TED Talk Tuesday: Andy Puddicombe

10 mindful minutes to clear your brain of everything.  Do nothing.  At all!  Get away from the world for a few minutes to recharge.  Andy Puddicombe spoke at a TEDx in London about mediation.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins brings his powerful speaking ability as a life coach to TED.  He helps people make their invisible dreams become a physical reality.  Focus on the right details can make all the difference.  I told my players all the time that little things can make a big impact.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: David Kwong

David Kwong writes crossword puzzles for the New York Times.  And he's a magician.  Sounds like my kind of guy.  He spoke at TED about why we like puzzles.  Remember, we are all natural scientists.  We want to figure out what's going on.  We want to solve puzzles.  And we all want to know how the magician did that amazing trick.  Kwong performs such a feat on the stage that leaves you wondering about how he could possibly pull it off.

Enjoy!
 

TED Talk Tuesday: Charlie Todd

Charlie Todd does improv in New York City.  In one of my favorites, he talks about the shared experience of the absurd.  People doing weird things in public just for the amusement of others.  Which is very different from doing weird things just for your own amusement.  The most important thing is that it is all in good fun.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Richard St. John

Everyone wants to become successful, but how do you stay successful?  Richard St. John tells a quick story of building, collapsing and rebuilding.  Success is a continuous process that doesn't end once you reach the top.  Other people want to get there and will keep improving themselves, so you have to keep improving yourself.  It's not good enough to graduate with a PharmD, you have to keep educating yourself and updating the newest drugs.

Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time.  His success came from athletic ability AND intense, continuous practice.  How many times do we see a champion team fall apart the next season?  Michael Jordan and the Bulls didn't fall into that trap they continually improved and stayed ahead of the NBA.  What's true in sport is true in life.  Champions, winners, and other successful people who stay on top keep improving themselves through practice, through education, through passion.

TED Talk Tuesday: Matt Cutts

Have you wanted to try something new or change something old about your life?  Matt Cutts tells TED to try anything, anything at all for 30 days.  It can be as simple as cutting sugar or caffeine to writing novels and biking to work.  All you need is 30 days.

What would you do for 30 days?

TED Talk Tuesday: Pamela Meyer

According to Dr. House, Everybody Lies!  Everybody.  They may be lies to make people feel better, but that doesn't make them any less untrue.  But then again, I don't think that I would want to live in a run down Chicago with a faction of Candor either.  So if we everyone is a potential liar, then we should be able to spot the truth from the lies.  Pamela Meyer shows us the tell tale signs of deception in this TED talk.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Ric Elias

Ric Elias was a passenger on the fateful flight that left NYC only to be landed in the Hudson River.  He talks to TED with the clarity that can only be revealed when the pilot comes over the intercom and says, "Brace for impact".

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Keith Barry

Keith Barry describes himself as a mentalist.  He steps onto the TED stage to perform some brain magic in one of my favorite videos of all time.  Magic is mastery of the human brain, and Keith Barry is a grand master.  I showed this one to every class, mostly to get them interested in TED.

After showing this in class, I learned some of the techniques.  I tried teaching this kids how to read someone's mind and here is one to try.  Have a partner pick a number 1 to 20.  Start counting from one and carefully watch their pupils.  While there face may not react when you get to the number, their pupils will never lie.  When you see them change, that should be the number.  The change is subtle and it clearly takes years of practice to master.  Notice that Keith performs the feat with letters to determine the ex-boyfriend's name.  Small reactions and experienced guessing gets him to the right answer.

Enjoy and see if you can figure out the Coke bottle trick!

TED Talk Tuesday: Adam Savage

The Mythbusters bring a excitement and beauty to the scientific process that inspires millions of kids in the science classroom.  I used the Mythbusters a lot during my teaching days to help them understand the scientific method.  Especially in Physical Science, we would watch an episode after every test and they would dutifully require the Hypothesis (Myth), Experiment, Data, and Conclusion (Busted/Confirmed/Plausible).  Kids need to learn that "Failure is always an option".  Too many people see failure and quit, but the Mythbusters rightfully view failure as an opportunity to try again.

Adam Savage brings some of that wonder to the TED stage in this TED Ed Talk about how simple ideas lead to important scientific discoveries such as the speed of light or the circumference of the Earth.  We are all explorers attempting to understand the world before us.  Somethings are known, but a lot remains in question.  As the Mythbusters show, some of the things we know are not.  

The best part about these TED Ed talks is that it is animated.  My students always liked the animated talks more than normal lectures.  They can follow the images even when they don't fully understand the words being said.  So if you are showing TED Talks in classes, I urge you to check out their animated videos.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday - Apollo Robbins

I love magic.  The acting, the misdirection.  All of it playing on the frailty of our senses and perceptions.  Magic and neuroscience go together.  Apollo Robbins is a magician on the show Brain Games.  He came to TED to talk about the art of misdirection.  People are not as perceptive as they believe themselves to be.  A little feint in one direction distracts us from the real action the other way.  Magicians master this skill and teach us a lot about our ability to perceive the world around us.

