It was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion — in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population, especially in the West.

As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility — and population growth — have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future:

The world’s population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years — and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you’ll see):

See more insightful & fun Hans Rosling presentations here.

• Best of Hans Rosling
• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• What is Intelligence?
• The Secret Powers of Time
• Story Power! Tools to Create Engaging Content

Watch this absolutely amazing & beautiful video about the seductive love dance between flowers and pollinators! To really see the details, I encourage you to watch this short film full-screen and in HD:

Pollination is vital to life on Earth, but largely unseen by the human eye. Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg shows us the intricate world of pollen and pollinators with gorgeous high-speed images from his film "Wings of Life," inspired by the vanishing of one of nature’s primary pollinators, the honeybee.

Also see Louie Schwartzberg presenting this video at TED.

• Fantastic Fungi: The Spirit of Good
• How the Aurora Borealis Works
• Saving the Planet!
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything
• Beautiful time-lapse video of the Earth from ISS

Dr. Mike Evans, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, created a video to help us learn what the best thing we can do for our health:

His finding is simple: 30 minutes of exercise each day can make a large impact on your health!

• The Khan Academy
• Is Your Office Chair Killing You?
• Born To Run
• Will Smith About The Key to Life
• Why We Do What We Do?

The following beautiful short video is an excerpt from the feature documentary by Louie Schwartzberg following notable mycologist, Paul Stamets, as he discusses the important role mushrooms play in the survival and health of the earth and human species:

"I believe nature is a force of Good & good is not only a concept, it s a spirit." – Paul Stamets

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• How the Aurora Borealis Works
• Saving the Planet!
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything
• Beautiful time-lapse video of the Earth from ISS

The auroras also known as the northern and southern lights are some of the most spectacular skywatching experiences on the planet and never fail to delight observers lucky enough to see them. Auroras can be green, red or blue and often they will be a combination of colors.

The Vikings thought that auroras were reflections off the armor of the mythical Valkyries. To the native Eskimos of Greenland and nearby Canada, auroras were communications from the dead. To American Indians, they were lights from huge campfires far ­to the north. In medieval times, auroras were omens of war or disasters, such as plague.

Today, we know that they’re a light phenomenon caused by high-energy particles from the sun’s solar winds interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field. Because auroras are caused by the interaction of solar winds with the Earth’s magnetic field, you can see them most often near the poles, both north and south. In the north, they’re called aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. Aurora is the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn, and "boreal" means "north" in Latin. In the southern hemisphere, auroras are called aurora australis (Latin for "south"). ^[1]

See how they work in this short video that illuminates the cosmic secret of the Northern lights, one of our planet’s most magnificent wonders: ^[2]

Infographic: How the Aurora Borealis Works: ^[3]

Here is a stunning photo of the aurora borealis floating over a volcano: ^[4]

And here are some stunning impressions of the aurora from northern Norway and Russia:

References

[1] How Auroras Work
[2] How the Aurora Borealis Works
[3] Aurora Guide: How the Northern Lights Work (Infographic)
[4] Stunning Photos of the Northern Lights Floating Over an Icelandic Volcano

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Fantastic Fungi: The Spirit of Good
• Beautiful time-lapse video of the Earth from ISS
• Project Tuva
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

It’s a wonderful world! This teaser to Sir David Attenborough documentary Frozen Planet will put a smile on your face and you will will sing along…

“The colors of a rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people going by…”

Also watch the mashup of the Louis Armstrong song combined with the breathtaking footage from David Attenborough and Louie Schwartzberg here.

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Will Smith About The Key to Life
• Why We Do What We Do?
• Where Good Ideas Come From
• What’s Easier? To Change Yourself or the World Around You?

In the movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise is chased by an army of government deployed robotic spider spies attempting to hunt him down:

Although this is science fiction, the US military and others are working on robotic spy bots that already drop the fiction part of the equation. This is amazing from a technology point of view and a bit scary at the same time. The following is a summary of spy bots that already exist today.

