You can imagine as a child what I went through .


Day to day , I watched women being carried to a graveyard , or watched children going to a graveyard .


At that time , when I finished my high school , I really wanted to be a doctor .


I wanted to be a doctor to help women and children .


So I completed my education , but I wanted to go to university .


Unfortunately , in my country , there wasn 't a dormitory for girls , so I was accepted in medical school , but I could not go there .


So as a result , my father sent me to America .


I came to America .


I completed my education .


While I was completing my education , my country was invaded by Russia .


And do you know that at the time I was completing my education , I didn 't know what was going on with my family or with my country .


There were months , years , I didn 't know about it .


My family was in a refugee camp .


So as soon as I completed my education , I brought my family to America .


I wanted them to be safe .


But where was my heart ?


My heart was in Afghanistan .


Day after day , when I listened to the news , when I followed what was going on with my country , my heart was breaking up .


I really wanted to go back to my country , but at the same time I knew I could not go there , because there was no place for me .


I had a good job .


I was a professor at a university .


I earned good money .


I had a good life .


My family was here .


I could live with them .


But I wasn 't happy .


I wanted to go back home .


So I went to the refugee camp .


And when I went to the refugee camp in Pakistan , there were 7.5 million refugees . 7.5 million refugees .


About 90 percent of them were women and children . Most of the men have been killed or they were in war . And you know , in the refugee camp ,


when I went day-to-day to do a survey , I found things you never could imagine .


I saw a widow with five to eight children sitting there and weeping and not knowing what to do .


I saw a young woman have no way to go anywhere , no education , no entertainment , no place to even live .


I saw young men that had lost their father and their home , and they are supporting the family as a 10-to-12-year old boy — being the head of the household , trying to protect their sister and their mother and their children .


So it was a very devastating situation .


My heart was beating for my people , and I didn 't know what to do .


At that moment , we talk about momentum .


At that moment , I felt , what can I do for these people ?


How could I help these people ?


I am one individual . What can I do for them ?


But at that moment , I knew that education changed my life .


It transformed me . It gave me status .


It gave me confidence . It gave me a career .


It helped me to support my family , to bring my family to another country , to be safe .


And I knew that at that moment that what I should give to my people is education and health , and that 's what I went after .


But do you think it was easy ?


No , because at that time , education was banned for girls , completely .


And also , by Russia invading Afghanistan , people were not trusting anyone .


It was very hard to come and say , " " I want to do this . " " Who am I ?


Somebody who comes from the United States .


Somebody who got educated here .


Did they trust me ? Of course not .


So I really needed to build the trust in this community .


How am I going to do that ?


I went and surveyed and looked and looked .


I asked .


Finally , I found one man .


He was 80 years old .


He was a mullah .


I went to his tent in the camp , and I asked him , " I want to make you a teacher . "


And he looked at me , and he said , " " Crazy woman , crazy woman , how do you think I can be a teacher ? " " And I told him , " " I will make you a teacher . " " Finally , he accepted my offer , and once I started a class in his compound , the word spread all over .


In a matter of one year , we had 25 schools set up , 15,000 children going to school , and it was amazing .


( Applause ) Thank you . Thank you .


But of course , we 're doing all our work , we were giving teacher training . We were training women 's rights , human rights , democracy , rule of law . We were giving all kinds of training . And one day , I tell you ,


one day I was in the office in Peshawar , Pakistan .


All of a sudden , I saw my staff running to rooms and locking the doors and telling me , " " Run away , hide ! " " And you know , as a leader , what do you do ?


You 're scared . You know it 's dangerous .


You know your life is on the line .


But as a leader , you have to hold it together .


You have to hold it together and show strength .


So I said , " " What 's going on ? " " And these people were pouring into my office .


So I invited them to the office .


They came , and there were nine of them — nine Taliban .


They were the ugliest looking men you can ever see .


( Laughter ) Very mean-looking people , black clothes , black turban , and they pour into my office .


And I invited them to have a seat and have tea .


They said no . They are not going to drink tea .


And of course , with the tone of voice they were using , it was very scary , but I was really shaking up .


But also I was strong , holding myself up .


And , of course , by that time , you know how I dress — I dress from head to toe in a black hijab .


The only thing you could see , my eyes .


They asked me , " " What are you doing ?


Don 't you know that school is banned for girls ?


What are you doing here ? " " And you know , I just looked at them , and I said , " " What school ? Where is the school ? " " ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) And they look at my face , and they said , " " You are teaching girls here . " " I said , " " This is a house of somebody .


We have some students coming , and they are all learning Koran , Holy Book .


And you know , Koran says that if you learn the Holy Book , the woman , they can be a good wife , and they can obey their husband . " " ( Laughter ) And I tell you one thing : that 's the way you work with those people , and you know — ( Laughter ) So by that time , they started speaking Pashto .


They talked to each other , and they said , " " Let 's go , leave her alone , she 's OK . " " And you know , this time , I offered them tea again , and they took a sip and they left .


By that time , my staff poured into my office .


They were scared to death .


They didn 't know why they didn 't kill me .


They didn 't know why they didn 't take me away .


But everybody was happy to see me .


Very happy , and I was happy to be alive , of course .


( Laughter ) Of course , I was happy to be alive .


But also , as we continuously gave training during the fall of the Taliban — of course during the Taliban there is another story .


We went underground and we provided education for 80 schoolgirls , 3,000 students underground , and continuously we trained .


With the fall of the Taliban , we went into the country , and we opened school after school .


We opened women 's learning center .


We continuously opened clinics .


We worked with mothers and children .


We had reproductive health training .


We had all kinds of training that you can imagine .


I was very happy . I was delighted with the outcome of my work .


And one day , with four trainers and one bodyguard , I was going up north of Kabul , and all of a sudden , again , I was stopped in the middle of the road by 19 young men .


Rifles on their shoulders , they blocked the road .


And I told my driver , " " What 's going on ? " " And the driver said , " " I don 't know . " " He asked them . They said , " " We have nothing to do with you . " " They called my name . They said , " " We want her . " " My bodyguard got out , said , " " I can answer you .


What do you want ? " " They said , " " Nothing . " " They called my name .


And by that time , the women are yelling and screaming inside the car .


I am very shaken up , and I told myself , this is it .


This time , we all are going to be killed .


There is no doubt in my mind .


But still , the moment comes , and you take strength from whatever you believe and whatever you do .


It 's in your heart .


You believe in your worth , and you can walk on it .


So I just hold myself on the side of the car .


My leg was shaking , and I got outside .


And I asked them , " " What can I do for you ? " " You know what they said to me ?


They said , " " We know who you are .


We know where you are going .


Every day you go up north here and there .


You train women , you teach them and also you give them an opportunity to have a job .


You build their skills . How about us ? " " ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) " " And you know , how about us ?


What are we going to do ? " " I looked at them , and I said , " " I don 't know . " " ( Laughter ) They said , " " It 's OK .


The only thing we can do , what we know , from the time we 're born , we just hold the gun and kill .


That 's all we know . " " And you know what that means .


It 's a trap to me , of course .


So I walk out of there . They said , " " We 'll let you go , go . " " And so I walked into the car , I sit in the car , and I told the driver , " " Turn around and go back to the office . " " At that time , we only were supporting girls .


We only had money for women to train them , to send them to school , and nothing else .


By the time I came to the office , of course my trainers were gone .


They ran away home . Nobody stayed there .


My bodyguard was the only one there , and my voice was completely gone .


I was shaken up , and I sat on my table , and I said , " " What am I going to do ? " " How am I going to solve this problem ?


Because we had training going on up north already .


Hundreds of women were there coming to get training .


So I was sitting there , all of a sudden , at this moment , talking about momentum , we are , at that moment , one of my wonderful donors called me about a report .


And she asked me , " " Sakena ? " " And I answered her .


She said , " " It 's not you . What 's wrong with you ? " " I said , " " Nothing . " " I tried to cover .


No matter what I tried to do , she didn 't believe me , and she asked me again .


" OK , tell me what 's going on ? "


I told her the whole story .


At that time , she said , " " OK , you go next time , and you will help them .


You will help them . " " And when , two days later , I went the same route , and do you know , they were not in here , they were a little back further , the same young men , standing up there and holding the rifle and pointing to us to stop the car .


So we stopped the car .


I got out . I said , " " OK , let 's go with me . " " And they said , " " Yes . " " I said , " " On one condition , that whatever I say , you accept it . " " And they said , yes , they do .


So I took them to the mosque , and to make a long story short , I told them I 'd give them teachers .


Today , they are the best trainers .


They learn English , they learn how to be teachers , they learn computers , and they are my guides .


Every area that is unknown to us in the mountain areas , they go with me . They are ahead , and we go .


And they protect us .


And — ( Applause ) Thank you . ( Applause )


That tells you that education transforms people .


When you educate people , they are going to be different , and today all over , we need to work for gender equality .


We cannot only train women but forget about the men , because the men are the real people who are giving women the hardest time .


( Laughter ) So we started training men because the men should know the potential of women , know how much these potential men has , and how much these women can do the same job they are doing .


So we are continuously giving training to men , and I really believe strongly .


I live in a country that was a beautiful country .


I just want to share this with you .


It was a beautiful country , beautiful , peaceful country .


We were going everywhere .


Women were getting education : lawyer , engineer , teacher , and we were going from house to house .


We never locked our doors .


But you know what happened to my country .


Today , people cannot walk out of their door without security issues .


But we want the same Afghanistan we had before .


And I want to tell you the other side .


Today , the women of Afghanistan are working very , very hard .


They are earning degrees . They are training to be lawyers .


