Articles from Best of the Best (trending on the web)

Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | Tim Urban

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Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn't make sense, but he's never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window -- and encourages us think harder about what we're really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

The reporting system that sexual assault survivors want | Jessica Ladd

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We don't have to live in a world where 99 percent of rapists get away with it, says TED Fellow Jessica Ladd. With Callisto, a new platform for college students to confidentially report sexual assault, Ladd is helping survivors get the support and justice they deserve while respecting their privacy concerns. "We can create a world where there's a real deterrent to violating the rights of another human being," she says.

How Airbnb designs for trust | Joe Gebbia

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Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, bet his whole company on the belief that people can trust each other enough to stay in one another's homes. How did he overcome the stranger-danger bias? Through good design. Now, 123 million hosted nights (and counting) later, Gebbia sets out his dream for a culture of sharing in which design helps foster community and connection instead of isolation and separation.

The gospel of doubt | Casey Gerald

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Casey Gerald traces the drama of his life back to an East Texas church on the night of December 31, 1999, the night he believed the world was to end. When the rapture didn't come, he searched for something new to believe in -- at Yale, Lehman Brothers, Harvard Business School and his own nonprofit -- but found only false saviors. In this moving talk, Gerald urges us all to question our beliefs, to embrace doubt and to find the courage to believe in something new.

This country isn't just carbon neutral -- it's carbon negative | Tshering Tobgay

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Deep in the Himalayas, on the border between China and India, lies the Kingdom of Bhutan, which has pledged to remain carbon neutral for all time. In this illuminating talk, Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay shares his country's mission to put happiness before economic growth and set a world standard for environmental preservation.

Simple hacks for life with Parkinson's | Mileha Soneji

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Simple solutions are often best, even when dealing with something as complicated as Parkinson's. In this inspiring talk, Mileha Soneji shares accessible designs that make the everyday tasks of those living with Parkinson's a bit easier. "Technology is not always it," she says. "What we need are human-centered solutions."

The secrets I find on the mysterious ocean floor | Laura Robinson

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Hundreds of meters below the surface of the ocean, Laura Robinson probes the steep slopes of massive undersea mountains. She's on the hunt for thousand-year-old corals that she can test in a nuclear reactor to discover how the ocean changes over time. By studying the history of the earth, Robinson hopes to find clues of what might happen in the future.

This computer will grow your food in the future | Caleb Harper

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What if we could grow delicious, nutrient-dense food, indoors anywhere in the world? Caleb Harper, director of CitiFARM at the MIT Media Lab, wants to change the food system by connecting growers with technology. Get to know Harper's "food computers" and catch a glimpse of what the future of farming might look like.

Teach girls bravery, not perfection | Reshma Saujani

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We're raising our girls to be perfect, and we're raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Saujani has taken up the charge to socialize young girls to take risks and learn to program -- two skills they need to move society forward. To truly innovate, we cannot leave behind half of our population, she says. "I need each of you to tell every young woman you know to be comfortable with imperfection."

Uber's plan to get more people into fewer cars | Travis Kalanick

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Uber didn't start out with grand ambitions to cut congestion and pollution. But as the company took off, co-founder Travis Kalanick wondered if there was a way to get people using Uber along the same routes to share rides, reducing costs and carbon footprint along the way. The result: uberPOOL, the company's carpooling service, which in its first eight months took 7.9 million miles off the roads and 1,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the air in Los Angeles. Now, Kalanick says carpooling could work for commuters in the suburbs, too.

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