in teeming squatter camps and slums. Stewart Brand says this is a good thing. Why? It'll take you 3 minutes to find out.

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TED Prize wish: Help stop the next pandemic: Accepting the 2006 TED Prize, Dr. Larry Brilliant talks about how smallpox was eradicated from the planet, and calls for a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread.

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Greening the ghetto: In an emotionally charged talk, MacArthur-winning activist Majora Carter details her fight for environmental justice in the South Bronx -- and shows how minority neighborhood suffer most from flawed urban policy.

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Tools for building a better world: We all want to make the world better -- but how? Jamais Cascio looks at some specific tools and techniques that can make a difference. It's a fascinating talk that might just inspire you to act.

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A secular, scientific rebuttal to Rick Warren: Philosopher Dan Dennett calls for religion -- all religion -- to be taught in schools, so we can understand its nature as a natural phenomenon. Then he takes on The Purpose-Driven Life, disputing its claim that, to be moral, one must deny evolution.

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Hunting the next killer virus: Biochemist Joe DeRisi talks about amazing new ways to diagnose viruses (and treat the illnesses they cause) using DNA. His work may help us understand malaria, SARS, avian flu -- and the 60 percent of everyday viral infections that go undiagnosed.

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Talking and squawking TED2006: This whimsical wrap-up of TED2006 -- presented by Einstein, the African grey parrot, and her trainer, Stephanie White -- simply tickles. Watch for the moment when Einstein has a moment with Al Gore.

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Blue Room: The avant-garde string quartet Ethel performs the third movement from Phil Kline's four-part suite "The Blue Room and Other Stories." Searching melodic lines show off the deep, emotional musicality of these passionate players.

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The science of love, and the future of women: Anthropologist Helen Fisher takes on a tricky topic -- love -- and explains its evolution, its biochemical foundations and its social importance. She closes with a warning about the potential disaster inherent in antidepressant abuse.

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Ways of seeing: Rob Forbes, the founder of Design Within Reach, shows a gallery of snapshots that inform his way of seeing the world. Charming juxtapositions, found art, urban patterns -- this slideshow will open your eyes to the world around you.

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Fighting injustice with a videocamera: Musician and activist Peter Gabriel shares his very personal motivation for standing up for human rights with the watchdog group WITNESS -- and tells stories of citizen journalists in action.

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The beckoning promise of personal fabrication: MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld talks about his Fab Lab -- a low-cost lab that lets people build things they need using digital and analog tools. It's a simple idea with powerful results.

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15 ways to avert a climate crisis: With the same humor and humanity he exuded in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore spells out 15 ways that individuals can address climate change immediately, from buying a hybrid to inventing a new, hotter "brand name" for global warming.

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Hardware solutions to everyday problems: Inventor and MacArthur fellow Saul Griffith shares some innovative ideas from his lab -- from "smart rope" to a house-sized kite for towing large loads.

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Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design: Jeff Han shows off a cheap, scalable multi-touch and pressure-sensitive computer screen interface that may spell the end of point-and-click.

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Dazzling set by 11-year-old violinist: Violinist Sirena Huang gives a technically brilliant and emotionally nuanced performance. In a charming interlude, the 11-year-old praises the timeless design of her instrument.

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Thrivals: Nat Irvin describes a multicultural future for America. (More about the idea in this PDF article.)

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What I'm worried about, what I'm excited about: Technologist and futurist Bill Joy talks about several big worries for humanity -- and several big hopes in the fields of health, education and future tech.

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

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TED Prize wish: Unite the world on Pangea Day, a global day of film: In this hopeful talk, Jehane Noujaim unveils her 2006 TED Prize wish: to bring the world together for one day a year through the power of film.

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The world now eats (and dies) like Americans: Stop wringing your hands over AIDS, cancer and the avian flu. Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined -- and it's mostly preventable. Dr. Dean Ornish explains how changing our eating habits will save lives.

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Will videogames become better than life?: Game designer David Perry says tomorrow's videogames will be more than mere fun to the next generation of gamers. They'll be lush, complex, emotional experiences -- more involving and meaningful to some than real life.

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When it comes to tech, simplicity sells: New York Times columnist David Pogue takes aim at technology's worst interface-design offenders, and provides encouraging examples of products that get it right. To funny things up, he bursts into song.

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Designing the Seattle Central Library: Architect Joshua Prince-Ramus takes the audience on dazzling, dizzying virtual tours of three recent projects: the Central Library in Seattle, the Museum Plaza in Louisville and the Charles Wyly Theater in Dallas.

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A comic send-up of TED2006: Satirist Tom Rielly delivers a wicked parody of the 2006 TED conference, taking down the $100 laptop, the plight of the polar bear, and people who mention, one too many times, that they work at Harvard. Watch for a special moment between Tom and Al Gore.

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A mockingbird remix of TED2006: Rives recaps the most memorable moments of TED2006 in the free-spirited rhyming verse of a fantastical mockingbird lullaby.

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Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better: Tony Robbins discusses the "invisible forces" that motivate everyone's actions -- and high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

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Do schools kill creativity?: Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen: You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world."

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Why can't we grow new body parts?: Alan Russell studies regenerative medicine -- a breakthrough way of thinking about disease and injury, using a process that can signal the body to rebuild itself.

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Entrepreneurs are the future of space flight: In this passionate talk, legendary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan lambasts the US government-funded space program for stagnating and asks entrepreneurs to pick up where NASA has left off.

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Why people believe strange things: Why do people see the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or hear demonic lyrics in "Stairway to Heaven"? Using video and music, skeptic Michael Shermer shows how we convince ourselves to believe -- and overlook the facts.

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TED Prize wish: Open-source architecture to house the world: Accepting his 2006 TED Prize, Cameron Sinclair demonstrates how passionate designers and architects can respond to world housing crises. He unveils his TED Prize wish for a network to improve global living standards through collaborative design.

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Simple designs that could save millions of childrens' lives: Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for turning farm waste into clean-burning charcoal.

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A happy song about global warming: A happy song about global warming, from Jill Sobule.

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Black Men Ski: What happens when a black man visits Aspen? Stew and his band are about to let you know.

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18 minutes with an agile mind: Clifford Stoll captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides -- and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he's a scientist: "Once I do something, I want to do something else."

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Letting Go of God (an excerpt): Julia Sweeney (God Said, "Ha!") performs the first 15 minutes of her 2006 solo show Letting Go of God. When two young Mormon missionaries knock on her door one day, it touches off a quest to completely rethink her own beliefs.

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How blogs are building a friendlier world: The founding mother of the blog revolution, Movable Type's Mena Trott, talks about the early days of blogging, when she realized that giving regular people the power to share our lives online is the key to building a friendlier, more connected world.

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Vishal Vaid's hypnotic song: Vishal Vaid and his band explore a traditional South Asian musical form in this mesmerizing improv performance. Sit back and let his music transport you.

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Living a life of purpose: Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, reflects on his own crisis of purpose in the wake of his book's wild success. He explains his belief that God's intention is for each of us to use our talents and influence to do good.

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Tidying up art: Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art -- by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size.

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How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict: Author Robert Wright explains "non-zero-sumness" -- the network of linked fortunes and cooperation that has guided our evolution to this point -- and how we can use it to help save humanity today.

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