They are training to be doctors , back again .


They are training to be teachers , and they are running businesses .


So it is so wonderful to see people like that reach their complete potential , and all of this is going to happen .


I want to share this with you , because of love , because of compassion , and because of trust and honesty .


If you have these few things with you , you will accomplish .


We have one poet , Mawlānā Rūmī .


He said that by having compassion and having love , you can conquer the world .


And I tell you , we could .


And if we could do it in Afghanistan , I am sure 100 percent that everyone can do it in any part of the world .


Thank you very , very much .


( Applause ) Thank you . Thank you . ( Applause )


This is where I live . I live in Kenya , at the south parts of the Nairobi National Park .


Those are my dad 's cows at the back , and behind the cows , that 's the Nairobi National Park .


Nairobi National Park is not fenced in the south widely , which means wild animals like zebras migrate out of the park freely .


So predators like lions follow them , and this is what they do .


They kill our livestock .


This is one of the cows which was killed at night , and I just woke up in the morning and I found it dead , and I felt so bad , because it was the only bull we had .


My community , the Maasai , we believe that we came from heaven with all our animals and all the land for herding them , and that 's why we value them so much .


So I grew up hating lions so much .


The morans are the warriors who protect our community and the livestock , and they 're also upset about this problem .


So they kill the lions .


It 's one of the six lions which were killed in Nairobi .


And I think this is why the Nairobi National Park lions are few .


So a boy , from six to nine years old , in my community is responsible for his dad 's cows , and that 's the same thing which happened to me .


So I had to find a way of solving this problem .


And the first idea I got was to use fire , because I thought lions were scared of fire .


But I came to realize that that didn 't really help , because it was even helping the lions to see through the cowshed .


So I didn 't give up . I continued .


And a second idea I got was to use a scarecrow .


I was trying to trick the lions [ into thinking ] that I was standing near the cowshed .


But lions are very clever . ( Laughter ) They will come the first day and they see the scarecrow , and they go back , but the second day , they 'll come and they say , this thing is not moving here , it 's always here . ( Laughter ) So he jumps in and kills the animals .


So one night , I was walking around the cowshed with a torch , and that day , the lions didn 't come .


And I discovered that lions are afraid of a moving light .


So I had an idea .


Since I was a small boy , I used to work in my room for the whole day , and I even took apart my mom 's new radio , and that day she almost killed me , but I learned a lot about electronics . ( Laughter ) So I got an old car battery , an indicator box . It 's a small device found in a motorcycle , and it helps motorists when they want to turn right or left . It blinks .


And I got a switch where I can switch on the lights , on and off .


And that 's a small torch from a broken flashlight .


So I set up everything .


As you can see , the solar panel charges the battery , and the battery supplies the power to the small indicator box . I call it a transformer .


And the indicator box makes the lights flash .


As you can see , the bulbs face outside , because that 's where the lions come from .


And that 's how it looks to lions when they come at night .


The lights flash and trick the lions into thinking I was walking around the cowshed , but I was sleeping in my bed .


( Laughter ) ( Applause ) Thanks .


So I set it up in my home two years ago , and since then , we have never experienced any problem with lions .


And my neighboring homes heard about this idea .


One of them was this grandmother .


She had a lot of her animals being killed by lions , and she asked me if I could put the lights for her .


And I said , " " Yes . " " So I put the lights . You can see at the back , those are the lion lights .


Since now , I 've set up seven homes around my community , and they 're really working .


And my idea is also being used now all over Kenya for scaring other predators like hyenas , leopards , and it 's also being used to scare elephants away from people 's farms .


Because of this invention , I was lucky to get a scholarship in one of the best schools in Kenya , Brookhouse International School , and I 'm really excited about this .


My new school now is coming in and helping by fundraising and creating an awareness .


I even took my friends back to my community , and we 're installing the lights to the homes which don 't have [ any ] , and I 'm teaching them how to put them .


So one year ago , I was just a boy in the savanna grassland herding my father 's cows , and I used to see planes flying over , and I told myself that one day , I 'll be there inside .


And here I am today .


I got a chance to come by plane for my first time for TED .


So my big dream is to become an aircraft engineer and pilot when I grow up .


I used to hate lions , but now because my invention is saving my father 's cows and the lions , we are able to stay with the lions without any conflict .


Ashê olên . It means in my language , thank you very much .


( Applause ) Chris Anderson : You have no idea how exciting it is to hear a story like yours .


So you got this scholarship.Richard Turere : Yep .


CA : You 're working on other electrical inventions .


What 's the next one on your list ?


RT : My next invention is , I want to make an electric fence.CA : Electric fence ?


RT : But I know electric fences are already invented , but I want to make mine .


( Laughter ) CA : You already tried it once , right , and you — RT : I tried it before , but I stopped because it gave me a shock . ( Laughter ) CA : In the trenches . Richard Turere , you are something else .


We 're going to cheer you on every step of the way , my friend .


Thank you so much.RT : Thank you . ( Applause )


We 're going to go on a dive to the deep sea , and anyone that 's had that lovely opportunity knows that for about two and half hours on the way down , it 's a perfectly positively pitch-black world .


And we used to see the most mysterious animals out the window that you couldn 't describe : these blinking lights — a world of bioluminescence , like fireflies .


Dr. Edith Widder — she 's now at the Ocean Research and Conservation Association — was able to come up with a camera that could capture some of these incredible animals , and that 's what you 're seeing here on the screen .


That 's all bioluminescence . Like I said : just like fireflies .


There 's a flying turkey under a tree .


( Laughter ) I 'm a geologist by training .


But I love that .


And you see , some of the bioluminescence they use to avoid being eaten , some they use to attract prey , but all of it , from an artistic point of view , is just positively amazing .


And a lot of what goes on inside — There 's a fish with glowing eyes , pulsating eyes .


Some of the colors are designed to hypnotize , these lovely patterns .


And then this last one , one of my favorites , this pinwheel design .


Just absolutely amazing , every single dive .


That 's the unknown world , and today we 've only explored about 3 percent of what 's out there in the ocean .


Already we 've found the world 's highest mountains , the world 's deepest valleys , underwater lakes , underwater waterfalls — a lot of that we shared with you from the stage .


And in a place where we thought no life at all , we find more life , we think , and diversity and density than the tropical rainforest , which tells us that we don 't know much about this planet at all .


There 's still 97 percent , and either that 97 percent is empty or just full of surprises .


But I want to jump up to shallow water now and look at some creatures that are positively amazing .


Cephalopods — head-foots .


As a kid I knew them as calamari , mostly .


( Laughter ) This is an octopus .


This is the work of Dr. Roger Hanlon at the Marine Biological Lab , and it 's just fascinating how cephalopods can , with their incredible eyes , sense their surroundings , look at light , look at patterns .


Here 's an octopus moving across the reef , finds a spot to settle down , curls up and then disappears into the background .


Tough thing to do .


In the next bit , we 're going to see a couple squid .


Now males , when they fight , if they 're really aggressive , they turn white .


And these two males are fighting .


They do it by bouncing their butts together , which is an interesting concept .


Now , here 's a male on the left and a female on the right , and the male has managed to split his coloration so the female only always sees the kinder , gentler squid in him .


( Laughter ) Let 's take a look at it again . Watch the coloration : white on the right , brown on the left .


He takes a step back , he 's keeping off the other males by splitting his body , and comes up on the other side — Bingo !


Now , I 'm told that 's not not just a squid phenomenon with males , but I don 't know .


( Laughter ) Cuttlefish . I love cuttlefish .


This is a Giant Australian Cuttlefish .


And there he is , his droopy little eyes up here .


But they can do pretty amazing things , too .


Here we 're going to see one backing into a crevice , and watch his tentacles — he just pulls them in , makes them look just like algae .


Disappears right into the background .


Positively amazing .


Here 's two males fighting .


Once again , they 're smart enough , these cephalopods ; they know not to hurt each other .


But look at the patterns that they can do with their skin .


That 's an amazing thing .


Here 's an octopus .


Sometimes they don 't want to be seen when they move , because predators can see them .


This guy can make himself look like a rock , and , looking at his environment , can actually slide across the bottom , using the waves and the shadows so he can 't be seen .


His motion blends right into the background — the moving rock trick .


So , we 're learning lots new from the shallow water .


Still exploring the deep , but learning lots from the shallow water .


There 's a good reason why : the shallow water 's full of predators — here 's a barracuda — and if you 're an octopus or a cephalopod , you need to really understand how to use your surroundings to hide .


In the next scene , you 're going to see a nice coral bottom .


And you see that an octopus would stand out very easily there if you couldn 't use your camouflage , use your skin to change color and texture .


Here 's some algae in the foreground — and an octopus .


Ain 't that amazing ?


Now , Roger spooked him , so he took off in a cloud of ink , and when he lands , the octopus says , " " Oh , I 've been seen .


The best thing to do is to get as big as I can get . " " That big brown makes his eyespot very big .


So , he 's bluffing . Let 's do it backwards .


I thought he was joking when he first showed it to me .


I thought it was all graphics . So here it is in reverse .


Watch the skin color ; watch the skin texture .


Just an amazing animal , it can change color and texture to match the surroundings .


Watch him blend right into this algae .


One , two , three .


( Applause ) And now he 's gone , and so am I. Thank you very much . ( Applause )


Server : May I help you , sir ?


Customer : Uh , let 's see .


Server : We have pan seared registry error sprinkled with the finest corrupted data , binary brioche , RAM sandwiches , Conficker fitters , and a scripting salad with or without polymorphic dressing , and a grilled coding kabob .


