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

Ellen Dunham-Jones fires the starting shot for the next 50 years' big sustainable design project: retrofitting suburbia. To come: Dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands.

Ellen Dunham-Jones teaches architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is an award-winning architect and a board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. She shows how design of where we live impacts some of the most pressing issues of our times -- reducing our ecological footprint and energy consumption while improving our health and communities and providing living options for all ages.

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

In graphic design, Marian Bantjes says, throwing your individuality into a project is heresy. She explains how she built her career doing just that, bringing her signature delicate illustrations to storefronts, valentines and even genetic diagrams.

Organic, logical, complex, beautiful: Marian Bantjes' illustrations draw on her deep relationship with letterforms (she was a typesetter for ten years). With flowing lines, filigree and generosity, she plays in the space between a and b and c. Her illustration work has appeared in Wired, Wallpaper, the Walrus and many other magazines and newspapers worldwide, and once took over Saks Fifth Avenue top to bottom.
 

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

Developmental disorders in children are typically diagnosed by observing behavior, but Aditi Shankardass knew that we should be looking directly at their brains. She explains how a remarkable EEG device has revealed mistaken diagnoses and transformed children's lives.

Aditi Shankardass is a clinical neuroscientist trained across three disciplines of the field: neurophysiology, neuroanatomy and neuropsychology. She has also worked in three different areas of the field, from lab research to clinical research to clinical diagnosis of children. Currently, she leads the Neurophysiology Clinic at Bright Minds Institute and the EEG Lab of the Communicative Disorders Department at California State University.

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

Renowned classical Indian dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. She tells her personal story of not only facing the disease but dancing through it, and gives a performance revealing the metaphor of strength that helped her do it.

With precision and sparkling grace, Ananda Shankar Jayant performs and teaches the classical dance styles of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi.

Ananda Shankar Jayant is trained in two traditional forms of classical Indian dance, Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi. Both forms require long training and precise timing to express their essence -- and both forms, in Shankar Jayant's hands, are capable of exploring deep truths.

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

This haunting, intimate performance by European singer-songwriter Sophie Hunger features songs from her breakout debut "Monday's Ghost" and the just-released album "1983."

Sophie Hunger's music lures us to a hidden place in the fog where memories visit, enchanting and mournful. This limbo is where the young Swiss singer-songwriter is most comfortable -- a crossroads of musical styles and young melancholy settling down to mature.

After freak folk's quick fadeout in the early naughts, her first effort, 2006's Sketches on Sea, hinted that something new and cohesive was coming, and she might bring us to it.