Susan notes: I've copied and pasted this biographical information and talk unabashedly from the TED website.

Philosopher-comedian Emily Levine talks (hilariously) about science, math, society and the way everything connects. She's a brilliant trickster, poking holes in our fixed ideas and bringing hidden truths to light. Settle in and let her ping your brain.

Humorist Emily Levine works a heady vein of humor, cerebral and thoughtful as well as very, very amusing. Oh, she's got plenty of jokes. But her work, at its core, makes serious connections -- between hard science and pop culture, between what we say and what we secretly assume ... She plumbs the hidden oppositions, the untouchable not-quite-truths of the modern mind.

Susan notes: I've copied and pasted this biographical information and talk from the TED website.

Jane Goodall hasn't found the missing link, but she's come closer than nearly anyone else. The primatologist says the only real difference between humans and chimps is our sophisticated language. She urges us to start using it to change the world.

Her extensive research into the behavior of chimpanzees, which started in Africa in the 1960s and continues today, fundamentally altered scientific thinking about the relationship between humans and other mammals.

Susan notes: Thanks to TED for making its Talks and related information available for downloading and embedding. I've just watched this talk for the second time, and, although it's more than 10 years old, I'm still captivated by Laurel's insights and comments. I particularly liked the interviews with REAL little girls.

I was also touched by Laurel's closing in which she said:

... we're incorporating what we've learned about girls -- their desires to experience greater emotional flexibility,  and to play around with the social complexity of their lives...what we're giving girls, I think, through this effort, is a kind of validation, a sense of being seen.  And a sense of the choices that are available in their lives. We love them.  We see them.  We're not trying to tell them who they ought to be.  But, we're really, really happy about who they are.  It turns out they're really great. 

Brenda Laurel has been part of several major revolutions in the way humans use computers: virtual reality, interactive narratives and some fresh approaches to gaming.

Susan notes: I've copied and pasted this biographical information and talk unabashedly from the TED website.

Cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff looks at happiness -- the ways we try to achieve and increase it, the way it's untethered to our real circumstances, and its surprising effect on our bodies.

In her book Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff refutes the social origins of beauty, in favor of far more prosaic and evolutionary explanations. Looking for a partner with clear skin? You’re actually checking for parasites. And let’s just say there’s a reason high heels are always in fashion.

Susan notes: I've copied and pasted this biographical information and talk unabashedly from the TED website.

Physicist Patricia Burchat sheds light on two basic ingredients of our universe: dark matter and dark energy. Comprising 96% of the universe between them, they can't be directly measured, but their influence is immense.

Burchat studies the universe's most basic ingredients -- the mysterious dark energy and dark matter that are massively more abundant than the visible stars and galaxies. She is one of the founders of the BaBar Collaboration at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a project that's hoping to answer the question, "If there are as many anti-particles as there are particles, why can't we see all these anti-particles?"