A robotic hummingbird

Pentagon researchers are building a robotic hummingbird (spy-drone with camera) for potential use as a flying spy that is capable of maneuvering through windows and inside buildings. So the next time you see a hummingbird look twice you might be watched by the military!

The robotic hummingbird is one the TIME Magazine’s list of the top 50 inventions for 2011. Watch it fly and spy:

Watch the video about the making of here.

A robot that flies like a bird

Festo, a German industrial control and automation company, built SmartBird – a robot that flies like a bird:

It is a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. See it fly:

And from the same company comes AirPenguin, a flying robot based on a penguin.

GroundBot, A spherical all-terrain surveillance robot

GroundBot by Swedish robotics firm Rotundus is an all-terrain, amphibious surveillance robot in the shape of a bug-eyed sphere. Roughly the size of a car tire, the robot moves silently at up to six mph.

GroundBot houses two cameras which provide a stereoscopic view to its remote operator.

Flying quadrotor drones

At the University of Pennsylvania a team is working on an autonomous quadrotor drones for surveillance:

In the following video you will see this small autonomous drones perform precise maneuvers like flight through windows:

The latest experiment from this team is a swarm of nano quadrotors. See them here.

• When Ideas Have Sex
• What is Intelligence?
• Seadragon / Deep Zoom Technology
• Scott Berkun: The Myths of Innovation
• Project Natal

"If it’s going to be work, it really ought to be work you LOVE". “Why waste your time doing sh*t you hate?” – Gary Vaynerchuk

If you are somebody who needs a kick into the b*** from time to time to get things done watch Gary Vaynerchuk talk and you will not be disappointed ;-)

The Internet has made the formula for success simpler than ever, he argues. So there’s now no excuse not to do what makes you happy.

• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories
• The Story of The Pencil
• The Starfish Story: Make a Difference!
• The Penguin Story

Dolphins are highly social, playful, curious, intelligent and they make underwater bubble rings just for fun! :-)

• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• Top 3 Cool & Funny Dance Videos
• Saving the Planet!
• Microsoft Surface Parody
• Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain with Music

It often seems to take something as huge as a plane crash to open our eyes to what’s really important. Ric Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time.

In this inspiring talk he shares what he learned by his near-death experience:

1. “I learned that it all changes in an instant. We have this bucket list, we have these things we want to do in life, and I thought about all the people I wanted to reach out to that I didn’t, all the fences I wanted to mend, all the experiences I wanted to have and I never did I no longer want to postpone anything in life. And that urgency, that purpose, has really changed my life.”
2. “I decided to eliminate negative energy from my life. I no longer try to be right; I choose to be happy.“
3. “I only wish I could see my kids grow up. I realized that the only thing that matters in my life is being a great dad”

Ric said, “I was given the gift of getting to see into the future and come back and live differently.”  – When you look back, at the end of your life, what will you see? And will you like what you see? How would you change?

• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Amy Purdy: Living beyond Limits
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories

“If my life were a book, and I were the author, how would I want this story to go?” This is the question that Amy Purdy asked herself when she lost both of her legs at the age of 19. In this moving and powerful talk, she shows us how to draw inspiration from life’s obstacles. She encourages us to take control of our lives, and our limits.

After bacterial meningitis took her legs, Amy struggled with depression, and only beat it when she learned to accept her new reality, but not any limitations. After being unable to find prosthetics that would allow her to snowboard, she built her own. Today, she is a world champion female adaptive snowboarder. In 2005, she co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, a non-profit dedicated to introducing people with physical challenges to action sports.

Amy talks about the power of imagination. She explains how our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by the choices we make. Imagination allows us to break down borders, to move beyond our circumstances, to create and constantly progress. This is truly one of the most inspiring and emotional videos you will  watch. It will make you think differently about your life and what is possible.

“It’s believing in those dreams and facing our fears head on that allows us to live our lives beyond our limits.” – Amy Purdy

• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt
• Ric Elias: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed
• Nick Vujicic – A Man With No Arms, No Legs And No Limits!
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories

How do you value your time? Do you find yourself wishing you had an extra day in a week? In this wonderfully animated video (10 min), Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world.