Customer : I 'd like a RAM sandwich and a glass of your finest Code 39 .


Server : Would you like any desserts , sir ?


Our special is tracking cookie .


Customer : I 'd like a batch of some zombie tracking cookies , thank you .


Server : Coming right up , sir .


Your food will be served shortly .


( Applause ) Maya Penn : I 've been drawing ever since I could hold a crayon , and I 've been making animated flip books since I was three years old .


At that age , I also learned about what an animator was .


There was a program on TV about jobs most kids don 't know about .


When I understood that an animator makes the cartoons I saw on TV , I immediately said , " " That 's what I want to be . " " I don 't know if I said it mentally or out loud , but that was a greatly defining moment in my life .


Animation and art has always been my first love .


It was my love for technology that sparked the idea for " " Malicious Dishes . " " There was a virus on my computer , and I was trying to get rid of it , and all of a sudden , I just thought , what if viruses have their own little world inside the computer ?


Maybe a restaurant where they meet up and do virusy things ?


And thus , " " Malicious Dishes " " was born .


At four years old , my dad showed me how to take apart a computer and put it back together again .


That started my love for technology .


I built my first website myself in HTML , and I 'm learning JavaScript and Python .


I 'm also working on an animated series called " " The Pollinators . " " It 's about bees and other pollinators in our environment and why they 're so important .


If plants aren 't pollinated by the pollinators , then all creatures , including ourselves , that depend on these plants , would starve .


So I decided to take these cool creatures and make a superhero team .


( Applause ) ( Foot stomp ) ( Music ) ( Roar ) Pollinator : Deforestsaurus ! I should have known !


I need to call on the rest of the Pollinators !


( Music ) Thank you . ( Applause ) All of my animations start with ideas , but what are ideas ?


Ideas can spark a movement .


Ideas are opportunities and innovation .


Ideas truly are what make the world go round .


If it wasn 't for ideas , we wouldn 't be where we are now with technology , medicine , art , culture , and how we even live our lives .


At eight years old , I took my ideas and started my own business called Maya 's Ideas , and my nonprofit , Maya 's Ideas for the Planet .


( Laughter ) And I make eco-friendly clothing and accessories .


I 'm 13 now , and although I started my business in 2008 , my artistic journey started way before then .


I was greatly influenced by art , and I wanted to incorporate it in everything I did , even my business .


I would find different fabrics around the house , and say , " " This could be a scarf or a hat , " " and I had all these ideas for designs .


I noticed when I wore my creations , people would stop me and say , " Wow , that 's really cute . Where can I get one ? "


And I thought , I can start my own business .


Now I didn 't have any business plans at only eight years old .


I only knew I wanted to make pretty creations that were safe for the environment and I wanted to give back .


My mom taught me how to sew , and on my back porch , I would sit and make little headbands out of ribbon , and I would write down the names and the price of each item .


I started making more items like hats , scarves and bags .


Soon , my items began selling all over the world , and I had customers in Denmark , Italy , Australia , Canada and more .


Now , I had a lot to learn about my business , like branding and marketing , staying engaged with my customers , and seeing what sold the most and the least .


Soon , my business really started to take off .


Then one day , Forbes magazine contacted me when I was 10 years old .


( Laughter ) They wanted to feature me and my company in their article .


Now a lot of people ask me , why is your business eco-friendly ?


I 've had a passion for protecting the environment and its creatures since I was little .


My parents taught me at an early age about giving back and being a good steward to the environment .


I heard about how the dyes in some clothing or the process of even making the items was harmful to the people and the planet , so I started doing my own research , and I discovered that even after dyeing has being completed , there is a waste issue that gives a negative impact on the environment .


For example , the grinding of materials , or the dumping of dried powder materials .


These actions can pollute the air , making it toxic to anyone or anything that inhales it .


So when I started my business , I knew two things : All of my items had to be eco-friendly , and 10 to 20 percent of the profits I made went to local and global charities and environmental organizations .


( Applause ) I feel I 'm part of the new wave of entrepreneurs that not only seeks to have a successful business , but also a sustainable future .


I feel that I can meet the needs of my customers without compromising the ability of future generations to live in a greener tomorrow .


We live in a big , diverse and beautiful world , and that makes me even more passionate to save it .


But it 's never enough to just to get it through your heads about the things that are happening in our world .


It takes to get it through your hearts , because when you get it through your heart , that is when movements are sparked .


That is when opportunities and innovation are created , and that is why ideas come to life .


Thank you , and peace and blessings .


( Applause ) Thank you . ( Applause ) Pat Mitchell : So , you heard Maya talk about the amazing parents who are behind this incredible woman . Where are they ?


Please , Mr. and Mrs. Penn . Would you just — Ah !


( Applause )


You know , one of the intense pleasures of travel and one of the delights of ethnographic research is the opportunity to live amongst those who have not forgotten the old ways , who still feel their past in the wind , touch it in stones polished by rain , taste it in the bitter leaves of plants .


Just to know that Jaguar shamans still journey beyond the Milky Way , or the myths of the Inuit elders still resonate with meaning , or that in the Himalaya , the Buddhists still pursue the breath of the Dharma , is to really remember the central revelation of anthropology , and that is the idea that the world in which we live does not exist in some absolute sense , but is just one model of reality , the consequence of one particular set of adaptive choices that our lineage made , albeit successfully , many generations ago .


And of course , we all share the same adaptive imperatives .


We 're all born . We all bring our children into the world .


We go through initiation rites .


We have to deal with the inexorable separation of death , so it shouldn 't surprise us that we all sing , we all dance , we all have art .


But what 's interesting is the unique cadence of the song , the rhythm of the dance in every culture .


And whether it is the Penan in the forests of Borneo , or the Voodoo acolytes in Haiti , or the warriors in the Kaisut desert of Northern Kenya , the Curandero in the mountains of the Andes , or a caravanserai in the middle of the Sahara — this is incidentally the fellow that I traveled into the desert with a month ago — or indeed a yak herder in the slopes of Qomolangma , Everest , the goddess mother of the world .


All of these peoples teach us that there are other ways of being , other ways of thinking , other ways of orienting yourself in the Earth .


And this is an idea , if you think about it , can only fill you with hope .


Now , together the myriad cultures of the world make up a web of spiritual life and cultural life that envelops the planet , and is as important to the well-being of the planet as indeed is the biological web of life that you know as a biosphere .


And you might think of this cultural web of life as being an ethnosphere , and you might define the ethnosphere as being the sum total of all thoughts and dreams , myths , ideas , inspirations , intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness .


The ethnosphere is humanity 's great legacy .


It 's the symbol of all that we are and all that we can be as an astonishingly inquisitive species .


And just as the biosphere has been severely eroded , so too is the ethnosphere — and , if anything , at a far greater rate .


No biologists , for example , would dare suggest that 50 percent of all species or more have been or are on the brink of extinction because it simply is not true , and yet that — the most apocalyptic scenario in the realm of biological diversity — scarcely approaches what we know to be the most optimistic scenario in the realm of cultural diversity .


And the great indicator of that , of course , is language loss .


When each of you in this room were born , there were 6,000 languages spoken on the planet .


Now , a language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules .


A language is a flash of the human spirit .


It 's a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world .


Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind , a watershed , a thought , an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities .


And of those 6,000 languages , as we sit here today in Monterey , fully half are no longer being whispered into the ears of children .


They 're no longer being taught to babies , which means , effectively , unless something changes , they 're already dead .


What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence , to be the last of your people to speak your language , to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the ancestors or anticipate the promise of the children ?


And yet , that dreadful fate is indeed the plight of somebody somewhere on Earth roughly every two weeks , because every two weeks , some elder dies and carries with him into the grave the last syllables of an ancient tongue .


And I know there 's some of you who say , " " Well , wouldn 't it be better , wouldn 't the world be a better place if we all just spoke one language ? " " And I say , " " Great , let 's make that language Yoruba . Let 's make it Cantonese .


Let 's make it Kogi . " " And you 'll suddenly discover what it would be like to be unable to speak your own language .


And so , what I 'd like to do with you today is sort of take you on a journey through the ethnosphere , a brief journey through the ethnosphere , to try to begin to give you a sense of what in fact is being lost .


Now , there are many of us who sort of forget that when I say " " different ways of being , " " I really do mean different ways of being .


Take , for example , this child of a Barasana in the Northwest Amazon , the people of the anaconda who believe that mythologically they came up the milk river from the east in the belly of sacred snakes .


Now , this is a people who cognitively do not distinguish the color blue from the color green because the canopy of the heavens is equated to the canopy of the forest upon which the people depend .


They have a curious language and marriage rule which is called " " linguistic exogamy : " " you must marry someone who speaks a different language .


And this is all rooted in the mythological past , yet the curious thing is in these long houses , where there are six or seven languages spoken because of intermarriage , you never hear anyone practicing a language .


They simply listen and then begin to speak .


Or , one of the most fascinating tribes I ever lived with , the Waorani of northeastern Ecuador , an astonishing people first contacted peacefully in 1958 .


In 1957 , five missionaries attempted contact and made a critical mistake .


They dropped from the air 8 x 10 glossy photographs of themselves in what we would say to be friendly gestures , forgetting that these people of the rainforest had never seen anything two-dimensional in their lives .


They picked up these photographs from the forest floor , tried to look behind the face to find the form or the figure , found nothing , and concluded that these were calling cards from the devil , so they speared the five missionaries to death .


But the Waorani didn 't just spear outsiders .


They speared each other .


54 percent of their mortality was due to them spearing each other .


