In today's world, balancing school, work, kids and more, most of us can only hope for the recommended eight hours of sleep.

Examining the science behind our body's internal clock, Jessa Gamble reveals the surprising and substantial program of rest we should be observing.

Jessa Gamble writes about sleep and time, showing how our internal body clock struggles against our always-on global culture.

Jessa Gamble is an award-winning writer from Oxford, who lives in the Canadian Subarctic. Now that humanity has spread right to the Earth's poles and adopted a 24-hour business day, Gamble argues that our internal clocks struggle against our urban schedules.

Susan notes: talk about future shock...!

More than just cars have changed since vehicles such as this 1910 Ford Model R were in style. Consider these factoids:

1) Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.
2) There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads in the USA.
3) The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
4) The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens.

We now rely on "external brains" (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.

Amber Case studies the symbiotic interactions between humans and machines -- and considers how our values and culture are being shaped by living lives increasingly mediated by high technology.

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist, examining the way humans and technology interact and evolve together.

TED and TEDx conferences are the ultimate intellectual/cultural/creative idea fests. Everyone I know who has been exposed to TED, TEDx or TED talks almost immediately becomes a fan.

(In case you don't what TED is, learn the basics here, and see some cool examples of TED Talks here. And a word of advice: whoever you are, wherever you are, register for the next and closest TEDx event within reach –  the worldwide list is here.)

But nothing, not even TED, is perfect.

Like most conferences, TED suffers a dearth of women speakers on its worldwide stages. That’s an issue. But it’s also an opportunity.??

TEDx events in particular are ideal vehicles for making giant grassroots steps to solving the problem, because their gender parity record is worse than that of the main TED events, which average of 20 – 40% women speakers.

A few months ago, I randomly selected a group of 10 TEDx events from around the world, and looked at the female to male ratio in their speaker lineups.

Susan notes: Thanks to TED for making TED Talks downloadable and embeddable, and for providing the biographical information that goes along with them.

Copyright law's grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry ... and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley. At TEDxUSC 2010, she talks about what all creative industries can learn from fashion's free culture.

As the Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (a media-focused think tank at the University of Southern California) Johanna Blakley spends much of her time exploring how our entertainment interacts with our political, commercial and social habits.

She is especially interested in the surprising impact of intellectual property rights on innovation, organizing conferences around the lack of creative ownership in fashion as well as technology and the ownership of creative content.