Covering global war stories can be hard and thankless — but it’s critical work if the rest of us are to understand what’s really going on in the world. For nearly two decades, journalist Jane…
Your immune system is more socially aware than you think, says social neuroscientist and psychology professor Keely Muscatell. Investigating the interconnectedness of your mood and your inflammatory system, she offers an evolutionary reason as to…
Social progress in the United States often seems to take two steps forward and one step back, with hard-fought civil rights wins countered by a seemingly inevitable backlash. In this spirited talk, writer Charles M….
Are you actually bored, or is something else going on? Educator Kevin H. Gary shares three practical takeaways to deal with the doldrums, so you can take control of your attention, figure out which feelings…
US President Joe Biden and President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping recently met in San Francisco. It was the first time Xi had visited the US in six years — and the…
You don’t need political power to make real change, says activist Katie Fahey. She tells the story of how she led a successful movement in Michigan to end gerrymandering — the practice of drawing district…
Just weeks before the management shakeup at OpenAI rocked Silicon Valley and made international news, the company’s cofounder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever explored the transformative potential of artificial general intelligence (AGI), highlighting how it…
A landfill on fire doesn’t only emit a horrid stench — it has devastating consequences for the environment, too. The culprit is methane, an often underestimated greenhouse gas produced in large part by food systems,…
Electric vehicles need to be more than just eco-friendly — they have to be more chic, convenient and affordable than their gas-powered alternatives, says sustainability leader Cynthia Williams. She explores what it’ll take for an…
Does confidence equal competence? Not quite. In a talk that will make you better aware of yourself, experimental psychologist Robin Kramer delves into the Dunning-Kruger effect — which argues that those who are least capable…