We traced genealogies back eight generations , and we found two instances of natural death and when we pressured the people a little bit about it , they admitted that one of the fellows had gotten so old that he died getting old , so we speared him anyway . ( Laughter ) But at the same time they had a perspicacious knowledge of the forest that was astonishing .


Their hunters could smell animal urine at 40 paces and tell you what species left it behind .


In the early ' 80s , I had a really astonishing assignment when I was asked by my professor at Harvard if I was interested in going down to Haiti , infiltrating the secret societies which were the foundation of Duvalier 's strength and Tonton Macoutes , and securing the poison used to make zombies .


In order to make sense out of sensation , of course , I had to understand something about this remarkable faith of Vodoun . And Voodoo is not a black magic cult .


On the contrary , it 's a complex metaphysical worldview .


It 's interesting .


If I asked you to name the great religions of the world , what would you say ?


Christianity , Islam , Buddhism , Judaism , whatever .


There 's always one continent left out , the assumption being that sub-Saharan Africa had no religious beliefs . Well , of course , they did and Voodoo is simply the distillation of these very profound religious ideas that came over during the tragic Diaspora of the slavery era .


But , what makes Voodoo so interesting is that it 's this living relationship between the living and the dead .


So , the living give birth to the spirits .


The spirits can be invoked from beneath the Great Water , responding to the rhythm of the dance to momentarily displace the soul of the living , so that for that brief shining moment , the acolyte becomes the god .


That 's why the Voodooists like to say that " " You white people go to church and speak about God .


We dance in the temple and become God . " " And because you are possessed , you are taken by the spirit — how can you be harmed ?


So you see these astonishing demonstrations : Voodoo acolytes in a state of trance handling burning embers with impunity , a rather astonishing demonstration of the ability of the mind to affect the body that bears it when catalyzed in the state of extreme excitation .


Now , of all the peoples that I 've ever been with , the most extraordinary are the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia .


Descendants of the ancient Tairona civilization which once carpeted the Caribbean coastal plain of Colombia , in the wake of the conquest , these people retreated into an isolated volcanic massif that soars above the Caribbean coastal plain .


In a bloodstained continent , these people alone were never conquered by the Spanish .


To this day , they remain ruled by a ritual priesthood but the training for the priesthood is rather extraordinary .


The young acolytes are taken away from their families at the age of three and four , sequestered in a shadowy world of darkness in stone huts at the base of glaciers for 18 years : two nine-year periods deliberately chosen to mimic the nine months of gestation they spend in their natural mother 's womb ; now they are metaphorically in the womb of the great mother .


And for this entire time , they are inculturated into the values of their society , values that maintain the proposition that their prayers and their prayers alone maintain the cosmic — or we might say the ecological — balance .


And at the end of this amazing initiation , one day they 're suddenly taken out and for the first time in their lives , at the age of 18 , they see a sunrise . And in that crystal moment of awareness of first light as the Sun begins to bathe the slopes of the stunningly beautiful landscape , suddenly everything they have learned in the abstract is affirmed in stunning glory . And the priest steps back and says , " " You see ? It 's really as I 've told you .


It is that beautiful . It is yours to protect . " " They call themselves the " " elder brothers " " and they say we , who are the younger brothers , are the ones responsible for destroying the world .


Now , this level of intuition becomes very important .


Whenever we think of indigenous people and landscape , we either invoke Rousseau and the old canard of the " " noble savage , " " which is an idea racist in its simplicity , or alternatively , we invoke Thoreau and say these people are closer to the Earth than we are .


Well , indigenous people are neither sentimental nor weakened by nostalgia .


There 's not a lot of room for either in the malarial swamps of the Asmat or in the chilling winds of Tibet , but they have , nevertheless , through time and ritual , forged a traditional mystique of the Earth that is based not on the idea of being self-consciously close to it , but on a far subtler intuition : the idea that the Earth itself can only exist because it is breathed into being by human consciousness .


Now , what does that mean ?


It means that a young kid from the Andes who 's raised to believe that that mountain is an Apu spirit that will direct his or her destiny will be a profoundly different human being and have a different relationship to that resource or that place than a young kid from Montana raised to believe that a mountain is a pile of rock ready to be mined .


Whether it 's the abode of a spirit or a pile of ore is irrelevant .


What 's interesting is the metaphor that defines the relationship between the individual and the natural world .


I was raised in the forests of British Columbia to believe those forests existed to be cut .


That made me a different human being than my friends amongst the Kwagiulth who believe that those forests were the abode of Huxwhukw and the Crooked Beak of Heaven and the cannibal spirits that dwelled at the north end of the world , spirits they would have to engage during their Hamatsa initiation .


Now , if you begin to look at the idea that these cultures could create different realities , you could begin to understand some of their extraordinary discoveries . Take this plant here .


It 's a photograph I took in the Northwest Amazon just last April .


This is ayahuasca , which many of you have heard about , the most powerful psychoactive preparation of the shaman 's repertoire .


What makes ayahuasca fascinating is not the sheer pharmacological potential of this preparation , but the elaboration of it . It 's made really of two different sources : on the one hand , this woody liana which has in it a series of beta-carbolines , harmine , harmaline , mildly hallucinogenic — to take the vine alone is rather to have sort of blue hazy smoke drift across your consciousness — but it 's mixed with the leaves of a shrub in the coffee family called Psychotria viridis .


This plant had in it some very powerful tryptamines , very close to brain serotonin , dimethyltryptamine , 5-methoxydimethyltryptamine .


If you 've ever seen the Yanomami blowing that snuff up their noses , that substance they make from a different set of species also contains methoxydimethyltryptamine .


To have that powder blown up your nose is rather like being shot out of a rifle barrel lined with baroque paintings and landing on a sea of electricity . ( Laughter ) It doesn 't create the distortion of reality ; it creates the dissolution of reality .


In fact , I used to argue with my professor , Richard Evan Shultes — who is a man who sparked the psychedelic era with his discovery of the magic mushrooms in Mexico in the 1930s — I used to argue that you couldn 't classify these tryptamines as hallucinogenic because by the time you 're under the effects there 's no one home anymore to experience a hallucination . ( Laughter ) But the thing about tryptamines is they cannot be taken orally because they 're denatured by an enzyme found naturally in the human gut called monoamine oxidase .


They can only be taken orally if taken in conjunction with some other chemical that denatures the MAO .


Now , the fascinating things are that the beta-carbolines found within that liana are MAO inhibitors of the precise sort necessary to potentiate the tryptamine . So you ask yourself a question .


How , in a flora of 80,000 species of vascular plants , do these people find these two morphologically unrelated plants that when combined in this way , created a kind of biochemical version of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts ?


Well , we use that great euphemism , " " trial and error , " " which is exposed to be meaningless .


But you ask the Indians , and they say , " " The plants talk to us . " " Well , what does that mean ?


This tribe , the Cofan , has 17 varieties of ayahuasca , all of which they distinguish a great distance in the forest , all of which are referable to our eye as one species .


And then you ask them how they establish their taxonomy and they say , " " I thought you knew something about plants .


I mean , don 't you know anything ? " " And I said , " " No . " " Well , it turns out you take each of the 17 varieties in the night of a full moon , and it sings to you in a different key .


Now , that 's not going to get you a Ph.D. at Harvard , but it 's a lot more interesting than counting stamens . ( Laughter ) Now — ( Applause ) — the problem — the problem is that even those of us sympathetic with the plight of indigenous people view them as quaint and colorful but somehow reduced to the margins of history as the real world , meaning our world , moves on .


Well , the truth is the 20th century , 300 years from now , is not going to be remembered for its wars or its technological innovations , but rather as the era in which we stood by and either actively endorsed or passively accepted the massive destruction of both biological and cultural diversity on the planet . Now , the problem isn 't change .


All cultures through all time have constantly been engaged in a dance with new possibilities of life .


And the problem is not technology itself .


The Sioux Indians did not stop being Sioux when they gave up the bow and arrow any more than an American stopped being an American when he gave up the horse and buggy .


It 's not change or technology that threatens the integrity of the ethnosphere . It is power , the crude face of domination .


Wherever you look around the world , you discover that these are not cultures destined to fade away ; these are dynamic living peoples being driven out of existence by identifiable forces that are beyond their capacity to adapt to : whether it 's the egregious deforestation in the homeland of the Penan — a nomadic people from Southeast Asia , from Sarawak — a people who lived free in the forest until a generation ago , and now have all been reduced to servitude and prostitution on the banks of the rivers , where you can see the river itself is soiled with the silt that seems to be carrying half of Borneo away


to the South China Sea , where the Japanese freighters hang light in the horizon ready to fill their holds with raw logs ripped from the forest — or , in the case of the Yanomami , it 's the disease entities that have come in , in the wake of the discovery of gold .


Or if we go into the mountains of Tibet , where I 'm doing a lot of research recently , you 'll see it 's a crude face of political domination .


You know , genocide , the physical extinction of a people is universally condemned , but ethnocide , the destruction of people 's way of life , is not only not condemned , it 's universally , in many quarters , celebrated as part of a development strategy .


And you cannot understand the pain of Tibet until you move through it at the ground level .


I once travelled 6,000 miles from Chengdu in Western China overland through southeastern Tibet to Lhasa with a young colleague , and it was only when I got to Lhasa that I understood the face behind the statistics you hear about : 6,000 sacred monuments torn apart to dust and ashes , 1.2 million people killed by the cadres during the Cultural Revolution .


This young man 's father had been ascribed to the Panchen Lama .


That meant he was instantly killed at the time of the Chinese invasion .


His uncle fled with His Holiness in the Diaspora that took the people to Nepal .