According to Professor Philip Zimbardo the six main “time zones” people inhabit are the following:

Past positive: people that focus on happy memories

Past negative: people that focus on regret

Present hedonistic: people that live in the moment and constantly pursue pleasure

Present fatalistic: people that never plan because what’s the point

Future focused: people that prioritize work over play and always plan ahead

Future transcendent: people that believe true eternal life begins only after the death of the mortal body

Are you past negative or positive, present hedonistic or future orientated? He argues whole countries, cities and populations can be ranked by these criteria’s.

Watch the full length (41 min) RSA talk here. And here are links to the mentioned “Marshmallow Experiment”: Kids Marshmallow Experiment (Funny) and The Marshmallow Experiment & Time explained by Professor Philip Zimbardo.

• Time Management
• Put First Things First
• Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!)
• Best of Hans Rosling
• 7 Billion People: How Did We Get So Big So Fast?

In this fun and entertaining talk author and Carnegie Mellon alum Scott Berkun shows that much of what we know about innovation is wrong as he explores the history of innovation and creative thinking.

• When Ideas Have Sex
• What is Intelligence?
• Seadragon / Deep Zoom Technology
• Robotic Spies
• Project Natal

Watch this beautiful time-lapse video of the International Space Station’s view from space.  This short time-lapse video edited by Michael König pieces together some truly stunning photographs taken between August and October 2011 above places such as the US, the Sahara desert and Australia. Most impressive are those of the Aurora Borealis and Australis:

In the following video Commander Mike Fossum explained how he took those amazing shots:

• How the Aurora Borealis Works
• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Project Tuva
• Fantastic Fungi: The Spirit of Good
• Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

The following video is a lovely reminder of what it takes to be and stay creative.

1. Make lists
2. Carry a Notebook everywhere
3. Try free writing
4. Get away from the computer
5. Quit beating yourself up
6. Take breaks
7. Sing in the shower
8. Drink coffee
9. Listen to new music
10. Be open
11. Surround yourself with creative people
12. Get feedback
13. Collaborate
14. Don’t give up
15. Practice
16. Allow yourself to make mistakes
17. Go somewhere new
18. Count your blessings
19. Get lots of rest
20. Take risks
21. Break the rules
22. Don’t force it
23. Read a page of the dictionary
24. Create a framework
25. Stop trying to be someone else’s perfect
26. Got an idea? write it down
27. Clean your workspace
28. Have fun
29. Finish something

• Where Good Ideas Come From
• Shu Ha Ri: The Stages of Learning to Mastery
• Good artists Copy, Great artists Steal
• Find What You Love
• A Toolbox for Creativity & Leadership

I recently stumbled upon this great piano cover of the Braveheart Love Theme (For The Love Of A Princess) on YouTube:

This inspired me to create this list of my top 5 movie theme songs of all time:

1) Braveheart Theme

2) Pirates of the Caribbean- He’s a Pirate

3) Imperial March (or Darth Vader’s Theme) from Star Wars

4) Requiem for a Dream

5) Amélie

Bonus

• Mission Impossible Theme
• 2001 A Space Odyssey Opening
• The Bridge on the River Kwai Soundtrack
• The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Theme
• Lord of The Rings – May it be
• ‎"Over The Rainbow" – the famous theme song from the movie "The Wizard Of OZ" (1939)
• Pink Panther Theme Song
• Ghostbusters Opening
• The theme song to Ridley Scotts movie "1492: Conquest of Paradise" composed by Vangelis
• Theme from Highlander: Princes of the Universe, Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)
• The Last of the Mohicans
• Beverly Hills Cop (Axel F)
• Shrek Soundtrack – Fairy Tale
• James Bond 007 Movie Theme Music
• Jaws Soundtrack
• Rocky: Full Theme, Eye of the Tiger
• Pulp Fiction – Opening Theme
• Back To The Future Theme
• The Phantom Of The Opera
• The Fall Guy Intro
• Bonanza Theme Song
• Titanic Theme Song
• The Bodyguard Theme
• Dirty Dancing: Time of my Life
• Pretty Woman
• Cruel Intentions: Every you Every me

What are your favorite movie theme songs? Let me know in the comments.

