As 2025 winds down, take a moment to revisit the ideas that defined the year — through TED Talks that sparked curiosity, challenged assumptions and left us dreaming. TED’s end-of-year playlists gather the moments that stirred the biggest conversations and offered fresh inspiration as we head into 2026.
Here are the talks everyone obsessed over in 2025 — from deepfakes and AI to breakthroughs shaping our future:
Rural Americans face numerous health disparities compared with their urban counterparts. More than 46 million Americans, or 15 percent of the U.S. population, live in rural areas as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Date:January 13, 2022
Source: Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health
Summary: Exercise causes the body to release hundreds of different signals that improve our health in many different ways. Now scientists have mapped these intrinsic signals and how they are released by different organs in mice following exercise at different times of the day. Their ‘Atlas of Exercise Metabolism’ is a major step toward developing more effective exercise therapies that are timed to the body clock.
To touch a pair of shackles that belonged to a child is a powerful experience. Seeing the items in a display case is sobering enough, but to actually hold the items in your and imagine the tiny legs that must have been in them is overpowering. I wonder if the tiny legs that fit into those shackles were the legs of one of my ancestors who have origin in Ghana, Benin, and other sub-Saharan African countries.
A newly developed genetic technique enabled researchers to sequence DNA from the teeth of 300-year-old skeletons, helping to pinpoint where in Africa three slaves had likely lived before being captured.
March 9, 2015 – By Krista Conger
More than 300 years ago, three African-born slaves died on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. No written records memorialized their fate, and their names and precise ethnic background remained a mystery. For centuries, their skeletons were subjected to the hot, wet weather of the tropical island until they were unearthed in 2010 during a construction project in the Zoutsteeg area of the capital city of Philipsburg.
Terry Wilson
Understanding customers’ sentiment is essential for business success. If a company fails to make a good impression, clients will leave. With research showing that gaining a new customer is six to seven times more expensive than keeping an existing one, understanding people’s sentiment seems like a “cheaper” path to success. Are you interested in AI-powered sentiment analysis but not sure how to proceed? Do you doubt whether to opt for a ready-made solution or turn to AI consultants to develop a custom tool? Hopefully, this article will resolve your doubts.
The weekend of October 15 – October 17 has been one that I will remember for a long time. Jackson State University held it 2021 homecoming on Saturday. Although I did not attend the game, I have become more interested in the performance of the team. It was great to see on pictures in the news of a full stadium after the challenges of the past 2 years with COVID-19.
Friday, I visited with a great friend who I directly responsible for encouraging me to seek my Ph.D. Although we are in different fraternities, our friendship of over 37 years has sustained itself dispite years of distance. Our friendship started in college and was formed during the first few weeks of my Freshman year. We later hung out during summer interships with Eastman Kodak. He had been there before and introduced me to friend he had made during previous internships. Later when we both worked in the Maryland area, he invited me to participate in his fraternity’s weekend tutoring program. At no time did I feel like an outsider. During this time in Maryland, while he was persuing his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, he asked me to protor an exam for him. It was the first time I stood in front of a class. Following my time in Maryland, I decided to pursue my MBA at the University of Memphis. My friend would always encourage me over the years as we would touchbase each homecoming. That classroom experience from the initial proctoring experience made working as a graduate assistant at the Univesity of Memphis less scary. Teaching incoming students about the Microsoft Office Suite that they would use throughout ther collegiate career was rewarding. Ten years after graduating from the University of Memphis, I started my Ph.D. journey. My friend’s simple request to fill in for him had sparked an interest that I completed in 2017.
Saturday, I had a breakfast meeting with a fraternity brother and we spoke about potential courses for the university where I currently work part-time. Problem solving is important to leaders so the timing of his desire to work in education and my desire to provide unique experiences to my students alligned. We met for an hour and developed a framework for a possible course and unique offering. Later that morning, my family worked to provide meals for the homeless through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We served over 40 people and provided Abraham with an experience to remember.
Saturday night, my wife of nearly 29 years this November and I attended a live concert with The Elements in the elements of the outdoor ampitheater. This was the first time visiting the venue and hearing Earth Wind and Fire. I loved the horn section and enjoyed the work of Bobby Burns, Jr. I also enjoyed to outing with my lovely wife and a few of our friends. We held hands and cuddled under the open cool air while enjoying to great sound of Earth Wind and Fire. It was so great to get out and safely enjoy live music.
Sunday, I have the opportunity to catch up on yard work and will play tennis with a good friend and collegue to see who pays for beer. He suggested that the winner buys. He came back on me the first time we played so he ended up buying. In a strange way it has motivated me to improve so I will not loose again. I purchased a new racket hoping it will help me with my game. I know my conditioning will get better and I am budgeting to buy him beer everytime we play.
To mark the 10th International Space Apps Challenge, the largest annual global hackathon in the world, NASA is collaborating with nine space agency partners to bring the event to even more communities Oct. 2-3, 2021.
Each year, NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge, or Space Apps, engages thousands of people around the world to work with the agency’s open-source data in a 48-hour sprint. Since its start in 2012, Space Apps has grown from 25 local events in 17 countries to more than 250 local events in 87 countries and territories. In 2020, the program engaged 26,000 people. Teams of technologists, scientists, designers, entrepreneurs, artists, and others collaborate to answer some of the most pressing challenges on Earth and in space.
“Over the last ten years, open data has been the cornerstone of Space Apps. Thanks to open innovation programs like Space Apps, the public knows that NASA’s vast data archives are freely available to browse online,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief data officer.
ESA (European Space Agency), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Australian Space Agency, Brazilian Space Agency, National Space Activities Commission of Argentina, Paraguayan Space Agency, South African National Space Agency, and the Bahrain National Space Agency will join NASA to extend collaboration in the Space Apps Challenge.