His mother was incarcerated for the crime of being wealthy .


He was smuggled into the jail at the age of two to hide beneath her skirt tails because she couldn 't bear to be without him .


The sister who had done that brave deed was put into an education camp .


One day she inadvertently stepped on an armband of Mao , and for that transgression , she was given seven years of hard labor .


The pain of Tibet can be impossible to bear , but the redemptive spirit of the people is something to behold .


And in the end , then , it really comes down to a choice : do we want to live in a monochromatic world of monotony or do we want to embrace a polychromatic world of diversity ?


Margaret Mead , the great anthropologist , said , before she died , that her greatest fear was that as we drifted towards this blandly amorphous generic world view not only would we see the entire range of the human imagination reduced to a more narrow modality of thought , but that we would wake from a dream one day having forgotten there were even other possibilities .


And it 's humbling to remember that our species has , perhaps , been around for [ 150,000 ] years .


The Neolithic Revolution — which gave us agriculture , at which time we succumbed to the cult of the seed ; the poetry of the shaman was displaced by the prose of the priesthood ; we created hierarchy specialization surplus — is only 10,000 years ago .


The modern industrial world as we know it is barely 300 years old .


Now , that shallow history doesn 't suggest to me that we have all the answers for all of the challenges that will confront us in the ensuing millennia .


When these myriad cultures of the world are asked the meaning of being human , they respond with 10,000 different voices .


And it 's within that song that we will all rediscover the possibility of being what we are : a fully conscious species , fully aware of ensuring that all peoples and all gardens find a way to flourish . And there are great moments of optimism .


This is a photograph I took at the northern tip of Baffin Island when I went narwhal hunting with some Inuit people , and this man , Olayuk , told me a marvelous story of his grandfather .


The Canadian government has not always been kind to the Inuit people , and during the 1950s , to establish our sovereignty , we forced them into settlements .


This old man 's grandfather refused to go .


The family , fearful for his life , took away all of his weapons , all of his tools .


Now , you must understand that the Inuit did not fear the cold ; they took advantage of it .


The runners of their sleds were originally made of fish wrapped in caribou hide .


So , this man 's grandfather was not intimidated by the Arctic night or the blizzard that was blowing .


He simply slipped outside , pulled down his sealskin trousers and defecated into his hand . And as the feces began to freeze , he shaped it into the form of a blade .


He put a spray of saliva on the edge of the shit knife and as it finally froze solid , he butchered a dog with it .


He skinned the dog and improvised a harness , took the ribcage of the dog and improvised a sled , harnessed up an adjacent dog , and disappeared over the ice floes , shit knife in belt .


Talk about getting by with nothing . ( Laughter ) And this , in many ways — ( Applause ) — is a symbol of the resilience of the Inuit people and of all indigenous people around the world .


The Canadian government in April of 1999 gave back to total control of the Inuit an area of land larger than California and Texas put together .


It 's our new homeland . It 's called Nunavut .


It 's an independent territory . They control all mineral resources .


An amazing example of how a nation-state can seek restitution with its people .


And finally , in the end , I think it 's pretty obvious at least to all of all us who 've traveled in these remote reaches of the planet , to realize that they 're not remote at all .


They 're homelands of somebody .


They represent branches of the human imagination that go back to the dawn of time . And for all of us , the dreams of these children , like the dreams of our own children , become part of the naked geography of hope .


So , what we 're trying to do at the National Geographic , finally , is , we believe that politicians will never accomplish anything .


We think that polemics — ( Applause ) — we think that polemics are not persuasive , but we think that storytelling can change the world , and so we are probably the best storytelling institution in the world . We get 35 million hits on our website every month .


156 nations carry our television channel .


Our magazines are read by millions .


And what we 're doing is a series of journeys to the ethnosphere where we 're going to take our audience to places of such cultural wonder that they cannot help but come away dazzled by what they have seen , and hopefully , therefore , embrace gradually , one by one , the central revelation of anthropology : that this world deserves to exist in a diverse way , that we can find a way to live in a truly multicultural , pluralistic world where all of the wisdom of all peoples can contribute to our collective well-being .


Thank you very much .


( Applause )


When I was little , I thought my country was the best on the planet .


And I grew up singing a song called " " Nothing To Envy . " " And I was very proud .


In school , we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung , but we never learned much about the outside world , except that America , South Korea , Japan are the enemies .


Although I often wondered about the outside world , I thought I would spend my entire life in North Korea , until everything suddenly changed .


When I was seven years old , I saw my first public execution .


But I thought my life in North Korea was normal .


My family was not poor , and myself , I had never experienced hunger .


But one day , in 1995 , my mom brought home a letter from a coworker 's sister .


It read , " " When you read this , our five family members will not exist in this world , because we haven 't eaten for the past three weeks .


We are lying on the floor together , and our bodies are so weak , we are waiting to die . " " I was so shocked .


This was the first time I heard that people in my country were suffering .


Soon after , when I was walking past a train station , I saw something terrible that to this day I can 't erase from my memory .


A lifeless woman was lying on the ground , while an emaciated child in her arms just stared helplessly at his mother 's face .


But nobody helped them , because they were so focused on taking care of themselves and their families .


A huge famine hit North Korea in the mid-1990s .


Ultimately , more than a million North Koreans died during the famine , and many only survived by eating grass , bugs and tree bark .


Power outages also became more and more frequent , so everything around me was completely dark at night , except for the sea of lights in China , just across the river from my home .


I always wondered why they had lights , but we didn 't .


This is a satellite picture showing North Korea at night , compared to neighbors .


This is the Amnok River , which serves as a part of the border between North Korea and China .


As you can see , the river can be very narrow at certain points , allowing North Koreans to secretly cross .


But many die .


Sometimes , I saw dead bodies floating down the river .


I can 't reveal many details about how I left North Korea , but I only can say that during the ugly years of the famine , I was sent to China to live with distant relatives .


But I only thought that I would be separated from my family for a short time .


I could have never imagined that it would take 14 years to live together .


In China , it was hard living as a young girl without my family .


I had no idea what life was going to be like as a North Korean refugee .


But I soon learned it 's not only extremely difficult , it 's also very dangerous , since North Korean refugees are considered in China as illegal migrants .


So I was living in constant fear that my identity could be revealed , and I would be repatriated to a horrible fate , back in North Korea .


One day , my worst nightmare came true , when I was caught by the Chinese police , and brought to the police station for interrogation .


Someone had accused me of being North Korean , so they tested my Chinese language abilities , and asked me tons of questions .


I was so scared .


I thought my heart was going to explode .


If anything seemed unnatural , I could be imprisoned and repatriated .


I thought my life was over .


But I managed to control all the emotions inside me , and answer the questions .


After they finished questioning me , one official said to another , " This was a false report . She 's not North Korean . "


And they let me go . It was a miracle .


Some North Koreans in China seek asylum in foreign embassies .


But many can be caught by the Chinese police , and repatriated .


These girls were so lucky .


Even though they were caught , they were eventually released , after heavy international pressure .


These North Koreans were not so lucky .


Every year , countless North Koreans are caught in China and repatriated to North Korea , where they can be tortured , imprisoned , or publicly executed .


Even though I was really fortunate to get out , many other North Koreans have not been so lucky .


It 's tragic that North Koreans have to hide their identities and struggle so hard just to survive .


Even after learning a new language and getting a job , their whole world can be turned upside down in an instant .


That 's why , after 10 years of hiding my identity , I decided to risk going to South Korea .


And I started a new life yet again .


Settling down in South Korea was a lot more challenging than I had expected .


English was so important in South Korea , so I had to start learning my third language .


Also , I realized there was a wide gap between North and South .


We are all Korean , but inside , we have become very different , due to 67 years of division .


I even went through an identity crisis .


Am I South Korean or North Korean ?


Where am I from ? Who am I ?


Suddenly , there was no country I could proudly call my own .


Even though adjusting to life in South Korea was not easy , I made a plan — I started studying for the university entrance exam .


Just as I was starting to get used to my new life , I received a shocking phone call .


The North Korean authorities intercepted some money that I sent to my family , and , as a punishment , my family was going to be forcibly removed to a desolate location in the countryside .


They had to get out quickly .


So I started planning how to help them escape .


North Koreans have to travel incredible distances on the path to freedom .


It 's almost impossible to cross the border between North Korea and South Korea .


So , ironically , I took a flight back to China and headed toward the North Korean border .


Since my family couldn 't speak Chinese , I had to guide them somehow through more than 2,000 miles in China , and then into Southeast Asia .


The journey by bus took one week , and we were almost caught several times .


One time , our bus was stopped and boarded by a Chinese police officer .


He took everyone 's I.D. cards , and he started asking them questions .


Since my family couldn 't understand Chinese , I thought my family was going to be arrested .


As the Chinese officer approached my family , I impulsively stood up , and I told him that these are deaf and dumb people that I was chaperoning .


He looked at me suspiciously , but luckily , he believed me .


We made it all the way to the border of Laos .


But I had to spend almost all my money to bribe the border guards in Laos .


But even after we got past the border , my family was arrested and jailed for illegal border crossing .


After I paid the fine and bribe , my family was released in one month .


But soon after , my family was arrested and jailed again , in the capital of Laos .


This was one of the lowest points in my life .


I did everything to get my family to freedom , and we came so close , but my family was thrown in jail , just a short distance from the South Korean embassy .


I went back and forth between the immigration office and the police station , desperately trying to get my family out .


but I didn 't have enough money to pay a bribe or fine anymore .


I lost all hope .