• Man on Wire
• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Wear Sunscreen
• Watch Matt Dancing Badly Around The World
• Validation

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In this fun and entertaining talk at the University of California recorded shortly before his death, he shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world’s creatures. He talks about blind river dolphins, reclusive lemurs, a parrot as fearless as it is lovelorn …

Douglas Adams’ close encounters with these rare and unusual animals reveal that evolution, ever ingenious, can be fickle too.

And don’t miss the funny story about trying to buy – for scientific reasons ;-) – condoms in Shanghai. (starts at 0:49:00)

• Wings of Life: The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• Wear Sunscreen
• Validation
• SIGNS
• Project Tuva

Pablo Picasso, one of the most famous artists of the 20th century influenced the artistic world in a unique and original way. So why is he known for saying “Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”?

Why would someone as original as Picasso say something as ironic? And what did he mean?

Designer Jeff Veen’s interpretation of this quote is that Picasso talked a lot about inspiration when he talked about theft: “He would look at things like African tribal masks and literally steal those principles and bring that into his work when he was experiencing cubism and developing cubism at the beginning of the last century.”

Jeff Veen talked about this in a fun and entertaining ignite talk on the subject of copycat design:

"The key here is to be intentional with what we steal, to look at what the principles are behind the things that are successful, and steal those, rather than just a superficial copy.”, Jeff Veen explains.

Steve Jobs also used Picassos quote in the documentary Triumph of the Nerds, in reference to Apple’s own early principles:

“It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done – and then try to bring those things in to what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying: Good artists copy, Great artists steal – and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” – Steve Jobs

So “stealing” in this context is an intellectual activity. You must be able to understand the principles why something works and then be able to apply this knowledge in new original ways. This is related to the Japanese martial arts concept of Shuhari that explains how people learn skills in a 3-stage progression: Shu: Follow (Learn a technique) / Ha: Break away (Collect techniques) / Ri: Fluent (Blend techniques).

It is very ironic in this context that Pablo Picasso very likely stole this quote from T.S. Eliot who said: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

• Where Good Ideas Come From
• The Holstee Manifesto: This is Your Life.
• Find What You Love
• A Toolbox for Creativity & Leadership
• Will Smith About The Key to Life

Adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren Eiseley (1907-1977)

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one!"

This story has appeared all over the web in various forms. Sometimes it is a little girl throwing the starfish into the ocean, sometimes a young man. In any form it is a beautiful story and one that makes you think.

• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories
• The Story of The Pencil
• The Penguin Story
• The Inspiring Story of Rick and Dick Hoyt

Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the West. In fact, most of the Third World is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did.

What sets Rosling apart isn’t just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this.

Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine

What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine. With newly designed graphics from Gapminder, Rosling shows us the magic that pops up when economic growth and electricity turn a boring wash day into an intellectual day of reading.

Hans Rosling on global population growth

The world’s population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years — and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you’ll see).

Hans Rosling: Asia’s rise — how and when

Hans Rosling was a young guest student in India when he first realized that Asia had all the capacities to reclaim its place as the world’s dominant economic force. At TEDIndia, he graphs global economic growth since 1858 and predicts the exact date that India and China will outstrip the US.

Hans Rosling’s new insights on poverty

Hans Rosling uses his cool data tools to show how countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He demos Dollar Street, comparing households of varying income levels worldwide. Then he does something really amazing.

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen

With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling uses an amazing new presentation tool, Gapminder, to debunk several myths about world development. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA.)

Source: Hans Rosling’s Profile on TED.com

• 7 Billion People: How Did We Get So Big So Fast?
• Story Power! Tools to Create Engaging Content
• Story Power! Brain-Friendly Content through Visuals and Storytelling
• What is Intelligence?
• The Secret Powers of Time

Little things are extremely important to happiness and Neil Pasricha’s blog 1000 Awesome Things will remind you of a thousand little things from free refills to clean sheets that will make you happier.

