Quickly delivering donated organs to patients waiting for a transplant is a matter of life and death. Yet transportation errors are leading to delays in surgeries, putting patients in danger and makin...Show More
A high number of high school sports concussions. A low number of arrests for sexual assault. Revealโs Reporting Network digs in. Donโt miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter...Show More
The ads that personalize our internet browsing are obvious examples of how "attention merchants" vie for our data, but the more insidious actors are the ones we don't see. In his second CBC Massey Lec...Show More
The plague of Athens struck in 430 BC, violently killing up to half of the Greek city's population. Thucydides was on hand to document the grim symptoms, as well as the social and psychological fallou...Show More
About 2,500 years ago, Thucydides travelled ancient Greece, gathering stories about a brutal war that plunged the ancient world into chaos. He set high standards for accuracy, objectivity and thorough...Show More
In 2011, American psychologist Daryl Bem proved the impossible. He showed that precognition โ the ability to sense the future โ is real. His study was explosive and shook the very foundations of psych...Show More
Narrative thinking is how we process and understand our own story. American psychologist, Dan McAdams wrote, "We are all storytellers, and we are the stories we tell." But some of us have no unfoldin...Show More
People have reported "near death experiences", or NDE's, over centuries and across cultures. The nature of them has historically been the territory of religion and philosophy. But now science has stak...Show More
We're all familiar with the idea of the "bad seed". Incorrigible children and unruly adolescents who later commit terrible crimes. Over the last decade, they've increasingly been referred to as psycho...Show More
Jay Olson performed his first magic trick when he was five years old. The former professional magician turned McGill University PhD student reveals how the power of suggestion can be used to help trea...Show More
How does a just society reconcile the desire for peace, with the desire, most often by men, for violence? How much does nature stir boys, men, to fight? And to what extent can they control that stirri...Show More
A groundbreaking study conducted in the wake of the Second World War by a group of scholars rocked the academic world when it was published in 1950 โ but fell out of favour. Now a new generation of sc...Show More
All of us are biased. We have individual biases, momentary biases, morning biases and evening biases. Our institutions are biased. Our constitutions are biased. So what to do about it? IDEAS producer ...Show More
We're used to public memorials dedicated to war. But over the centuries, pandemics have also claimed millions of lives yet we see almost no statues or commemorations dedicated to them. IDEAS contribut...Show More
In The Divided Brain, neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist argues that Western society has become too dominated by the left hemisphere of our brains โ obsessed with data and sorting things into categories....Show More
'Incel' violence is a clear example of the lethal danger of believing that anyone is entitled to sex. But feminist philosopher Amia Srinivasan argues who is and is not sexually desired can still be an...Show More
For thousands of years, disability, disfigurement, or ugliness have been connected to evil. From the ancient world to modern time this unsettling concept has survived the cultural narrative. As part o...Show More
Inspired by a recent and significant update to the Oxford English Dictionaryโs definition of โbias,โ documentary producer Tom Howell embarks on a quest to draw up a complete list of personal biases, w...Show More
Conspiracy theories may be ultra divisive today, but there was a time when they were an acceptable form of knowledge. They are powerful in political battle โ and even more so in the age of rising popu...Show More
If 2020 makes you feel like the end is near, youโre not alone. But it might help to know that history shows people have always felt the end is near. This archive episode from 1998 looks at the longevi...Show More
What goes on in the mind of a serial killer? After two random encounters with serial killers, historian and professor Peter Vronsky is trying to answer that very question โ who they are, what motivate...Show More
In this time of upheaval, what does the future look like? When we think about marginalized groups in society, and issues of gender, race, and poverty โ how do we work toward making a better world? Rin...Show More
Coronavirus isn't the first pandemic to sweep the world. Typhoid and flu killed millions. But history's really big killer was the bubonic plague. Three historians discuss what we can learn from the hi...Show More
Moments of crisis can upend our lives, but can also help define them. This episode, TED speakers explore how a quick, compassionate or unexpected response can turn crisis into opportunity. Guests incl...Show More
In times of crisis, how do we decide what personal sacrifices we must make for the benefit of all? This hour, TED speakers share four different ideas about how to act for the greater good.