At that moment , I heard one man 's voice ask me , " What 's wrong ? "


I was so surprised that a total stranger cared enough to ask .


In my broken English , and with a dictionary , I explained the situation , and without hesitating , the man went to the ATM , and he paid the rest of the money for my family , and two other North Koreans to get out of jail .


I thanked him with all my heart , and I asked him , " Why are you helping me ? "


" " I 'm not helping you , " " he said .


" I 'm helping the North Korean people . "


I realized that this was a symbolic moment in my life .


The kind stranger symbolized new hope for me and the North Korean people , when we needed it most .


And he showed me that the kindness of strangers and the support of the international community are truly the rays of hope we North Korean people need .


Eventually , after our long journey , my family and I were reunited in South Korea .


But getting to freedom is only half the battle .


Many North Koreans are separated from their families , and when they arrive in a new country , they start with little or no money .


So we can benefit from the international community for education , English language training , job training , and more .


We can also act as a bridge between the people inside North Korea and the outside world .


Because many of us stay in contact with family members still inside , and we send information and money that is helping to change North Korea from inside .


I 've been so lucky , received so much help and inspiration in my life , so I want to help give aspiring North Koreans a chance to prosper with international support .


I 'm confident that you will see more and more North Koreans succeeding all over the world , including the TED stage .


Thank you .


( Applause )


( Music ) ( Applause )


This is a kindergarten we designed in 2007 .


We made this kindergarten to be a circle .


It 's a kind of endless circulation on top of the roof .


If you are a parent , you know that kids love to keep making circles .


This is how the rooftop looks .


And why did we design this ?


The principal of this kindergarten said , " No , I don 't want a handrail . "


I said , " " It 's impossible . " " But he insisted : " " How about having a net sticking out from the edge of the roof ?


So that it can catch the children falling off ? " " ( Laughter ) I said , " " It 's impossible . " " And of course , the government official said , " Of course you have to have a handrail . "


But we could keep that idea around the trees .


There are three trees popping through .


And we were allowed to call this rope as a handrail .


But of course , rope has nothing to do with them .


They fall into the net .


And you get more , and more , more .


( Laughter ) Sometimes 40 children are around a tree .


The boy on the branch , he loves the tree so he is eating the tree .


( Laughter ) And at the time of an event , they sit on the edge .


It looks so nice from underneath .


Monkeys in the zoo .


( Laughter ) Feeding time .


( Laughter ) ( Applause ) And we made the roof as low as possible , because we wanted to see children on top of the roof , not only underneath the roof .


And if the roof is too high , you see only the ceiling .


And the leg washing place — there are many kinds of water taps .


You see with the flexible tubes , you want to spray water to your friends , and the shower , and the one in front is quite normal .


But if you look at this , the boy is not washing his boots , he 's putting water into his boots .


( Laughter ) This kindergarten is completely open , most of the year .


And there is no boundary between inside and outside .


So it means basically this architecture is a roof .


And also there is no boundary between classrooms .


So there is no acoustic barrier at all .


When you put many children in a quiet box , some of them get really nervous .


But in this kindergarten , there is no reason they get nervous .


Because there is no boundary .


And the principal says if the boy in the corner doesn 't want to stay in the room , we let him go .


He will come back eventually , because it 's a circle , it comes back .


( Laughter ) But the point is , in that kind of occasion , usually children try to hide somewhere .


But here , just they leave and come back .


It 's a natural process .


And secondly , we consider noise very important .


You know that children sleep better in noise .


They don 't sleep in a quiet space .


And in this kindergarten , these children show amazing concentration in class .


And you know , our kind grew up in the jungle with noise .


They need noise .


And you know , you can talk to your friends in a noisy bar .


You are not supposed to be in silence .


And you know , these days we are trying to make everything under control .


You know , it 's completely open .


And you should know that we can go skiing in -20 degrees in winter .


In summer you go swimming .


The sand is 50 degrees .


And also , you should know that you are waterproof .


You never melt in rain .


So , children are supposed to be outside .


So that is how we should treat them .


This is how they divide classrooms .


They are supposed to help teachers .


They don 't .


( Laughter ) I didn 't put him in .


A classroom .


And a washbasin .


They talk to each other around the well .


And there are always some trees in the classroom .


A monkey trying to fish another monkey from above .


( Laughter ) Monkeys . ( Laughter )


And each classroom has at least one skylight .


And this is where Santa Claus comes down at the time of Christmas .


This is the annex building , right next to that oval-shaped kindergarten .


The building is only five meters tall with seven floors .


And of course , the ceiling height is very low .


So you have to consider safety .


So , we put our children , a daughter and a son .


They tried to go in .


He hit his head .


He 's okay . His skull is quite strong .


He is resilient . It 's my son .


( Laughter ) And he is trying to see if it is safe to jump off .


And then we put other children .


The traffic jam is awful in Tokyo , as you know .


( Laughter ) The driver in front , she needs to learn how to drive .


Now these days , kids need a small dosage of danger .


And in this kind of occasion , they learn to help each other .


This is society . This is the kind of opportunity we are losing these days .


Now , this drawing is showing the movement of a boy between 9 : 10 and 9 : 30 .


And the circumference of this building is 183 meters .


So it 's not exactly small at all .


And this boy did 6,000 meters in the morning .


But the surprise is yet to come .


The children in this kindergarten do 4,000 meters on average .


And these children have the highest athletic abilities among many kindergartens .


The principal says , " " I don 't train them . We leave them on top of the roof .


Just like sheep . " " ( Laughter ) They keep running . ( Laughter )


My point is don 't control them , don 't protect them too much , and they need to tumble sometimes .


They need to get some injury .


And that makes them learn how to live in this world .


I think architecture is capable of changing this world , and people 's lives .


And this is one of the attempts to change the lives of children .


Thank you very much .


( Applause )


What I do is I organize information .


I 'm a graphic designer .


Professionally , I try to make sense often of things that don 't make much sense themselves .


So my father might not understand what it is that I do for a living .


His part of my ancestry has been farmers .


He 's part of this ethnic minority called the Pontic Greeks .


They lived in Asia Minor and fled to Greece after a genocide about a hundred years ago .


And ever since that , migration has somewhat been a theme in my family .


My father moved to Germany , studied there and married , and as a result , I now have this half-German brain , with all the analytical thinking and that slightly dorky demeanor that come with that .


And of course it meant that I was a foreigner in both countries , and that of course made it pretty easy for me to migrate as well , in good family tradition , if you like .


But of course , most journeys that we undertake from day to day are within a city .


And , especially if you know the city , getting from A to B may seem pretty obvious , right ?


But the question is , why is it obvious ?


How do we know where we 're going ?


So I washed up on a Dublin ferry port about 12 years ago , a professional foreigner , if you like , and I 'm sure you 've all had this experience before , yeah ?


You arrive in a new city , and your brain is trying to make sense of this new place .


Once you find your base , your home , you start to build this cognitive map of your environment .


It 's essentially this virtual map that only exists in your brain .


All animal species do it , even though we all use slightly different tools .


Us humans , of course , we don 't move around marking our territory by scent , like dogs .


We don 't run around emitting ultrasonic squeaks , like bats .


We just don 't do that , although a night in the Temple Bar district can get pretty wild .


( Laughter ) No , we do two important things to make a place our own .


First , we move along linear routes .


Typically , we find a main street , and this main street becomes a linear strip map in our minds .


But our mind keeps it pretty simple , yeah ?


Every street is generally perceived as a straight line , and we kind of ignore the little twists and turns that the streets make .


When we do , however , make a turn into a side street , our mind tends to adjust that turn to a 90-degree angle .


This of course makes for some funny moments when you 're in some old city layout that follows some sort of circular city logic , yeah ?


Maybe you 've had that experience as well .


Let 's say you 're on some spot on a side street that projects from a main cathedral square , and you want to get to another point on a side street just like that .


The cognitive map in your mind may tell you , " " Aris , go back to the main cathedral square , take a 90-degree turn and walk down that other side street . " " But somehow you feel adventurous that day , and you suddenly discover that the two spots were actually only a single building apart .


Now , I don 't know about you , but I always feel like I find this wormhole or this inter-dimensional portal .


( Laughter ) So we move along linear routes and our mind straightens streets and perceives turns as 90-degree angles .


The second thing that we do to make a place our own is we attach meaning and emotions to the things that we see along those lines .


If you go to the Irish countryside and you ask an old lady for directions , brace yourself for some elaborate Irish storytelling about all the landmarks , yeah ?


She 'll tell you the pub where her sister used to work , and " " ... go past that church where I got married , " " that kind of thing .


So we fill our cognitive maps with these markers of meaning .


What 's more , we abstract repeat patterns and recognize them .


We recognize them by the experiences and we abstract them into symbols .


And of course , we 're all capable of understanding these symbols .


( Laughter ) What 's more , we 're all capable of understanding the cognitive maps , and you are all capable of creating these cognitive maps yourselves .


So next time , when you want to tell your friend how to get to your place , you grab a beermat , grab a napkin , and you just observe yourself create this awesome piece of communication design .


It 's got straight lines .


It 's got 90-degree corners .


You might add little symbols along the way .


And when you look at what you 've just drawn , you realize it does not resemble a street map .


If you were to put an actual street map on top of what you 've just drawn , you 'd realize your streets and the distances — they 'd be way off .


No , what you 've just drawn is more like a diagram or a schematic .


It 's a visual construct of lines , dots , letters , designed in the language of our brains .


So it 's no big surprise that the big information-design icon of the last century — the pinnacle of showing everybody how to get from A to B , the London Underground map — was not designed by a cartographer or a city planner ; it was designed by an engineering draftsman .