Neil never imagined that writing about the smell of gasoline, thinking it’s Thursday when it’s really Friday, or wearing underwear just out of the dryer would amount to anything. A self-described “average guy” with a typical 9-to-5 job in the suburbs, Neil started his blog 1000 Awesome Things, as a small reminder of the free, easy little joys that make life sweet.

He certainly didn’t anticipate that his site would gain a readership of millions of people, win two Webby Awards (“the Internet’s highest honor” according to The New York Times), be named one of PC Magazine’s Top 100 Sites On the Internet, or become a place where people from around the world would come to celebrate the simple pleasures of daily life.

In this heartfelt talk from TEDxToronto, he reveals the 3 secrets (all starting with A) to leading a life that’s truly awesome.

• Wear Sunscreen
• The Holstee Manifesto: This is Your Life.
• Will Smith About The Key to Life
• Why We Do What We Do?
• Where Good Ideas Come From

At MIT, Cynthia Breazeal and her team are building robots with social intelligence that communicate and learn the same way people do. Her favorite robot is Leonardo. Leonardo is the most expressive robot in the world today. Leonardo’s expressiveness arises from its ability to establish and maintain eye contact, move its eyes, mouth, ears, and arms to express a wide range of emotions.

Although highly articulated, Leonardo is not designed to walk, it can gesture and is able to manipulate objects in simple ways. Although it is not humanlike, the developers have intentionally given Leonardo a youthful appearance to encourage people to playfully interact with it, much as one might with a young child.

Read more about Leonardo at this MIT Media Lab – Personal Robot Group project page.

The above video is from Cynthia Breazeal TED Talk: The rise of personal robots:

• What is Intelligence?
• When Ideas Have Sex
• Seadragon / Deep Zoom Technology
• Scott Berkun: The Myths of Innovation
• Robotic Spies

The following video is featuring Will Smith’s inspirational speech after winning at the 2005 Kid’s Choice Awards. With lot’s of positive energy he talks about reading and running as “the key to life”:

Transcript

I’m gonna say something that I want you to remember for the rest of your lives, ok, I want you to listen closely. I’m giving you the key to life right now. The key to life, the key to life, is running and reading. Alright? Now listen, I’m very serious. The key to life is running and reading.

Alright, now, why running? When you’re running, when you’re out there and your running, there’s a little person who talks to you. And that little person says, “Agh, I’m tired. Ohhh, I’m so tired, there’s no way I can possibly continue.” And you want to quit. Right? That person–if you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running–you will learn how to not quit when things get hard in your life. Running–alright–that’s the first key to life.

I got this real psychotic thing about, like, perfection and working hard. And real young, I realized that the person who works the hardest wins. You know, it’s like, While other the other guy is sleeping, I’m workin’. The other guy is eating, I’m workin’. You know, the other guy is makin’ love…. I mean, I’m makin’ love…. but I’m workin’ you know, like hard at it!

Love what you do, and do what you love.

Reading! The reason that reading is so important: There have been millions and billions and zillions of people that have lived before all of us. There is no new problem that you could have–with your parents, with school, with a bully–there is no problem you could have that someone else hasn’t already solved, and wrote about it in a book.

So, the keys to life are running and reading. The person that works the hardest, wins.

• Why We Do What We Do?
• Where Good Ideas Come From
• Wear Sunscreen
• Top 3 Inspirational Stories
• The Story of The Pencil

Based on the backstory of one of the most beloved childrenʼs novels of all time comes the extraordinary love story between a simple woodsman and a beautiful maiden:

Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

L. Frank Baum wrote the back story to the Tin Woodsman in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man is Whitestone Motion Pictures retelling this little known story of the tragic arc of a beloved character who was once human, made of flesh and blood that turned into tin.

• Validation
• SIGNS
• Nuit Blanche
• Wear Sunscreen
• Man on Wire

This is a beautiful short film worth 4 minutes of your time:

Nuit Blanche explores a fleeting moment between two strangers, revealing their brief connection in a hyper real fantasy.

Directed by: Arev Manoukian

• Validation
• SIGNS
• Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man
• Wear Sunscreen
• Man on Wire