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This independent TEDx event is operated under license from TED. This TEDx event is independently organized
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Parasites Lost: The Journey from Woeful Worms to Helpful Monsters
Christopher Blanar
People generally view parasites with horror and disgust, as mere agents of suffering and disease—but recent discoveries are changing that. Biologists are finding that parasites maintain biodiversity and drive ecological processes. Doctors are discovering that a world without parasites can be surprisingly unhealthy. Perhaps it is time to give these much-maligned creatures an image makeover?
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A Perimenopausal Blonde Walks Into a University...
Carol Dowd-Forte
Writers know that it’s not always about one big moment. It’s about a series of smaller moments linked together as a narrative, both dramatic and subtle plot points which form an arc and move a story forward, so when the reader reaches The End, she looks back and says, “Ah, now I get it.” We also know how momentous it is to find your “voice” and how important that voice is to a writer’s life and process. Author George Eliot said, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been,” so I guess you can call this a “coming of middle age” tale.
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The Eastern Tropical Pacific: One of the World’s Game-Changing Locations
Joshua Feingold
The Eastern Tropical Pacific has inspired many artists, poets, and scientists. This selection of images from above and below the water’s surface was captured by Joshua Feingold during some of his many trips there to study coral ecology.
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Recognize Your Habits, Change Your Destiny
Michael P. Kelly
We each have the potential within us to achieve our ideal destiny, whether that vision is defined by personal wealth or being part of something that changes the world. But, our life experiences often leave us with habits of perception and behavior that sabotage our efforts to positively impact our own lives and the world at large. The crucial first step in changing these habits is to identify and understand some of the long-standing, unconscious perceptions and behaviors that drive our daily lives. Recognizing our strengths, which can then be enhanced; our sources of stress, which can then be alleviated; and our blind spots, which can then be dealt with, allows us to make powerful changes in our habits—and ultimately in our own personal destiny.
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The Ultimate Teammate: The High Five
Brooklyn Kohlheim
A true competitive advantage in today’s world seems to be few and far between. Everything is accessible, statistically analyzed, and posted for everyone to see with most businesses and sports teams examining the same things across the board. The women’s basketball program at NSU has stepped outside the box to gain a competitive advantage by empowering their student-athletes to communicate non-verbally and, unlike most teams, stat the interactions every single day. As you will see, the result and idea is worth spreading.
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Breast Cancer, Premature Puberty, and the Environment
Jean Latimer
In the arena of cancer research, there is much talk about gene-environment interactions. While genetics is the aspect most commonly discussed, only about 15% of breast cancers (the 2nd most common cancer in American women) are due to familial inheritance of a mutation. Reportedly, the other 85% of breast cancer cases are affected by environmental factors including diet. In addition, the phenomenon of premature puberty in industrialized countries is on the rise and is related to an increased risk for breast cancer. This talk will underscore the importance of the environment in breast cancer prevention and introduce steps that can be taken to improve our own environmental factors.
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The Gray Area
Natalie Negron
During a medical internship last summer, biology student Natalie Negron was observing a transplant surgery on a brain-dead patient. As the surgery progressed, she began to mentally place herself in the position of the patient on the operating table and reflected upon the life she’s led. She asked herself, Have I done enough? Does my life have meaning? Her answers were game-changing.
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Darwin’s Descendants and the Evolution of an Idea
Glenn Scheyd
Life existed on our planet for billions of years before anyone tried to make sense of it. The discovery of the principles of natural selection represents the most game-changing shift humans have made in our ability to understand ourselves. Only in combination with an understanding of genetic inheritance, however, was the more sophisticated work of Darwinian science possible. It is tempting for us, as it must have been for Darwin’s contemporaries, to think we finally have things figured out. The history of science should teach us otherwise.
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So There Is No Free Will. Now What?
Robert Speth
With the sequencing of the human genome and advances in neuroscience, along with discoveries in the fields of epigenetics and social sciences, we have opened a Pandora’s Box. An increasingly unavoidable conclusion from the progress of science is that humans do not possess free will. Revealing this knowledge about ourselves challenges every facet of our understanding of who we are. This presentation will describe some of the mounting evidence that precludes the existence of free will. Additionally, this talk will attempt to resolve the paradoxical absence and illusion of free will that is so essential to our humanness.