In the 1930s , Harry Beck applied the principles of schematic diagram design and changed the way public transport maps are designed forever .


Now the very key to the success of this map is in the omission of less important information and in the extreme simplification .


So , straightened streets , corners of 90 and 45 degrees , but also the extreme geographic distortion in that map .


If you were to look at the actual locations of these stations , you 'd see they 're very different .


But this is all for the clarity of the public Tube map .


If you , say , wanted to get from Regent 's Park station to Great Portland Street , the Tube map would tell you : take the Tube , go to Baker Street , change over , take another Tube .


Of course , what you don 't know is that the two stations are only about a hundred meters apart .


Now we 've reached the subject of public transport , and public transport here in Dublin is a somewhat touchy subject .


( Laughter ) For everybody who does not know the public transport here in Dublin , essentially , we have this system of local buses that grew with the city .


For every outskirt that was added , there was another bus route added , running from the outskirt all the way to the city center .


And as these local buses approach the city center , they all run side by side and converge in pretty much one main street .


So when I stepped off the boat 12 years ago , I tried to make sense of that .


Because exploring a city on foot only gets you so far .


But when you explore a foreign and new public transport system , you will build a cognitive map in your mind in pretty much the same way .


Typically , you choose yourself a rapid transport route , and in your mind , this route is perceived as a straight line .


And like a pearl necklace , all the stations and stops are nicely and neatly aligned along the line .


And only then you start to discover some local bus routes that would fill in the gaps , and that allow for those wormhole , inter-dimensional portal shortcuts .


So I tried to make sense , and when I arrived , I was looking for some information leaflets that would help me crack this system and understand it , and I found those brochures .


( Laughter ) They were not geographically distorted .


They had a lot of omission of information , but unfortunately , the wrong information .


Say , in the city center — there were never actually any lines that showed the routes .


( Laughter ) There are actually not even any stations with names . ( Laughter )


Now , the maps of Dublin transport have gotten better , and after I finished the project , they got a good bit better , but still no station names , still no routes .


So , being naive , and being half-German , I decided , " Aris , why don 't you build your own map ? "


So that 's what I did .


I researched how each and every bus route moved through the city , nice and logical , every bus route a separate line .


I plotted it into my own map of Dublin , and in the city center ...


I got a nice spaghetti plate .


( Laughter ) Now , this is a bit of a mess , so I decided , of course , " You 're going to apply the rules of schematic design , " cleaning up the corridors , widening the streets where there were loads of buses and making the streets at straight , 90-degree corners , 45-degree corners or fractions of that , and filled it in with the bus routes .


And I built this city center bus map of the system , how it was five years ago .


I 'll zoom in again so that you get the full impact of the quays and Westmoreland Street .


( Laughter ) Now I can proudly say — ( Applause ) I can proudly say , as a public transport map , this diagram is an utter failure . ( Laughter )


Except , probably , in one aspect : I now had a great visual representation of just how clogged up and overrun the city center really was .


Now , call me old-fashioned , but I think a public transport route map should have lines , because that 's what they are , yeah ?


They 're little pieces of string that wrap their way through the city center or through the city .


If you will , the Greek guy inside of me feels if I don 't get a line , it 's like entering the labyrinth of the Minotaur without having Ariadne giving you the string to find your way .


So the outcome of my academic research , loads of questionnaires , case studies and looking at a lot of maps , was that a lot of the problems and shortcomings of the public transport system here in Dublin was the lack of a coherent public transport map — a simplified , coherent public transport map — because I think this is the crucial step to understanding a public transport network on a physical level , but it 's also the crucial step to make a public transport network mappable on a visual level .


So I teamed up with a gentleman called James Leahy , a civil engineer and a recent master 's graduate of the Sustainable Development program at DIT , and together we drafted the simplified model network , which I could then go ahead and visualize .


So here 's what we did .


We distributed these rapid-transport corridors throughout the city center , and extended them into the outskirts .


Rapid , because we wanted them to be served by rapid-transport vehicles .


They would get exclusive road use , where possible , and it would be high-quantity , high-quality transport .


James wanted to use bus rapid transport for that , rather than light rail .


For me , it was important that the vehicles that would run on those rapid transport corridors would be visibly distinguishable from local buses on the street .


Now we could take out all the local buses that ran alongside those rapid transport means .


Any gaps that appeared in the outskirts were filled again .


So , in other words , if there was a street in an outskirt where there had been a bus , we put a bus back in , only now these buses wouldn 't run all the way to the city center , but connect to the nearest rapid-transport mode , one of these thick lines over there .


So the rest was merely a couple of months of work , and a couple of fights with my girlfriend , of our place constantly being clogged up with maps , and the outcome , one of the outcomes , was this map of the Greater Dublin area .


I 'll zoom in a little bit .


This map only shows the rapid transport connections , no local bus , very much in the " " metro map " " style that was so successful in London , and that since has been exported to so many other major cities , and therefore is the language that we should use for public transport maps .


What 's also important is , with a simplified network like this , it now would become possible for me to tackle the ultimate challenge and make a public transport map for the city center , one where I wouldn 't just show rapid transport connections , but also all the local bus routes , streets and the likes , and this is what a map like this could look like .


In this map , I 'm including each transport mode , so rapid transport , bus , DART , tram and the likes .


Each individual route is represented by a separate line .


The map shows each and every station , each and every station name , and I 'm also displaying side streets .


In fact , most of the side streets even with their name , and for good measure , also a couple of landmarks , some of them signified by little symbols , others by these isometric three-dimensional bird 's-eye-view drawings .


The map is relatively small in overall size , so something that you could still hold as a fold-out map or display in a reasonably-sized display box on a bus shelter .


I think it tries to be the best balance between actual representation and simplification — the language of way-finding in our brain .


So , straightened lines , cleaned-up corners , and of course , that very , very important geographic distortion that makes public transport maps possible .


If you , for example , have a look at the two main corridors that run through the city — the yellow and orange one over here — this is how they look in an actual , accurate street map , and this is how they would look in my distorted , simplified public transport map .


So for a successful public transport map , we should not stick to accurate representation , but design them in the way our brains work .


The reactions I got were tremendous , it was really good to see .


And of course , for my own self , I was very happy to see that my folks in Germany and Greece finally have an idea what I do for a living .


( Laughter ) Thank you .


( Applause )


Here are some images of clusters of galaxies .


They 're exactly what they sound like .


They are these huge collections of galaxies , bound together by their mutual gravity .


So most of the points that you see on the screen are not individual stars , but collections of stars , or galaxies .


Now , by showing you some of these images , I hope that you will quickly see that galaxy clusters are these beautiful objects , but more than that , I think galaxy clusters are mysterious , they are surprising , and they 're useful .


Useful as the universe 's most massive laboratories .


And as laboratories , to describe galaxy clusters is to describe the experiments that you can do with them .


And I think there are four major types , and the first type that I want to describe is probing the very big .


So , how big ?


Well , here is an image of a particular galaxy cluster .


It is so massive that the light passing through it is being bent , it 's being distorted by the extreme gravity of this cluster .


And , in fact , if you look very carefully you 'll be able to see rings around this cluster .


Now , to give you a number , this particular galaxy cluster has a mass of over one million billion suns .


It 's just mind-boggling how massive these systems can get .


But more than their mass , they have this additional feature .


They are essentially isolated systems , so if we like , we can think of them as a scaled-down version of the entire universe .


And many of the questions that we might have about the universe at large scales , such as , how does gravity work ?


might be answered by studying these systems .


So that was very big .


The second things is very hot .


Okay , if I take an image of a galaxy cluster , and I subtract away all of the starlight , what I 'm left with is this big , blue blob .


This is in false color .


It 's actually X-ray light that we 're seeing .


And the question is , if it 's not galaxies , what is emitting this light ?


The answer is hot gas , million-degree gas — in fact , it 's plasma .


And the reason why it 's so hot goes back to the previous slide .


The extreme gravity of these systems is accelerating particles of gas to great speeds , and great speeds means great temperatures .


So this is the main idea , but science is a rough draft .


There are many basic properties about this plasma that still confuse us , still puzzle us , and still push our understanding of the physics of the very hot .


Third thing : probing the very small .


Now , to explain this , I need to tell you a very disturbing fact .


Most of the universe 's matter is not made up of atoms .


You were lied to .


Most of it is made up of something very , very mysterious , which we call dark matter .


Dark matter is something that doesn 't like to interact very much , except through gravity , and of course we would like to learn more about it .


If you 're a particle physicist , you want to know what happens when we smash things together .


And dark matter is no exception .


Well , how do we do this ?


To answer that question , I 'm going to have to ask another one , which is , what happens when galaxy clusters collide ?


Here is an image .


Since galaxy clusters are representative slices of the universe , scaled-down versions .


They are mostly made up of dark matter , and that 's what you see in this bluish purple .


The red represents the hot gas , and , of course , you can see many galaxies .


What 's happened is a particle accelerator at a huge , huge scale .


And this is very important , because what it means is that very , very small effects that might be difficult to detect in the lab , might be compounded and compounded into something that we could possibly observe in nature .


So , it 's very funny .


The reason why galaxy clusters can teach us about dark matter , the reason why galaxy clusters can teach us about the physics of the very small , is precisely because they are so very big .


Fourth thing : the physics of the very strange .


Certainly what I 've said so far is crazy .


Okay , if there 's anything stranger I think it has to be dark energy .


If I throw a ball into the air , I expect it to go up .


What I don 't expect is that it go up at an ever-increasing rate .


Similarly , cosmologists understand why the universe is expanding .


