TED Health

Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, better known online as Dr. Mike, is a board-certified family medicine physician and YouTuber who uses social media to educate the public on healthcare. In this special episode recorded at the Aspen Ideas: Health conference, Dr. Mike and Shoshana discuss the current shortage of primary care physicians and how to think critically about health influencers, tech wearables, and AI. Then Shoshana shares a counterexample from genome researcher Michael Snyder. Michael wears 8 tech devices—smart watches, rings, and glucose monitors—and makes the case for his vision of healthcare where tech can help you be more proactive about your healthcare.

Talk featured
Why I’m obsessed with health wearables (and you should be too) | Michael Snyder

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Shoshana shares two talks that address where vaccines come from, how they work, and why some people have become mistrustful of these treatments. First up: immunologist Kizzmekia Corbett answers your questions about how vaccines are developed. Then, researcher Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut breaks down the science behind vaccines.

Talks featured
Your vaccine questions deserve real answers | Kizzmekia Corbett
How do vaccines work? | Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut

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Trauma and PTSD rewire your brain -- especially your memory -- and can unearth destructive emotional responses when stirred. Could we eliminate these triggers without erasing the memories themselves? Enter neurologist Amy Milton's mind-blowing, memory-editing clinical research poised to defuse the damaging effects of painful remembered experiences and offer a potential path toward better mental health.

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Our memories and bodies give us clues about who we are, but what happens when this guidance shifts? In this mind-bending talk, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy shares how the experiences of "altered selves" -- resulting from schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, foreign limb syndrome or other conditions -- shed light on the constructed nature of identity. He breaks down where our sense of self comes from and invites us to challenge our assumptions about who we are, with the aim of building a better you and a better world.

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TED Fellow and chemosensory researcher Paule Joseph unveils the hidden power of a sense that's too often overlooked: smell. She delves into the science behind smell — from how it evokes memory and emotion to its potential for early disease detection — and advocates for the creation of a baseline test for taste and smell that could open the door to more comprehensive health care.

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