Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity

The 10 Best TED Talks of 2011 Watching videos online is usually considered fun, but generally a waste of time. Not so with TED videos, which are uniformly interesting, educational, inspiring, and enjoyable. If you haven't spent much time (or any) checking out TED videos, you should – and to help with that, I've compiled what seem to be the very best 10 TED videos of 2011. It was a grueling task, combing through the cream of the crop on the TED site, but somebody had to do it. Some of the talks may have been filmed prior to 2011 but all of the talks here were posted in 2011. Unless you were lucky enough to attend the TED event in question, it's still new to you.

Stem Cell Basics: Introduction Laboratory studies of stem cells enable scientists to learn about the cells’ essential properties and what makes them different from specialized cell types. Scientists are already using stem cells in the laboratory to screen new drugs and to develop model systems to study normal growth and identify the causes of birth defects. Are We Having Fun Yet? Argentina is home to two amusement parks and one zoo where having fun means completely ignoring the voice in your head that says, “This is not normal.” I know this because I recently visited all three and returned home physically and mentally battered. Does a weekend spent ambling around a Christian “experience,” watching children pretend to run a government, and petting adult lions sound enticing to you? If so, Argentina is your wonderland—specifically the area in and around Buenos Aires, where these attractions can be found within an hour’s drive from one another. My experience was challenging, to say the least; however, I must admit that I wasn’t bored for a single moment.

Sea Creature Self-Portrait 150 Million Years in the Making Dr. Phil Wilby and his team were thrilled to find the famed Victorian dig site in Wiltshire that had been lost for nearly 170 years. But when they dug in and examined an ordinary-looking rock, they found something they never expected: a perfectly preserved, 150 million-year-old ink sac. The ink inside was so well preserved that they were able to take a small amount of it, combine it with an ammonia solution, and make an ink with which they drew the creature’s portrait and wrote its Latin name: Belemnotheutis antiquus.