They don 't understand why it 's expanding at an ever-increasing rate .


They give the cause of this accelerated expansion a name , and they call it dark energy .


And , again , we want to learn more about it .


So , one particular question that we have is , how does dark energy affect the universe at the largest scales ?


Depending on how strong it is , maybe structure forms faster or slower .


Well , the problem with the large-scale structure of the universe is that it 's horribly complicated .


Here is a computer simulation .


And we need a way to simplify it .


Well , I like to think about this using an analogy .


If I want to understand the sinking of the Titanic , the most important thing to do is not to model the little positions of every single little piece of the boat that broke off .


The most important thing to do is to track the two biggest parts .


Similarly , I can learn a lot about the universe at the largest scales by tracking its biggest pieces and those biggest pieces are clusters of galaxies .


So , as I come to a close , you might feel slightly cheated .


I mean , I began by talking about how galaxy clusters are useful , and I 've given some reasons , but what is their use really ?


Well , to answer this , I want to give you a quote by Henry Ford when he was asked about cars .


He had this to say : " " If I had asked people what they wanted , they would have said faster horses . " " Today , we as a society are faced with many , many difficult problems .


And the solutions to these problems are not obvious .


They are not faster horses .


They will require an enormous amount of scientific ingenuity .


So , yes , we need to focus , yes , we need to concentrate , but we also need to remember that innovation , ingenuity , inspiration — these things come when we broaden our field of vision when we step back when we zoom out .


And I can 't think of a better way to do this than by studying the universe around us . Thanks .


( Applause )


( Music ) Rainn Wilson : It takes its toll , being alone .


I 'm a little bit lost , and it 's finally time to make a real connection .


Who am I ?


( Drums ) I 'm a single white male , 45 years of age .


I love animals .


Gainfully employed .


I 'm a people person .


I keep fit .


Who am I looking for ?


I 'm looking for my idea mate .


Are you that idea that matches with who I really am ?


( Video ) Ron Finley : How would you feel if you had no access to healthy food ?


Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do .


RW : Wow , we sure are getting our fingers dirty for a first date , huh ?


RF : Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do .


People in these areas — they 're exposed to crappy food .


I want people to know that growing your own food is like printing your own money .


RW : You 're like a food superhero !


RF : Food is the problem and food is the solution .


( Music ) Erin McKean : I 'm a lexicographer .


My job is to put every word possible into the dictionary .


RW : I love words , too — just as much as any lexi-ta-tographer .


What if you love a word that you 've just made up , like — I don 't know — " " scuberfinkles " " ?


Beau Lotto : Do you think you see reality ?


RW : Well , I 'm a little nearsighted , but yeah .


BL : Well , you can 't — I mean , your brain has no access to this world .


In fact , even the sensory information that your eyes are receiving , your ears are receiving , is completely meaningless because it could mean anything .


That tree could be a large object far away or a small object up close , and your brain has no way of knowing .


RW : Once I thought I saw Bigfoot but it was just a German shepherd .


Isabel Behncke Izquierdo : Bonobos are , together with chimpanzees , your closest living relatives .


Bonobos have frequent and promiscuous sex to manage conflict and solve social issues .


RW : I 'm just curious : Do we have any conflict that needs managing or social issues to resolve ?


IBI : Remember — you 're on a date with my idea , not me .


Jane McGonigal : This is the face of someone who , against all odds , is on the verge of an epic win .


RW : An epic win ?


JM : An epic win is an outcome so extraordinarily positive , you didn 't even know it was possible until you achieved it .


You 're not making the face .


You 're making the " " I 'm not good at life " " face .


RW : Arthur , I want to be really honest with you .


I am seeing other ideas . OK ?


I 'm dating around .


That 's the situation .


Arthur Benjamin : I 'd say this : Mathematics is not just solving for x , it 's also figuring out why .


RW : Do you want to get some pie ?


AB : Pi ?


3.14159265358979 — Reggie Watts : If we 're going to do something , we 've got to just make a decision .


Because without a decision we 're left powerless .


Without power , we have nothing to supply the chain of those who are truly curious to solve all of our current conditions .


RW : And , " " If you choose not to decide , you still have made a choice " " — Rush .


JM : Yes !


This is the face we need to see on millions of problem solvers worldwide , as we try to tackle the challenges of the next century .


RW : So , are we going Dutch ?


AB : 3846264338327950 28841 ...


971 ?


RW : One night , want to go to a movie or something ?


RF : Hell , no ! Let 's go plant some shit !


RW : Let 's plant some shit !


Good , now what is this that I 'm planting ?


Bonobos !


IBI : Bonobos ! ( Laughs ) Bonobos .


RWatts : Um , interested much ?


RW : I want to have your idea baby .


RWatts : Well , you know what they say in Russia .


RW : Hm ?


RWatts : " " scuberfinckle . " " ( Bottles clink )


Ten years ago , I got a phone call that changed my life .


At the time , I was cardiologist at UCLA , specializing in cardiac imaging techniques .


The call came from a veterinarian at the Los Angeles Zoo .


An elderly female chimpanzee had woken up with a facial droop and the veterinarians were worried that she 'd had a stroke .


They asked if I 'd come to the zoo and image the animal 's heart to look for a possible cardiac cause .


Now , to be clear , North American zoos are staffed by highly qualified , board-certified veterinarians who take outstanding care of their animal patients .


But occasionally , they do reach into the human medical community , particularly for some speciality consultation , and I was one of the lucky physicians who was invited in to help .


I had a chance to rule out a stroke in this chimpanzee and make sure that this gorilla didn 't have a torn aorta , evaluate this macaw for a heart murmur , make sure that this California sea lion 's paricardium wasn 't inflamed , and in this picture , I 'm listening to the heart of a lion after a lifesaving , collaborative procedure with veterinarians and physicians where we drained 700 cc 's of fluid from the sac in which this lion 's heart was contained .


And this procedure , which I have done on many human patients , was identical , with the exception of that paw and that tail .


Now most of the time , I was working at UCLA Medical Center with physicians , discussing symptoms and diagnoses and treatments for my human patients , but some of the time , I was working at the Los Angeles Zoo with veterinarians , discussing symptoms and diagnoses and treatments for their animal patients .


And occasionally , on the very same day , I went on rounds at UCLA Medical Center and at the Los Angeles Zoo .


And here 's what started coming into very clear focus for me .


Physicians and veterinarians were essentially taking care of the same disorders in their animal and human patients : congestive heart failure , brain tumors , leukemia , diabetes , arthritis , ALS , breast cancer , even psychiatric syndromes like depression , anxiety , compulsions , eating disorders and self-injury .


Now , I 've got a confession to make .


Even though I studied comparative physiology and evolutionary biology as an undergrad — I had even written my senior thesis on Darwinian theory — learning about the significant overlap between the disorders of animals and humans , it came as a much needed wake-up call for me .


So I started wondering , with all of these overlaps , how was it that I had never thought to ask a veterinarian , or consult the veterinary literature , for insights into one of my human patients ?


Why had I never , nor had any of my physician friends and colleagues whom I asked , ever attended a veterinary conference ?


For that matter , why was any of this a surprise ?


I mean , look , every single physician accepts some biological connection between animals and humans .


Every medication that we prescribe or that we 've taken ourselves or we 've given to our families has first been tested on an animal .


But there 's something very different about giving an animal a medication or a human disease and the animal developing congestive heart failure or diabetes or breast cancer on their own .


Now , maybe some of the surprise comes from the increasing separation in our world between the urban and the nonurban .


You know , we hear about these city kids who think that wool grows on trees or that cheese comes from a plant .


Well , today 's human hospitals , increasingly , are turning into these gleaming cathedrals of technology .


And this creates a psychological distance between the human patients who are being treated there and animal patients who are living in oceans and farms and jungles .


But I think there 's an even deeper reason .


Physicians and scientists , we accept intellectually that our species , Homo sapiens , is merely one species , no more unique or special than any other .


But in our hearts , we don 't completely believe that .


I feel it myself when I 'm listening to Mozart or looking at pictures of the Mars Rover on my MacBook .


I feel that tug of human exceptionalism , even as I recognize the scientifically isolating cost of seeing ourselves as a superior species , apart .


Well , I 'm trying these days .


When I see a human patient now , I always ask , what do the animal doctors know about this problem that I don 't know ?


And , might I be taking better care of my human patient if I saw them as a human animal patient ?


Here are a few examples of the kind of exciting connections that this kind of thinking has led me to .


Fear-induced heart failure .


Around the year 2000 , human cardiologists " " discovered " " emotionally induced heart failure .


It was described in a gambling father who had lost his life 's savings with a roll of the dice , in a bride who 'd been left at the alter .


But it turns out , this " " new " " human diagnosis was neither new , nor was it uniquely human .


Veterinarians had been diagnosing , treating and even preventing emotionally induced symptoms in animals ranging from monkeys to flamingos , from to deer to rabbits , since the 1970s .


How many human lives might have been saved if this veterinary knowledge had been put into the hands of E.R. docs and cardiologists ?


Self-injury .


Some human patients harm themselves .


Some pluck out patches of hair , others actually cut themselves .


Some animal patients also harm themselves .


There are birds that pluck out feathers .


There are stallions that repetitively bite their flanks until they bleed .


But veterinarians have very specific and very effective ways of treating and even preventing self-injury in their self-injuring animals .


Shouldn 't this veterinary knowledge be put into the hands of psychotherapists and parents and patients struggling with self-injury ?


Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis .


Sometimes , soon after giving birth , some women become depressed , and sometimes they become seriously depressed and even psychotic .