TED Talk Tuesday: Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers has given several short, but great talks at TED conferences.  Concise and funny seems to fit his style.  In this one, Derek uses an odd example to explain leadership and how to start a movement.  Movements start with one person, a visionary, willing to step out and be different.  But until someone else joins them, he will be a lone nutcase.  Momentum cannot begin until the second person joins the movement.  There are two types of leadership in this example.  We need creative people to find new ways to do things, but we also need people to recognize the good ideas.  We always talk about great leadership.  Derek reminds us that great leadership is more about the idea or the group than the person.

TED Talk Tuesday: Mark Kendall

One of my favorite parts of the PY1 year was becoming certified to provide immunizations.  The vaccination program of modern science is one of our best methods to PREVENT disease.  Since beginning immunizations, we have practically eradicated diseases that used to ravage every society.  We are even at the point now to use vaccination to prevent cervical cancer caused by HPV.  Whether or not people understand it, vaccinations have made a huge impact on public health.

But there are still problems, especially in third world countries.  Getting vaccines to remote locations causes issues as these liquids must be kept refrigerated.  Also, a lot of people are afraid of needles.  Make Kendall, an Australian biomedical engineer, may have created the next answer.  His team created the nanopatch of about 400 invisible microneedles that deliver potent vaccines just under the surface of the skin.  It's easy, painless and effective.  This could be the future of world wide disease prevention.

TED Talk Tuesday: Simon Sinek

Every level of education talks about leadership.  We talked about in high school sports and now again in the midst of pharmacy school.  There may be an intense debate between leadership and management, but the need for successful administrators remains high.  Simon Sinek is a management theorist and talked to TED - almost all leaders in their fields - about leadership.  The best leaders make us feel safe and make every individual feel as a part of the group and begins to work cooperatively.  I personally enjoyed the leadership style of Dean Smith who wrote very well about his process in The Carolina Way.  Good leaders care about the members of the group.  Sinek believes that if the members feel safe about their position in the group they will preform better.

TED Talk Tuesday: Randall Munroe

As the cartoonist of xkcd comics, Randall Munroe combines science and comedy in a simple but creative way.  His famously funny stick figure drawings show up all over the internet, and he showed up at TED to talk about "What if"?  As a side part of xkcd, Munroe also produces a series of comics that answer that very question.  In this talk, he explains some of his thoughts and a very funny but powerful example.

TED Talk Tuesday: Amy Cuddy

Most people know to look at body language to really know what people are thinking.  If you want to know if someone is paying attention to you in a conversation, fold or unfold your arms.  Most people that are listening will instinctively do the same thing.  Body language can tell you if another person is listening, engages, flirting, thinking or even happy or sad.  Amy Cuddy comes to TED and adds another layer.  Your body language can tell yourself to be happy, sad, withdrawn or powerful.  After watching this Talk, I tried to adopt a power position before big meetings.  I guess the old motto is true: Fake it 'til you make it.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland, an incredibly funny advertising man, talks to TED about Value.  In a world running out of resources, we should focus on making things seem better.  Sounds strange, but Sutherland takes you through a series of examples including train rides, placeboes, potatoes and breakfast cereal.  Many problems, can be solved better with lateral thinking.

I guarantee that you will enjoy this one!

TED Talk Tuesday: Jamie Oliver

A few year's ago, Jamie Oliver gave an inspired talk about food.  No one can doubt that America has an eating disorder.  We eat way too much in general and then focus on the bad stuff.  In fact, our government subsidizes the barely nutritious, prepackaged food-like substances with food stamps and other means.  As I am on my way to becoming a pharmacist, I probably shouldn't say this - but food is medicine.  A lot of our problems could be solved with proper meals and learning how to cook.

Oliver went to West Virginia to help their problem with childhood obesity by going straight into the schools to teach the kids about food.  He later went to Los Angles, only to be kicked out for trying to help.  This British Chef makes a lot of great points in this breathless overview of our problem.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Stewart Brand

I love the movie Jurassic Park.  Twenty years ago, the Sci-Fi classic made popular an intriguing question.  Can we bring back extinct species?  This spring, National Geographic asked the same thing and the apparent answer is ... maybe?  Stewart Brand came to TED to talk about DE-extinction.  While dinosaurs are beyond our rescue, we may be able to help some animals that we directly led to extinction.  With the complex technical issues of genetic engineering, we can't forget about the environmental and ethical problems.  The ecosystems have adapted to the extinction of these species.  New species developed to take their place.  So do have to ask whether or not we should bring them back.

Enjoy!



Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park, 1993):
John, the kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is.


Well, there it is...

TED Talk Tuesday: Heribert Watzke

Heribert Waltzke lets us know that our digestive system contains over one hundred million neurons.  While we like to think that our brain controls our judgement and ideas, our stomach plays a surprising role in shaping who we are.  "Going with your gut" may be more than just an anti-intellectual mantra.  It may be fairly accurate.

Enjoy!