I can only talk too much about ted, here are the two most recent talks that have got my juices flowing. And in my opinion compliment each other too 🙂
If the embedded version doesn’t work, here’s a direct link
and:
direct link again
Also if you missed the last TED video that I ‘dug’ here’s a link to that too.
That’ll give you about an hour (if you watch all three) of complete fascination.
randomtask 
Rob – I can see why you’re hooked!..and at last somebody has said something vaguely understandable about the brain. But, the second lecture:- i have had doubts about Darwin’s theory for some time – it seems a good theory but perhaps it doesn’t quite do what it claims on the lid? Susan Blackmore’s lecture, extending the ideas of evolutionary selection from genes through memes to technology memes or temes suddenly clarified things. We don’t know much really about genetic evolution or cultural evolution but we do know a lot about technological evolution. The point about modern technology is that it is underpinned by scientific theories, and scientific theories aren’t always mutations and variations of previous theories. People study,observe,experiment in a particular subject and produce a theory to try to describe what they have found out. If you study a new area, eg in 19th century electricity and magnetism, you get new theories and whole new technologies based on it. Or you might have an old theory, eg Newtonian principles and some new observation discredits it and you have to come up with something radically different like relativity. Then you get a whole lot of new technology from that. These are discontinuous jumps.When you have the new theory, then you get the variations in technological applications, spreading into all sorts of niches, various pressures selecting out the successful applications etc – all very Darwinian.
If we then try to compare what we know about technological innovation and evolution with genetic innovation and evolution then perhaps it suggests that when you have a new species Darwinian natural selection explains how variations arise, spread into different niches etc, the usual theory, but origin of new species? In other words, do all species come from one underlying ‘theory’, or are there discrete groups coming from different ‘theories’ eg plants and animals?? or maybe some other groupings..I don’t know enough about biology! Not sure if these analogies are useful or not – but she started it!
Wow thanks for this thought provoking comment TA! Rather than answer this here I’m going to take some of these ideas, along with my own and make them into a full post.